By Kathianne Boniello and Alexander Dworkowitz
The new Queens education representative to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy may be replacing the borough’s former Board of Education member Terri Thomson, but Laurelton’s Evita Belmonte said she was ready to tackle a longstanding theme of her predecessor’s: school overcrowding.
Belmonte, 51, was one of four borough representatives introduced at a City Hall news conference last week by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and her counterparts from Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Staten Island’s rep was announced in a separate news conference last month.
“What I would like to concentrate on for our borough is what we can do to ease overcrowding,” she said.
Queens has the most overcrowded schools of any borough, and the situation has been especially dire in Queens’ high schools, most if not all of which are crammed with students. Thomson often crusaded for more education and construction dollars for Queens schools, and tried to shine a light on the effects of classroom overcrowding.
The new education liaisons, all of whom are parents with children in city public schools, were named two months after the state approved sweeping changes to the city’s school system.
The new governance structure eliminates the seven-member Board of Ed in favor of a 13-member advisory panel and gives Mayor Michael Bloomberg control of the system by allowing him to appoint the chancellor and seven members of the new Panel for Educational Policy.
The announcement came as a surprise to Belmonte, who learned of her new position just days before the news was made public.
“I was stunned and humbled and taken aback,” she said. “It was really, really a wonderful surprise.”
The mother of two daughters, students at John Bowne High School in Flushing and Nassau Community College. Belmonte, a certified tutor, is president of the Queens High School Confederation of Parent Associations and head of the Parents Association at Bowne. The new education rep is also a member of the 220th Street Block Association in Laurelton.
Bowne Principal June Orchanian praised Belmonte for assisting parents who struggled with their English by helping with translations, and Belmonte said she also wants to concentrate on making sure parents of diverse backgrounds in the borough understand the workings of the school system. Queens is the most ethnically diverse county in the nation.
Belmonte said she wants to provide more translations for parents to get them more involved in education.
“We want to encourage them to somehow assimilate into the American way of life,” she said. “I would like to do things with the parents that would make them more comfortable.”
Belmonte stressed that she did not “know all the answers” coming into the job. Instead, she said she hopes to learn from the Queens residents she now represents.
“We’re here as a voice for the students, the parents and our communities,” she said. “It is important for us to have more dialogue with ourselves and each other.”
Under the new governance structure for city schools, each borough representative had to be a parent with children in city public schools. Because the new Panel for Educational Policy will not receive any staff, offices or support services from the city, Marshall has agreed to provide Belmonte with space at Borough Hall.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
