Will Cavanagh and Marianne Gilland Win BOE Seats

Pelham voters poured into the high school gym on Monday to elect Will Cavanagh and Marianne Gilland to the Board of Education.

Four contenders—Will Cavanagh, Marianne Gilland, Lester Kravitz and Ted Howard—each vied for the chance to fill the two BOE seats that were up for grabs. But Pelham chose Cavanagh, who collected 883 votes and Gilland, who earned 597 votes, to serve the district for the next three years. Howard came in a close third with 573 votes and Kravitz got 216.

“It was a very good group of people working together,” Gilland said of her running mates. “Even though we have different passions, I think we have the same goal in mind.”

As Cavanagh gears up for his fourth term on the Board of Education, he intends to focus on improving opportunities for students who fall “in the middle” and to pay close attention to the budget’s bottom line.

“We have to be very cost conscious,” Cavanagh said, “which we’ve always done in the past, and it’s going to become even more important in the future.”

The board is bracing itself for an even more challenging fiscal environment next year, as the district continues to face cuts in state aid and costly curriculum mandates.

Gilland said that she hopes to foster a more transparent environment among board members and the administration. She also aims to help the district ease into taking on the new academic requirements.

“There’s just so many changes being thrown at the schools,” Gilland remarked of the curriculum mandates. “I would like to be as close as possible to helping navigate those changes.”