Voters in several North Shore Nassau County school districts will choose Board of Education members on Tuesday, May 19, with some seats drawing competitive races and others going to unopposed incumbents.
The most familiar names on the ballot belong to Roslyn, where Board of Education President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy and Trustee Leigh Minsky are both running without opposition. Waxman Ben-Levy has held a seat on the Roslyn board since 2005 and has served as president since 2010, making her one of the longest-tenured board leaders in Nassau County. That’s more than two decades shaping policy for a district whose official mission is “Excellence. Elevated.” Minsky joined the board in 2023.
Both candidates bring legal credentials. Waxman Ben-Levy has worked as a litigator, mediator, and arbitrator throughout her career. Her focus on the board has tracked closely with what most Roslyn families care about: academic programming, fiscal oversight, and keeping schools in genuine communication with the community. Minsky is an attorney and accountant in private practice who earned both a Juris Doctor and a master’s degree in accounting from Hofstra University. The JD came from Hofstra University School of Law; the accounting degree from Hofstra’s Frank G. Zarb School of Business. He’s admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey and holds membership in both the Nassau County Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.
The Roslyn Board of Education sets district policy, approves the school budget, and evaluates the superintendent, responsibilities that touch every family in the district. No challenger filed for either seat by the deadline.
Over in the North Shore school district, also in Nassau County, Board of Education President Andrea Macari and Trustee Brian Hanley are similarly running unopposed on May 19.
Macari is a lifelong North Shore resident who attended the district’s own schools before earning her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College of Columbia University and going on to Hofstra University for a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in clinical and school psychology. She practices cognitive behavioral therapy in private practice on Long Island and provides individual, family, and marital counseling along with psychological and educational evaluations. She became board president in 2023.
Uncontested.
No opposing candidates.
It’s a pattern that school governance experts say reflects both the appeal of incumbency and the simple reality that school board service demands substantial time without pay. Candidates must file nominating petitions, attend regular evening meetings, wade through budget documents, and field constituent complaints, all while holding down careers and family obligations.
That dynamic doesn’t mean these seats are low-stakes. School boards in Nassau County control budgets that run into the tens of millions of dollars, and their decisions ripple through property tax bills that Long Island homeowners know too well. The Long Island Press has tracked multiple North Shore races this cycle, including contested seats in other districts where challengers are pushing back on spending levels and curriculum decisions.
For Roslyn and North Shore, though, the May 19 vote is more affirmation than competition. Waxman Ben-Levy’s tenure alone spans four different superintendents and a full generation of students who’ve moved through Roslyn schools. Parents who enrolled kindergartners during her first years as president are now watching those same kids graduate.
Minsky’s background in accounting may be the more immediately practical credential in a budget season when every district on Long Island is managing post-pandemic enrollment shifts and rising operational costs. His dual expertise in law and finance gives the Roslyn board a resource that can matter when contract negotiations or state compliance questions land on the agenda.
Macari brings a different kind of expertise to North Shore. A clinical psychologist sitting on a school board has direct professional knowledge of the mental health landscape that districts are navigating, from student anxiety rates that have climbed sharply since 2020 to the growing demand for in-school counseling resources. The National School Boards Association tracks these pressures nationally, but the solutions play out locally, one district budget at a time.
Polling places for the May 19 election vary by district. Nassau County residents can confirm their assigned school voting location through their district’s main office ahead of election day. Polls typically open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m., though voters should verify hours directly with their district.