In the only competitive school board race in Island Trees and Levittown, Carl Bonsignore beat Richard Ahrens, Jr. for a seat on the Island Trees Board of Education.

This is Bonsignore's third term as a member of the school board. He has served as vice president of the board for the past three years.

Bonsignore's competition, Ahrens faced some problems from both the past and present in his campaign. Ahrens' father was a school board member who tried to ban nine books from the school library approximately 20 years ago. When asked about this at the Meet the Candidates Night, Ahrens replied that he hoped that the district has learned from its past mistakes. Ahrens also struck a nerve with some residents because of some of his own views about the teaching of other cultures and foreign languages.

Bonsignore received some last minute support from students at Island Trees High School after one of the students, Joseph Rienti, read about some of Ahrens' issues in Newsday. Rienti said he read some quotes from Ahrens about book banning, learning about other cultures, and foreign languages, and realized that he wanted to do something to help Bonsignore. Rienti feels that learning about other cultures is an important part of the curriculum as is studying foreign languages, and he felt that Ahrens becoming a school board member would be a threat to these things. According to Rienti after he read the article about Ahrens, he ran around the school on Monday trying to get some help in supporting Bonsignore from other students. Rienti was also helped in this cause by one of his teachers who helped him spread the word. He said that students at the high school were definitely upset by the information that they learned.

Rienti said he was very disappointed when he realized that he was too late to register to vote so he wanted to be able to do something else to help. He and several other students helped Bonsignore's cause by standing outside the gates of Stokes School on Tuesday, where voting was taking place, and handing out flyers supporting Bonsignore. Rienti said, "I thought we should represent the school."

Bonsignore ended up winning the school board race with 753 votes, compared to Ahrens' 199 votes. After learning that he had won Bonsignore said, "I will do my best to maintain the high standards of the district. I made that promise a long time ago and I will continue to fulfill that. The children are our future."

In an uncontested election, Peter Ray received 475 votes to remain in the school board seat he was appointed to last January.

With two seats open on the Levittown Board of Education, and only two candidates running, the results of the Levittown School Board race has been a foregone conclusion for several weeks.

Paul Granger, a 30-year resident of the Levittown School District was officially voted on to the school board with a grand total of 1,870 votes.

Patricia Parsekian, a 27-year resident of the district was officially voted on to the school board with 1,797 votes.

Granger and Parsekian are replacing Kenneth Auer, Sr. and Gary Fisch on the board. Both men chose not to run for re-election this year.