GUILDERLAND — Benjamin Goes is starting a new chapter in life.
He is leaving his parents’ home in Guilderland, where he grew up, and striking out on his own for the Hilltowns. He said he likes the peace and quiet there and, with the ongoing pandemic, feels a need for space.

Goes has purchased a house in Knox, which is outside of the Guilderland school district.

He tendered his resignation to the school board on Monday, surprising its members who met on Tuesday and decided to ask for applicants to fill the vacancy.

The pandemic affected Goes’s decision in other ways, too.

“I think COVID forced everyone inside by themselves where they went online and listened to people who thought the same way they do,” he told The Enterprise on Wednesday morning.

“We’ve become more divided and more tribalistic,” said Goes.

In his tenure on the school board, Goes has often broached provocative ideas, which he believes have been misunderstood in an era where many people tend to identify with one camp or another; he sees himself as a bridge.

His last school board meeting was on Aug. 10 — a meeting that was briefly adjourned after some in the crowd protesting school mask requirements heckled and threatened speakers and board members.

At the end of that meeting, Goes said he believed COVID would never be mitigated and, as a lawyer, he said, he could see why guidance would be helpful giving the district “someone to point to.” But, he went on, it was good to have elected board members participating in the decision.

“These parents,” he said, “whether their data is right or wrong, they’re bringing up real trade-offs, which public-health professionals alone are not qualified to make those trade-offs for people.”

With a solid 25 percent of the country opposing vaccination, Goes had said at the meeting, it may be “because they don’t get a say.”

On Wednesday, Goes told The Enterprise, “I wanted to make school better for kids, not argue about masks. I wanted to create more choices for kids to personalize their education.”

Goes had been proud of being a youthful voice on the board; most of its members have or had children in the schools.

Goes, who works as a commercial real-estate attorney, graduated from Guilderland High School in 2014 and was elected to the school board in 2018. He finished high school a year early, got his college degree at the University at Albany two years early, and then finished Albany Law School early.

In 2020, Goes won a three-year term in a five-way race. He had two years left in his term.

Goes had volunteered at the high school, working with students on independent projects and felt attuned to student needs.

“I am a little more bold than maybe I should be …,” Goes said on Wednesday. “I do think outside the box. I was inevitably going to get in trouble again.”

When Goes would raise what he saw as intellectual questions — on racial inclusion or on discussion of varied viewpoints with gay issues — he felt unfairly labeled as racist or homophobic.

“Imagine being a gay man, advocating progressive ed policies [and] being called a homophobe endangering students,” he said.

The various controversies over the past year, Goes said, were difficult for him to live through.

“It was not so much that I felt pushed out as I felt I could no longer be as effective as I wanted to be,” he said. “What I mean is, when you’ve been labeled as I was labeled, it begins to color the work you’re involved in.”

He gave as an example the diversity, equity, and inclusion committee, an idea he helped come up with and voted in favor of creating.

“People began to question my role on the DEI committee and whether I had ulterior motives there … While I think that my fellow board members understood better where I was coming from, I think they also had to acknowledge that it was unwise for me to have a greater spotlight while being a source of controversy.”

He concluded, “Maybe people who think outside of the box, like I do, are needed in positions like a school board member, but it does have its drawbacks.”

Asked what he was proudest of accomplishing during his tenure on the board, Goes said that he had helped move the board towards realizing it was divisive to honor some students — the highest honors students — by having them sit on the stage at graduation. This past June, all of the graduates sat together.

While on the board, Goes said he would like to do away with standardized testing altogether and believed eliminating textbooks would save money.

Goes believes public education is at a “watershed moment” and that schools will become obsolete if they teach just content, which is available from the phone in your pocket, he said.

Another achievement Goes said he was proud of is that the board now has goal-setting and goal-assessing meetings. Indeed, goal-setting was the first item of board business on Tuesday.

“This was not our practice at the time that I joined the board, and I pushed hard to start so that the board could have a future-looking orientation in the work that it did, understanding that many of the changes I hoped to implement would take time,” said Goes.

Repeatedly on Wednesday, Goes told The Enterprise, “I love the Guilderland Central School District.”

He said he supported the board members in their efforts to make the schools better for kids. He also said of the superintendent, Marie Wiles, “I have tremendous respect for Dr. Wiles and the work she and her team are doing.”

Goes concluded, “I leave with no small amount of sadness. However, I am looking forward to working on new projects and contributing to my community in other ways, ways that may suit me even better.”