Dr. Blanch Bids Farewell to Somers Schools

SOMERS, N.Y. - The Somers Board of Education faced criticism last week after not acting to renew longtime schools Superintendent Dr. Ray Blanch’s contract.

During an emotionally charged special meeting last week, representatives of the district’s faculty, staff, and community heaped words of praise on the departing leader, calling him the epitome of honesty, integrity, respect, and trust.

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“We are better educators and people because of your guidance and support,” former Somers Middle School principal Jeffrey Getman told Blanch. Getman is now a counselor at Primrose Elementary School.

Blanch had sought an extension of his five-year contract back in the spring. But, at the last minute, the item was pulled from the board’s agenda without explanation. It was never voted on.

He subsequently announced that he had taken the superintendent’s position with the Katonah-Lewisboro School District. Acting as interim Somers superintendent until a permanent replacement is found is Harry LeFevre, current interim director of human resources and student services.

Getman said it was a “sad day for Somers” not only because it was losing its leader of 14 years but also its director of secondary learning, Claire Comerford, who resigned and is moving on to the Pelham Union Free School District as its assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

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It also was Trustee Heidi Cambareri’s last meeting. She declined to run for re-election after serving on the board for six years.

According to Getman, among Blanch’s many accomplishments to ensure that all students grades 6 through 12 received personal learning devices such as iPads. It was the first such initiative in the area, he said.

Blanch made the district a “model for safety” by making updates to its facilities, including placing SROs at each of its four buildings. He “increased student voice” by adding them to school and hiring committees.

Making reference to the heat wave, Getman noted that Blanch had the “foresight” to install air conditioning in most classrooms, which allowed Somers to remain open while other district’s were forced to close early.

Moreover, Blanch “kept all students, kindergarten through sixth grade, all day every day, in school throughout the pandemic,” he said, adding that “we were the only schools in the area to do so.”

Before making any changes, Blanch consistently asked for feedback “from every group imaginable,” said Getman, proudly pointing out that Somers’ students “go off to great colleges and find success after high school.”

“They feel connected and are proud of their school. This connection begins with a leader,” he said.

Blanch has been supportive of students and their parents during the toughest of times, such as when they’ve made “a major mistake and are facing discipline or when they’ve suffered a loss.”

“He’s our students’ biggest cheerleader at sporting and academic events, art shows, concerts, musicals and graduations,” Getman said, adding: “He is everywhere.”

Folks who worked with Blanch each day were lucky to “see this dedication firsthand.”

“He does not get nearly enough recognition for all the good he’s done for us,” Getman said.

It’s also sad, he said, that Blanch had been “the target of unwarranted criticism, criticism that was delivered in person, in public meetings, and online in ways no person should be subjected to, especially someone who works so hard and cares so much about the success of our district.”

“Adults have acted in ways that we would never tolerate from even our youngest students. All the while, he remained professional,” he said.

Thanking Blanch for all he’s done “for our students, our community, for me and many of us in this room,” Getman said he hoped “your new community appreciates all that you bring to the table and that you find the support that you deserve.

Mark Bayer, who just retired as Somers High School principal, lauded Blanch as someone who “leads with both his heart and his head” and who has “carefully and quite successfully stewarded this district for well over a decade.

“Doing what’s right for students is always his North Star” and he has instilled the same values in all educators who call Somers their professional home.”

“While some might disagree with decisions that have been made from time to time, no one can doubt that his heart has always been in the right place,” Bayer said.

For instance, in a time of declining enrollment when many other superintendents simply would have cut staff or programs to close the budgetary gap, Blanch led faculty, staff, students, and families on visioning and goal-setting exercises.

Not only did this strategy avoid cuts, it kept Somers a “desirable” place to work and also led to programs that “added value to the educational experience,” Bayer said.

“Why? Because he cares deeply about all those who call our schools home and call each other family,” he said, calling Blanch caring, fair, level-headed, and hard working.

Not all of Blanch’s decisions had been “universally supported by the many different constituents that exist in a district like ours,” said Bayer, adding: “Unfortunately that just come with the territory of the position that he holds.”

While telling board members that he had “tremendous respect” for the work they do and that he recognized the “often complex nature” of their roles, Bayer also found fault with the way Blanch’s contract situation was handled.

“Some of you have failed the district, and most importantly, our students by choosing to fail to renew a contract when you had the chance to and that’s losing one of the best superintendents out there,” he said.

Telling Blanch he’ll be “sorely missed by so many of us,” Bayer said: “Our loss is undoubtedly Katonah-Lewisboro’s gain.”

Somers Intermediate School PTA president Mimi Freeman scolded board members who did not support Blanch’s contract extension.

Although “sorely disappointed” over his pending departure, Freeman wasn’t surprised considering “the way he was treated by some of you over this past year.”

“No district is perfect but considering all of the challenges we have faced over the past few years, we have successfully navigated through them under his leadership,” she said.

Had Blanch had the BOE’s full support, he could have “focused on leading us to further successes,” she said, adding: “Instead we faced further division, more fear mongering and more disinformation.”

Asking how anyone could be expected to persevere under those conditions, Freeman said she hoped that all board members were “ready to do the work to get us through this.”

Thanking Blanch for helping her family “feel accepted, heard, and supported,” Freeman said she hoped that “Katonah appreciates how lucky they are that our BOE failed to keep you happy here.”

When it came time for the board to approve a “separation agreement,” Cambareri abstained, pointing out that it was the first time in her six years on the board that she hadn’t voted.

The resolution identified the person as “Employee No. 2088” but it was clear from what she said later that it was Blanch.
People in other districts have told Cambareri that they’re envious of Somers having a long-term superintendent.

Knowing that the district was losing him was especially “painful” to Cambareri, who said her “heart sunk” when she learned the Katonah-Lewisboro” superintendent was retiring because she knew “what torture” Blanch  “been put through here” and the amount of “disrespect” he’d suffered.

“I knew you deserved to go someplace where you could be respected and trusted and have a community that deserves to have you,” she said, adding that she knew Blanch will have the same “great impact” on his new school district that he had in Somers.

Thanking Blanch for laying the groundwork, Cambareri said she hoped that the district “can find a new superintendent that will help us continue to do that good work.”

She told Comerford that she would also be missed and is leaving behind big shoes to fill.

Cambareri also had some parting words of wisdom for fellow trustees.

“So my challenge is for our board now, and our new board members, please do your work. I implore you to do the professional learning, to learn how to be the best board member you can be, to keep the district moving forward,” she said, pausing for emphasis.

“Get out of this cycle of butting heads and stopping progress, because that’s really where we are right now.”

Urging a return to “respectful discourse,” Cambareri asked: “I mean, who do we want to be? Who you get as your next superintendent is going to depend on this town and this community and this board.”

Wishing Blanch the best, Trustee Chadwick Olsen admired the way he’d handled himself as superintendent. And that was “with honesty, integrity, caring, and teamwork.”

Speaking to administration, he said the collaboration is “really impressive.”

“I see what you do and I come away with such great energy and excitement,” said, adding that teachers are also inspired.

Hoping that the momentum would be maintained, Olsen said that it “wasn’t going to be easy,” but “we can do it and we can do it together.”

He also expressed appreciation for Cambareri’s hard work and dedication, which set a “real standard that we need to keep here on the board.”

Trustee Ifay Chang said Blanch had done a “tremendous amount of work for us and kept our schools in good, good shape.”

Noting that Blanch won’t be far away, Chang said he’d be welcome to “come back from time to time.”

“We’d like to visit you as well,” he added.

“I’m also sorry to see Heidi leave because she would be a good force to keep a lot of us working hard,” Change said.

Trustee Dominick DeMartino thanked Cambareri for her service.

“This is not an easy job. It’s a lot of work and I know you put a lot of effort into it,” he told her.

DeMartino also wished Blanch and Comerford “good luck.”

Trustee Patrick Varbero agreed that Cambareri was “very dedicated” to her role as trustee.

“You have intense feelings about it and you did a pretty good job,” he said, thanking her to showing him and DeMartino “how to get things done.”

Varbero wished Blanch “all the best of luck in his new endeavor.”

Trustee Amanda Kandel told Cambareri not to think she was off the hook because she intended to continue to “pick her brains.”

As a PTA member, she’d worked with Blanch and found that he “always had an open door” and that if there were any concerns, he was always willing to work through the problems together.

Saying Comerford had done an “outstanding” job, Kandel admitted she was going to miss her “terribly” as well.

Finding someone to fill Blanch’s shoes is going to be tough work but she thought she was up for “this challenge” and didn’t “intend to settle.”

Board president Nick Mancini was absent.

Taking up his usual task of closing out the meeting, Blanch was visibly moved as he read American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “To Laugh Often and Much.”

“To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Blanch also snuck in a Walt Disney saying: “We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

“Thank you for all the moments, thank you,” he concluded as someone in the audience shouted “We love you Ray!”

The board gave him a standing ovation.

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