As many of you already know, Ms Tona has made an irresponsible decision to try and remove my 7 year old daughter from Lakeview Elementary School before completing her academic school year. (We are still residents of MCSD, just zoned for Fulmar Road). During this process Ms Tona:

-Refused to take into consideration the wellbeing of the child who’d endured trauma (see personal info below).

-Upon me pushing back on her decision, knowingly quoted the wrong policy and even removed the “NON RESIDENT” heading.

-Finally admitted that there was no policy in place for elementary school zones.

-After knowing all of this, caused our family great emotional distress during the holiday season. Including making me go as far as having to sit in front of the BOE and relive our family’s trauma.

She then continued to try to cover up her unethical decisions by stating it was “standard district practice”. As of today, January 2, 2025, I have corrected her and provided the board of education proof that it was indeed not “standard District practice”. I provided our Board of Education with a Google Drive that has statements from parents that were granted leniency for their child to stay at their elementary schools, as long as they were in district and could provide transportation. (Which I already do).

This means one thing. Mahopac Central  school. District has gone this long without needing a policy in place, because previous administration was clearly able to take our children’s well-being into consideration and make it the forefront of their decision-making.

Why did she take it upon herself to change our Districts “Standard Practice” without notifying us or the BOE, or even try to make a policy?

Why is Ms Tona’s obvious power trip more important than our children’s well being? 

Because I’m not the only parent she’s done this to this school year, using a policy that does NOT apply. These children and families are still our community members and within district!! This is not okay.

She knows she’s wrong or else she wouldn’t be rushing to put a policy into place by February… my daughter‘s new deadline, which I’m not accepting.

I am asking as many community members to please sign this petition, to overturn Ms Tona’s reckless, irresponsible, and detrimental decision that she made by CHOICE, not by policy. I believe situations like my daughters, truly reveals people’s true colors. Her actions speaks volumes to whom she is as a Superintendent, but also as a person.

 

 

BACKGROUND DETAILS: My daughter is 7 years old and is attending Lakeview (2nd grade). As many know, a few years back my family endured two very traumatic events back to back- during peek covid. The unexpected loss of my MIL at the young age of 56 (whom we lived with in Mahopac) and 4 months later our older son (13 YO). My daughter has had to endure pain most adults won’t in their lifetime at such a young age which has obviously had its consequences.
We had to sell my MIL home, which was zoned for Lakeview in Feb 2023. We have now moved into the Fulmar zoning . They allowed Aubrey to continue at Lakeview (I provide transportation), because we were wrapping up legal proceedings and planning to move. The timeline/ending of the legal proceedings did not go as planned and made the ultimate decision to stay given my daughter’s emotionally fragile state as she works through her grief. It’s not been a linear path getting back to some form of “normalcy” but we are trying.
I planned to have her begin Fulmar in September of 2025 with her younger brother who will be going into Kindergarten. This giving me time to work with her medical team, build up her confidence to the switch, and plan play dates to make new friends before switching.

Any person of sound mind would agree this is the best route to get a child ready for such a huge change…. Especially one who’s navigating trauma, which causes attachment issues. She is also struggling academically as well and already settled into her dual teacher classroom and extra academic help.

I’ve been met with comments like “kids are resilient” and “she’s a people pleaser, she’ll be fine”. Which I find incredibly inappropriate given the situation at hand and that her holding in her emotions is a big part of the issue.

Lakeview has been a huge safety net for her. It’s her safe space, somewhere she’s built trust, and has gotten attached to. Any school switch is hard on a child, but it’s extremely difficult for those with attachment issues from trauma.  However, our administration clearly is unequipped to handle delicate situations and clearly doesn’t understand child trauma. 

Since posting on Facebook I have had mental health professionals reach out in concern that the district can be so careless in such a delicate situation involving a child’s well being. 

On 12/17 I attended the BOE meeting, where I had to sit in fact of members and try my hardest to get through explaining our trauma in detail and the things my daughters had to witness. It was incredibly demeaning, especially knowing it didn’t have to go this far and never should’ve. Based on our emails, Ms Tona is clearly doing it because of her ego and has proudly continued to cause emotional distress to myself and my daughter to begin having panic attacks again.