Sound Shore

The New Rochelle School District announced on Thursday five new administrative appointments, chief among them being Velma Whiteside, who was named principal of Albert Leonard Middle School. Whiteside had spent the past 13 years as assistant principal at the school. Prior to that she was an assistant principal and dean at Mount Vernon High School. Whiteside replaces William Evans, who is retiring having served as principal since 1996.

Of the four other appointments, the one naming Leann Bruno, a former reading teacher, assistant principal at Jefferson Elementary School is the most eye-catching. That was the position Jose Martinez held until he abruptly resigned in March. Martinez was accused of having sexual relations with a then-14-year-old male student in 2010, when he was a dean at Isaac E. Young Middle School. Last week he pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal sex act.

Martinez’s position had been filled on an interim basis by Joe Jordano.

Elsewhere in the district, Kimberly Peluso was named assistant principal at Ward Elementary School; Rodney Arthur was appointed assistant principal of Albert Leonard Middle School; and Reza Kolahifar was made assistant to the superintendent for human resources.

Local officials and residents broke ground on the Grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden on Tuesday morning. The garden, now a 70-feet-by-50-feet rectangle of grass next to the park’s pool, will soon be home to 14 plots full of vegetables, fruits and flowers. Plots will be available to community organizations for $50 per season.

The community garden sits on the site of what had been Lincoln Elementary School. It was conceived as part of the school district’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Taylor Case, the first desegregation case filed in the north after the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

Richard Organisciak, superintendent of the school district, said the garden is a concept that “speaks to the life of the community, that speaks to growing, that speaks to the things we all want.”

City Councilman Jared Rice said, “It shows everyone in the these last 50 years that New Rochelle is the city of progress. We are the city of equity.”

Lincoln Park is New Rochelle’s second community garden. The first is at Ward Acres Park. The inaugural planting season for the Lincoln Park garden will be spring of 2012. For more information, search for Grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden/Lincoln Park Conservancy on Facebook or email growlincolnpark@gmail.com.

(From left, that’s Mayor Noam Bramson, City Councilman Jared Rice and Superintendent Richard Organisciak on the shovels. Linda Tarrant-Reid, one of the organizers of the community garden, stands between Bramson and Rice. Photo by Ned P. Rauch)

Richard Organisciak, superintendent of the New Rochelle School District, has signed a new contract that will keep him in place through the middle of 2014.

The new deal adds two years to the remaining year Organisciak has on his current contract and includes annual raises of no less than 2.25 percent.

Organisciak currently makes $266,500.

Last spring, during what proved to be a contentious budget-crafting process, Organisciak agreed to a salary freeze for himself and his top assistants.

District spokesman Paul Costiglio said that means the superintendent will forgo a raise opportunity in January of next year. His salary will remain fixed where it is until the middle of 2012.

The Board of Education ratified the contract earlier this month.

Organisciak’s previous contract was signed in 2008 and would have run through 2012. That agreement increased his salary to its current level, from $263,250, in January.

Costiglio said the fact that board members initiated contract-renewal talks early is not particularly significant.

“It’s fairly common practice,” he said.

According to state figures, Organisciak has the 10th-highest salary among superintendents in Westchester County.

He and his counterparts around the state have endured increasing criticism about their pay.

Earlier this year, as school districts were presenting their spending plans to the public, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed to superintendents’ compensation as a key contributor to rising school budgets.

The family of a fourth-grader at Trinity Elementary School, in New Rochelle,  said on Wednesday that bullying the boy endured for months culminated last week with a punch to the face.

Maria Baez, a former New York City Council member, said her grandson, Brandonn Baez, was punched in the face by a classmate last Thursday, June 16. She said the attack left her grandson with a broken nose and loose teeth.

Brandonn has had to see several doctors and now wears a plastic guard on his face. He hasn’t been to school since the incident.

“They kept bullying me, calling me names, pushing me around,” Brandonn said. “One of them hit me in the face, and now I have to wear this.”

Maria Baez said she and her daughter, Brandonn’s mother, told school officials six to eight times over the three months before last week’s incident, trying to alert them to the bullying.

Principal Roland Briceno, however, disputed that claim and said the first he’d heard about any bullying involving Brandonn was during a meeting with the Baez family the day before Brandonn was punched.

He said the school takes bullying very seriously and, along with the rest of the district, is implementing an anti-bullying program next year. He has asked the Baez family to be involved.

Briceno added that the student responsible for last week’s attack has been punished, but he would not say how.

The Baez family said it is reluctant to enroll Brandonn at Trinity next year.

Check back to Lohud.com and pick up tomorrow’s editions of The Journal News for more reporting on this story.

(Brandonn Baez, center, was punched in the face at Trinity Elementary School last week. The punch broke his nose. His mother, Carmen Baez, left, and grandmother, Maria Baez, hold blood-stained shirts he was wearing the day of the attack. Photo by Ned P. Rauch / The Journal News)

If you’re curious how the six candidates for the New Rochelle Board of Education fared at each polling place on Tuesday, check out the chart below. It’s courtesy of the School District and the numbers are still considered “unofficial.” Lest you think we’ve left out any of the candidates, just click on the chart to see it in its entirety.

New Rochelle’s school budget passed by nearly a 2-1 margin Tuesday night. Voters also approved the library budget and elected Naomi Brickel and Rachel Relkin to the Board of Education.

Brickel and Relkin were among six candidates vying for two seats left open by Board President Sara Richmond and Board member Quay Watkins, each of whom had decided not to seek re-election.

The vote tallies:

Budget: 2,821 yes; 1,506 no

Naomi Brickel: 2,586

Rachel Relkin: 1,967

Robert Cox: 1,796

Colin Thomas: 1,111

Peter O’Keeffe: 570

Salvador Fernandez: 513

Library budget: 2,741 yes; 1,362 no

Library Board members:

Greg Varian: 2,731

Bo Kemp: 2,503

With six candidates vying for two seats on the New Rochelle Board of Education and a city full of residents still riled from a contentious budget season, voters streamed to polling stations Tuesday.

District Spokesman Paul Costiglio said at 3 p.m. that turnout was 1,859—up 13 percent over the tally from the same time last year.

Poll workers at Ward Elementary School said many seniors and college students had shown up to cast their votes, indicating, they said, the width of the spectrum of residents who care about the school’s $230,872,398 spending plan.

Nancy and Sterling Jasper, having just voted at Ward, said they were glad to support the budget.

“We moved to this community for the diversity and the education,” Nancy Jasper said. She and her husband have two children in the school system. “We accept that we will have to support our schools,” given the limits of state and federal funding.

Many other voters voiced positions similar to Jasper’s.

At the High School, Steve Green said he’s lived in New Rochelle since the mid-1960s. He voted for the school budget, he said, because “I have seen nothing but progress and I hope it continues.”

After she voted in favor of the budget, Ellen Miller Arad said, “We just want to give our kids every opportunity we can.”

Others, though, said the school district has failed to curtail spending during a time of widespread economic hardship.

Martha McCann and her husband, whose three children attended New Rochelle schools, voted against the budget.

“They’re not being responsible enough with the money,” she said of district administrators. “They could more money out of that budget.”

In neighboring Pelham, where the fiercest budget battles were waged over proposed cuts to sports programs and nursing positions, turnout was low, according District Spokeswoman Angela Cox. Pelham voters have four candidates to choose for two seats on the Board of Education. They are voting on a $63,189,318 spending plan for the next school year.

On Monday, New Rochelle’s budding bards will read their original poems at the annual “Poetry Out Loud” event at the New Rochelle High School at 7 p.m. Students in grades three through six will recite their pieces, which will later be published in a book. Mayor Noam Bramson will be on hand to emcee the evening.

The event, which also runs under the moniker, “A Festival of Children’s Poetry,” is hosted by the district as well as the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence. It is open to all and admission is free.

The League of Women Voters will host a candidate forum at 7:30 p.m. on Monday for the six people running for two seats on the New Rochelle Board of Education. Candidates Naomi Brickel, Robert Cox, Salvador A. Fernandez, Peter O’Keeffe, Rachel Relkin and Colin J. Thomas will all attend the forum, held at the Ossie Davis Auditorium at 1 Library Plaza in New Rochelle. Also in attendance will be the two candidates running for seats on the library board: Bo Kemp and Greg Varian. The vote on Board of Education members and the school budget will take place May 17.

Quay Watkins, who’s served nine years on the New Rochelle Board of Education, confirmed last week she would not seek re-election. On Tuesday of this week, she explained why: Since last year she’s been fighting what she described as a rare form of cancer.

“I am undergoing treatment and at this time I must focus on my health and my family,” she wrote in an email. “I remain passionate about children and will continue to serve them in my role as executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of New Rochelle. Many thanks to my colleagues and friends for your support and prayers.”

Board President Sara Richmond has also decided not to run for re-election. She was recently treated successfully for breast cancer.

Those planning to run for a seat on the Board of Education—there are two open seats—have until the end of today to officially declare their candidacy and file their paperwork.