The Farmingdale School District Board of Education president won’t seek re-election this spring, leaving two open three-year seats on the May 19 ballot alongside several contested races across Nassau County school districts.
Ralph Vincent Morales, who has served on the Farmingdale BOE since 2014 and currently holds the board presidency, did not file a petition before the Monday, April 20 deadline. Morales is a trial partner at a law firm handling complex litigation across New York City’s five boroughs and Long Island. He’s leaving after more than a decade on the board, which is a longer run than most people manage in a volunteer position that draws almost no public attention until something goes wrong.
The two candidates now running for those Farmingdale seats are incumbent trustee Dawn Luisi and Patrick Walsh. Luisi, a lifelong Farmingdale resident who calls herself a Daler, was first elected in 2023. She’s worked as a certified general and special education teacher for grades 1 through 3 in the Great Neck School District since 2008. Walsh is challenging for the second open seat.
Voters will cast their ballots on May 19. The same ballot carries each district’s proposed 2026-2027 budget, along with any additional propositions individual districts put before residents.
Hicksville has the most crowded field. Six candidates are competing for three open seats, with all three incumbents facing challengers, one of whom isn’t even running. Trustee Irene Carlomusto chose not to seek re-election, and two candidates, Kim Raspanti and Carolina Sanchez-Molina, are now running for her seat. Trustee Sunita Manjrekar, who has served on the board since 2017 and works as a director of employment programs for the Nassau County Department of Social Services, faces a challenge from Mary Dwyer. Trustee Danielle Fotopoulos, a Nassau County Police Department employee who has been on the board since 2022, is being challenged by Ryan Chaplin.
That’s three genuine contests in one district.
Worth watching.
Six names. Three seats. None of those races are automatic.
The Long Island Press first reported the full candidate list across these districts after the April 20 petition deadline closed.
Over in Massapequa, four candidates are running for two three-year seats. BOE secretary Cher Lepre and trustee Danielle Ocuto, both first elected in 2023, are seeking re-election. Bobby Bonnet and Lynn Russo are challenging them. Lepre and Ocuto have served together since their initial election three years ago, and now they’re both defending seats at the same time, which means a voter who’s unhappy with the board’s direction has two ways to register that dissatisfaction.
School board elections get treated like afterthoughts by voters who then turn around and complain bitterly about property taxes, curriculum decisions, and district spending. Nassau County’s property tax rates are among the highest in the country, and a significant chunk of what any Long Island homeowner pays goes directly to school district budgets passed in votes exactly like the one scheduled for May 19. In Farmingdale, Hicksville, and Massapequa, the candidates running this spring will help set the spending priorities for the 2026-2027 school year and beyond.
Board of education seats carry real authority over those budgets. A three-member swing on a seven-person board can redirect millions of dollars, hire or fire a superintendent, and set contract terms for hundreds of unionized employees. That’s not abstract. Every household in these districts feels those decisions in the tax bill.
The New York State Education Department requires school districts to hold their annual budget votes and board elections on the third Tuesday of May, which puts the 2026 election date at May 19 for districts across Long Island. Candidates who failed to file petitions by April 20 won’t appear on the ballot, regardless of their standing or history on any board.
Morales’s decision not to run ends a twelve-year tenure in Farmingdale. His departure, combined with Carlomusto’s exit in Hicksville, means at least two Nassau County school boards will have new faces come June. Whether those new faces bring different priorities or simply fill warm seats is the question that won’t get answered until the races are actually run and the May 19 votes are counted.