Next month, the Elmont Board of Education will welcome a new member. Robert Nori of New Hyde Park will join a board that consists of President Deanna Doreson, Vice President Carl Termini and members Lillian Carillo, Joy Madera, Aubrey Phillips and Ken Williams. Nori was elected to the board last month when he defeated Ed Tupper for the seat of Anne Reinhardt, who decided not to run for re-election.

"I'm very happy and excited to serve on the board of trustees. It's a terrific school district that's getting better. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Maria Palandra has done amazing work in moving the district forward. I'm happy to be a part of that," Nori said.

The New Hyde Park resident has three children - a daughter who is a student in Sewanhaka High School, a son who is in kindergarten in the Stewart Manor School and another son who is 21-months-old.

Although being a board member in a community as diverse as Elmont may be seen as a great challenge, Nori's focus is simply trying to provide the best education possible. "We want better schools for our children. I think that's what's important. It doesn't matter what our different heritages are. We're all here to build a better future for our children and the only way we're going to do that is through top-notch elementary schools," he said. "The challenge is just trying to communicate with everybody and being open and trying to draw more people into the conversations."

Among some of his goals as a board member is trying to maintain the high level of teaching in the district by retaining the district's valuable teachers. "We don't want to lose them to other school districts. We have to make sure we're doing all we can to retain our best teachers," Nori said.

The new board member also would like to strive to have students involved in extracurricular and after-school activities. "We have to make sure our schools are a conduit for those types of activities," he said. "I think we should work cooperatively with other organizations to provide services in the after-school hours as well as the summer hours. We don't have to invent the wheel. The wheel has been invented."

An area of discussion in Elmont is the New York State standardized test scores. These scores may not necessarily reflect the quality of education that is taking place in Elmont, since comparisons with other schools, some believe, are unfair because of the enormous population of students in the district whose primary language isn't English. However, Nori feels that these tests are a fact of life and the Elmont schools should strive to enable its students to do the best they possibly can on them. "I'm not a big fan of standardized testing, but it is a reality not only here but the rest of the world," he said.

As far as the tests are concerned, Nori said he is most concerned with the subjectivity with which the tests are graded. "I'm more concerned about that than the tests themselves. We all know there's going to be a subjective element to it, but we have to make sure that the testing part is not governed by the politics of a school district that has spent a lot more money than we have and has a political reason for keeping the scores up," he said. "Once the students take the test, we have to make absolutely certain that it's as least subjective as possible."

Nori is glad to be delving into the issues that constantly face a school district. Being a board member is often a thankless job, but the New Hyde Park resident is ready for the challenge.