There’s a lot to be said about yesterday’s Croton-Harmon school district elections, and we won’t try to say all of it this morning. But there is an easy rule of thumb for measuring the results: For the three incumbent candidates, the longer they were on the Board of Education, the worse they did.
While the vote tallies for each candidate are still unofficial, and we (unlike a number of local social media sites) prefer to wait until they are official before publishing them, Anamika Bhatnagar—with only three years on the BoE—scored more than three times as many votes as Neal Haber, who has been on the board for 28 years. Sarah Carrier, with nine years of tenure, did only marginally better than Haber.
Meanwhile, both challengers won seats on the board, with Jake Day running neck and neck with Bhatnagar for top vote getter last evening, and Elizabeth “Betsy” Laird running third (we will be calling her Betsy from now on.)
In a Commentary we published a week ago, entitled “Are there any incumbents on this school bus?” we pointed out that all three incumbents portrayed themselves as change agents to some extent, but that Bhatnagar did it most convincingly. Thus her victory, and the somewhat ignoble sendoff that Haber and Carrier received from the voters. The voters wanted change, and they got it—or at least, they got the candidates who were the loudest in advocating for it.
This upset victory for the challengers might come as a surprise to those who have not yet realized that political alignments are shifting in the greater Croton community. But in many ways, it was a victory foretold—and foretold by Allison Samuels’ convincing showing in last year’s BoE elections, when she won far and away the most votes. But as the lone challenger on the board to a block of incumbents who had voted unanimously on almost every issue for several years, she was sometimes subject to bullying by the board president—largely acquiesced to by the other trustees—and had no allies to call upon.
To be sure, the constituencies that supported Allison Samuels and Leslie Pollak last year have significant overlap with those that voted for Jake Day and Betsy Laird this year, but it is certainly not a perfect match. Both Day and Laird released some new energies around issues such as Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) and the use of technology in the schools. Both are members of the Croton Community Collective, a group of more than 300 parents concerned about the possible negative effects that too much technology and too many screens might be having on their childrens’ educations and overall well being.
The new dynamic on the seven member school board, with three challengers in place and Bhatnagar now presenting herself as a fourth change agent, is going to be very interesting indeed.
Those are just some of the issues that parents have been concerned about in recent years and which some board members ignored at their peril. Other concerns relate to our district’s academic performance and a growing feeling among parents that they are not being listened to by district officials—a feeling not assuaged by the insistence of those same officials that they are listening and that the parents somehow have it wrong.
Also, many parents have clearly gotten weary of the leadership of school superintendent Stephen Walker, whose constant invocations of “The Vision Map” and “Tiger Pride” are increasingly seen by some as a smokescreen that hides real problems in the district. Notably, none of the candidates made defending Walker’s record part of their campaigns. As we wrote in our Commentary last week:
To one degree or another, the five candidates have all distanced themselves from the Board’s previous record and certainly from the the superintendent, Stephen Walker. Sharp listeners will have noticed that “Walker” is the name that one not dare utter. There are vague references to “the superintendent,” a seemingly disembodied presence best left somewhere in the ether, lest any of the candidates get stuck with responsibility for his leadership.
The changes on the school board also overlap with a shift in the political dynamics in the village of Croton-on-Hudson. Also last year, Voice of Croton mayoral candidate Gary Eisinger came within 22 votes—a statistically insignificant margin—of beating incumbent Mayor Brian Pugh. In essence, it was a tie, and in the dust up VoC candidate Stacey Nachtaler easily beat Karen Pecora, the newbie candidate the Croton Democrats had put up to replace outgoing trustee Cara Politi.
As part of the shifting alliances on the Croton Board of Trustees, Nachtaler seems to have formed a tacit alliance on many issues with Democrat Maria Slippen, who herself is up for re-election this November. Given that political shift, as we have suggested before, VoC is likely to have to have Deputy Mayor Len Simon in its sights as the main target. Whether newbie VoC candidate Mary Lynn Dlabola can be the vehicle for that possible political upset remains to be seen; it is still very early in that campaign.
That brings us back to one of the most disappointing features of this year’s school district campaign: The opportunistic and unethical actions of the Croton Teachers Association (CTA), which engaged in a not-so-subtle form of smear tactics after it endorsed—to no one’s surprise—the three incumbents.
The CTA’s campaign advertising strongly suggested that the incumbents were the only candidates in favor of public schools, implying that the two challengers, Jake Day and Betsy Laird, were not. This advertising took the form of mailers as well as Instagram and Facebook posts.
CTA/NYSUT: Rote messages for voters who want change. Failure to read the room?
The CTA’s highly misleading publicity was the only major violation of the plea by the five candidates, in a joint statement, that the campaign be waged in a fair and collegial manner. Even more disappointing, the CTA’s messaging was a rote and thoughtlessly cheap campaign tactic repeated exactly word for word in other districts in Westchester County, including the Mahopac district. (See Instagram posts above.)
Were the candidates and the issues exactly the same in Croton and Mahopac? Only if one is engaged in a kind of tribal politics that values group and party loyalty over the best interests of schoolchildren. Some parents have been asking who developed these identical campaign slogans, mailers, and social media posts; the answer may not be all that difficult to figure out, and suggests that the kind of machine politics we find both in the village and the school district are still at play—but also increasingly ineffective.
We will have more to say about the significance of the school district elections in the coming days and weeks, and we also look forward to the thoughts of others, especially parents. Meanwhile, all of the things district officials asked us to spend money on passed (see just below), and we think that is a good thing. It also means, however, that parents and taxpayers will be demanding even more accountability for how their money is spent, and becoming even more involved in school affairs as time goes on.
NOTE: Results remain unofficial until all votes are verified.
Budget and Proposition Results:
• 2026-27 School Budget: 1269 YES | 310 NO
• Vehicle/Equipment Proposition: 1148 YES | 424 NO
• Repair Reserve Proposition:1398 YES | 180 NO
• Croton Free Library Proposition: 1241 YES | 362 NO
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Good analysis. Thank you.
Another fabulous follow up. I have no doubt that the CC is helping provide transparency and diverse voices that are changing the local landscape. Love the part about the ether of SW. Bravo, thank you!