Board of Education Candidates for the Public Schools of The Tarrytowns

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TUFSD board candidates at the May 13 LWV forum (photo by Sophia Rana)

May 17, 2025

By Barrett Seaman–

Six candidates—three of them incumbents, two of them parents of students in the district and two of them school teachers—are vying for three seats on the Tarrytown Union Free School District Board of Education. Voting will take place on Tuesday, May 20^th from 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. Eligible Tarrytown residents will cast votes at the Washington Irving School Auditorium on South Broadway. Eligible Sleepy Hollow residents will vote at the W.L. Morse School on Pocantico Street, Sleepy Hollow. Here are thumbnail descriptions of the candidates and their key positions on issues facing the district:

An incumbent by virtue of his appointment to finish the term of former board member Deborah Taylor, Tarrytown resident Alex Fletcher is himself a teacher (chemistry and theater) in the Eastchester School District as well as a parent of a five-year-old in the John Paulding School, with a three-year-old waiting in the wings. “I’m not just a board member,” Fletcher wrote in his campaign biography, “but a parent navigating the same systems and communications as every other family.” Fletcher is a proponent of the “Wait Until 8^th” movement to ban cell phones in school until students finish the seventh grade. “As educators we must carefully evaluate which digital tools genuinely enhance learning and which merely distract from the human connections at education’s heart.”

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Ida Michael, an incumbent with two children in the TUFSD system, has made bullying prevention a priority. A patternmaker with two decades working in the fashion industry, Michael is fluent in Spanish. In her bio, she wrote: “I would advocate for exploring the most effective professional development opportunities focused on de-escalation strategies….”

First elected to the board in 2022, Amanda Wallwin brings more than a decade as chief of staff in the New York State Assembly, where she helped shepherd bills to decriminalize face masks during COVID and led what she described as “a busy constituent services team, helping residents navigate government services.” Her government experience, she contends, she has the skills to help TUFSD navigate treacherous waters at “a time when public education ius under fire.”

First-time candidate North Landesman also teaches but at St. Bernard’s School, a private school in Manhattan, where his own children attend. He counts as an asset his work with the Education Foundation of America, a foundation that gives grants to nonprofit organizations in the arts, education and environmental fields. He says he is concerned with “reading and math scores that have declined since the pandemic relative to Irvington, White Plains and Ossining. His goal is to increase student proficiency.

Christina O’Gorman-Murphy is a 50-year resident of Tarrytown and herself an SHHS graduate, with children in the system. Her expressed concerned is with what she calls “community resistance.” She wrote: “Within every community, there will be people who resist change, whether they’re decision-makers or simply a crowd of clamoring voices.”

Touting her “15 years of experience in brand strategy and organizational leadership, Liz Santillanesof Sleepy Hollow asserts that she can apply her background in the fashion industry that has evolved into a career in management consulting and strategic planning to the school board. She has two children in the system, has served on the PTA’s Mini-Grant Committee and recently joined the Foundation for the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns’ Spring Benefit auction team. She launched the Spirit Wear Student Design Competition in partnership with the SHHS Art Department and is the Horsemen PTA Spirit Wear Coordinator. In her bio she wrote: “I believe the most important issues facing our district are trust, transparency, and academic alignment.”

To see and hear the candidates at the May 13th League of Women Voters Candidate Forum, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRYruRkl9Ks

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