Video: MP Board of Ed Candidate Profile: Maria Schuchmann

Maria Schuchmann has been the president of the Miller Place PTO since 1999, but after numerous accomplishments and funds raised throughout the years, she has officially resigned in order to run for a seat on the Board of Education.

During her time as president the PTO has started the annual Spring Carnival, the PTO Basketball League and has beefed up its fundraising enough to donate $100,000 a year to the school district. One of Schuchmann's biggest fights, she said, was overcoming opposition for the carnival.

"The group that gave me the hardest time was the Council of Dedicated Merchants," she said. "The next year I was threatened to not get a permit for the carnival and I found out the CDM went behind my back and decided they wanted to run a carnival because they saw how much money we made.  I fought that for two years and they finally took their ball and went home, and now they do their festival in the fall."

After the Infant Jesus basketball league locked out the Miller Place district, she and her husband started the MPPTO league, which she said now nets $20,000 a year for the school programs in Miller Place.

Schuchmann sites her longstanding working relationship with administrators and staff in the district as another advantage.

"I have amazing working relationships with this administration, staff, and the community members and that’s why over the last 11 years I was able to get done what I got done," she said. "There's a mutual respect and a mutual trust and we worked together seamlessly."

 If elected, Schumann said she wants to target the government mandates on the district that she says are unnecessary and, if lifted, would help the district immensely.

"Anne O'Brien and I went to the legislature’s breakfast in February and quite frankly, there’s going to be a tax cap,"  she said. "We don’t know when and how much, but we’re already lobbying for some mandate relief. It’s stuff that we would do anyway, but they’re not giving us any money to support what they want us to do.

"If you’re not going to give us money to support it, then look at the ones that are not relevant to us and let’s get rid of them."

Schuchmann pointed out one mandate that O'Brien also mentioned at the Board meeting on Wednesday, April 27.

"Every employee in the school district has to be given a half day off for mammogram screening, now that’s wonderful, but people don’t realize that that costs us probably $50,000. Nobody paid me while I’m going for my mammogram…it costs us a lot of money.

Throughout her time with the PTO, Schuchmann said she has never taken no for an answer, and that would continue if elected to the Board.

Editor's Note: This is part of a series of profiles highlighting each candidate for Miller Place and Rocky Point's Board of Education. Be on the lookout for more candidate profiles throughout the days leading up the elections.