New Rochelle School Board Candidate: Robert Cox

New Rochelle voters have a choice make May 21 to elect a new New Rochelle School District board member.

Robert Cox will face off with Pamela Davis for the five-year term vacated by Mary Jane Reddington, who was first elected to the board in 1983. Cox is the online publisher, journalist and managing editor of Talk of the Sound.

Davis is an educator, adjunct professor and president of the New Rochelle FIRST LEGO League. Cox, 50, is a longtime New Rochelle resident.

He was born in Washington, DC, grew up in Irvington and first came to New Rochelle as an Iona Prep student in 1977. He married Maria Suarez in 1986. They have four children who have attended or are currently attending New Rochelle public schools. Maria Suarez-Cox has worked in special education for over 25 years, the last 15 of which have been in New Rochelle.

Cox has an MBA from the University of Chicago and has worked on Wall Street and managed venture capital portfolio companies.

He is running again for school board—he ran unsuccessfuly in 2011—because, he said, many of the issues he ran on two years ago still exist.

"I could see there were significant problems with the way the school district is handling its finances," Cox said.

He is also concerned with accountability in terms of staff getting paid for the actual hours they work. The implementation of a biometric attendance system would save money, Cox said, adding that if the district is actually laying off people then it should make certain that any overtime is deserved.

He thinks that more could be done to keep costs down throughout the district.

"A number of board members made statements that everything that could be done was done," Cox said. "That is not true."

He said "that is one of the biggest problems: the reluctance of the board to be good stewards of the public treasury," especially considering school taxes are two-thirds of a homeowner's tax bill.

"There's a lot of low hanging fruit in ways to save money," Cox said.

He said that if elected to the board he will balance what education-related topics he can write about and what he can't. As a board member, "there are certain things that are confidential by statute," Cox said. "There is also common courtesy" or expectations of being off the record until someone agrees to go on the record.

As he spoke about two years ago, he is still concerned about education at Isaac E. Young Middle School and its effect on high school graduation rates for minorities.

"That is the school that is in the most need of tender loving care," Cox said. "If we move Isaac up that will be a tremendous impact on the school district," including a positive effect on property values and tax rates.

"If I'm going to adopt a school, Isaac would be the one," he said.

For an interview with Pamela Davis, click here.