The Newburgh Board of Education approved after an hour of debate and reorganizational business to suspend their rules on public comment on Tuesday, July 2 and allow the public to speak on agenda and non-agenda items for an unlimited period. Various speakers expressed frustrations on the state of the board, impacts of social media or the special meeting conducted on Sunday, June 30.

Before a nearly filled auditorium, newly elected Board President Christine Bello made a statement before the start of public comment clarifying to the audience the intentions of the newly elected board members. Items such as district employment and graduation rates came before the public while Bello also addressed a social media flier targeting the new board members.

“The people that know us [the new five members] and know our hearts understand what our motivation was because we all want to be here to improve the educational system,” said Bello. “For the people that don’t know us, when you see something like this [the digital flier] or someone passes you something like this, you’re being hoodwinked. It’s not at all what our mission was.”

The previous budget and specific votes cast by members in previous resolutions presented to the public also raised concern and comments from the members at the table and from the audience. Attendees were visibly upset by the actions taken and words spoken over the course of the meeting. Members of the public were then invited to speak and the comment period lasted several hours into the evening.

“As you go through your agenda tonight, I would ask that you give consideration to four questions. This is my request of you throughout your entire term,” said David Rein. “Is this good for the kids, is this good for the teachers, is this good for the administration, is this good for the taxpayers?”

Parent Vanessa Nisperos who objected to the meeting on Sunday, June 30, reiterated her concerns and further spoke on meeting regulations, asking the three administrator positions be vacated. “I found it very interesting that the board went out of their way to allow Ms. [Leticia] Politi to conference in yet refused to open public comments even though myself and over 12 parents emailed with specific concerns that we wanted to bring up in public comments,” said Nisperos.

Parent Aisha Mills made a statement to several members of the board. “You are trying to make the first Black women superintendent of this district pack her bags and go,” said Mills. “Dr. Manning has more credentials than any of you and it would be a travesty for this agenda today to continue to be botched in the way that it has been.”

Several board members, current and former spoke that night as well, equally concerned about the board.

“You can’t be an adult on a school board successfully governing children and not perform well playing nice with others on the school board,” said former member Dennis Grant. “We have wonderful teachers, administrators and staff who are concerned about our children so let our Goldbacks, our scholars be the true currency of our community.”

“I get up here all the time and I say make it make sense. I watched the president of this board attack board members that is sitting on this board so tell me how we are supposed to work together when you’re going to attack them instead of just having conversations,” said Ray Harvey.