To the Editor:
Beware the wolves pretending to protect your children, save your tax dollars, and believe god is with them in their cause. Jeff Thomas is using his money and power to drive a slate of candidates to do his bidding.

Mr. Thomas would like to impose his personal world view on curriculum and at the same time drive down the taxes on his Guilderland business properties regardless of the impact on the educational product.

He caused a ruckus at last August’s school board meeting because of a personal agenda against students wearing masks during a pandemic, even though his children were not attending school in Guilderland [“Board under fire as mask rule draws ire,” The Altamont Enterprise, Aug 12, 2021]. His group was intolerant of other points of view and shouted down those supporting science and the wearing of masks to protect children and staff from COVID.

This group calls themselves “Taking Back Our School Boards.” Taking back from whom? The duly elected individuals chosen by the residents of Guilderland? The current composition of the board seems to be a quite diverse group of dedicated individuals who each bring differing perspectives on the issues. I see no sinister controlling faction that needs to be thwarted.

Current board member Barbara Fraterrigo has joined Jeff in his cause to lead this gang of self-righteous “protectors” to impose their far right views upon Guilderland’s children. Make no mistake, their views are far from mainstream.

In seeking a ninth term, she has now served for 24 years. That is far too long for anyone. Barbara was on the board when I retired in 1998, after I had served for 12 years.

A school board is most effective when it has a mix of relatively new members along with longer term members. The long-term members bring knowledge of past decisions and can put those decisions into context when discussing desired changes and improvements.

However, I found that the long-term knowledge gradually turned into hardened opinions and increased difficulty in keeping an open mind to new ideas. For me, 12 years was long enough. I don’t know what the right amount of years should be but I do know that 24 or 27 years is far too long.

Barbara should be commended for her dedication and service to the Guilderland School District. But working with Barbara I know that she was never all that open to new ideas or differing points of view. I can only imagine how steadfast she must have become in her views. Proof of this lies in her now wanting to replace all the incumbents except for herself.

Guilderland schools need board members who are open-minded, dedicated to enriching education, support diversity of people and ideas, understand and believe in science, and are dedicated to the common good for the community. Not persons invested in personal agendas, cutting spending without regard to quality of education, restricting access to a broad spectrum of ideas within the curriculum, or wishing to restrict educational content to their own narrow idea of what is proper.

Please look closely at all the candidates and vote for those who will work to make Guilderland better. In my opinion, Fraterrigo, April McAllister, Mark Reamer, and Nicole Coonradt do not meet that standard.

Robert Mastro

Altamont