Residents of the Jericho Union Free School District will soon have a chance to vote on two uncontested school board trustee elections next Tuesday, May 19.
Divya Balachandar is running for reelection to a third three-year term, and former board member Ira Checkla is looking to return to the board after 20 years.
Balachandar is a pediatric pulmonologist who has been a Jericho resident since 2014. She has two children who attend school in the district, aged 16 and 14. Balachandar was first elected to the board in 2020 and began her tenure during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Balachandar said she ran for trustee in 2020 because she “wanted to foster wellness” during those rough years.
“Everything was changing so rapidly,” she said, and she was “very fortunate” to share her expertise and medical advice during the pandemic.
Balachandar said she had been active in the district’s Parent Teacher Associations since her child was in kindergarten, and she ran for the school board because she thought she could make a greater impact there.
“Being a board member permits you to effect change on a larger level. It helps you to ensure every student has an opportunity to succeed,” she said.
Balachandar said she is the chair of the school health committee for a chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and also volunteers for Jericho Cares, a nonprofit that supports families in need.
With school districts across Long Island and the country grappling with the emergence of powerful large language models, Balachandar said she is concerned with what that means for Jericho schools.
“We can work on a policy now, but by the time it is approved, it may very well be obsolete,” she said, but currently the district is looking to incorporate AI into the curriculum.
Source: LI Press
