Op-Ed: Diamond Seeks Re-Election To Croton-Harmon Board of Education

Dear members of the Croton-Harmon community:

My name is Joshua Diamond, and for the past nine years, I have served our community as a member of the Board of Education. I am seeking re-election for another term because I want to continue my work on behalf of our community’s children.

I believe that we must support each and every child with an education appropriate to their talents, needs, desires and aspirations. Beyond providing basic knowledge, we must teach them to be creative problem solvers, effective team members, compassionate friends, and critical thinkers. We must provide every student with a strong foundation that will empower them to affect their families, community, nation, and the world for good.

I believe that all human beings deserve fair opportunities to succeed. I believe that knowledge, history, and science should form the foundation of public school curricula.

I believe that social and emotional learning, and support for student mental health is critical. I believe that opportunities for physical activity and athletics are important.

I believe that freedom of speech, academic freedom, and the right to read about any topic are paramount. The past is imperfect, and history is often uncomfortable. I know that we must teach the uncomfortable truths, so that our students may be empowered to grow beyond them.

I believe that we must foster brilliance, empowering students to go beyond the questions that they already thought to ask. Brilliance is when students can use their critical thinking skills to create solutions to new problems that they never even thought of before — be it in art, in science, in drama, in writing, or in any other endeavor.

I believe that we must be good stewards for our planet, teaching our students, both in the classroom, and through the actions of the district, about sustainable environmental practices and care for our environment.

I am committed to making our already great schools even better. I will focus on the actual education of our youth rather than on the mere satisfaction of external mandates, and will advocate locally, in New York, and nationally for education policies and initiatives which support our students. I will strike a balance between the need to properly fund education, and fiscal responsibility, understanding that high tax rates can be devastating to retirees and to families of limited means.

I will always speak out for doing what is best for our students.

To learn more about my campaign, about my results over the past nine years, and about my concrete goals for the future of our school district, please visit joshforboe.com.

I hope that you will vote to re-elect me to the Board of Education in the upcoming school district election, on May 17, 2022.

Joshua Diamond
Croton-on-Hudson, NY