Riverhead High School 2009 grad announces candidacy for school board

The Riverhead school board election has an early — and homegrown — entrant.

Colin Palmer of Northville, a 2009 Riverhead High School graduate, has announced he is seeking election as a Riverhead Central School District trustee.

Palmer, 30, has begun collecting signatures on nominating petitions, which are due in the office of the district clerk April 19.

He posted an announcement about his candidacy on Facebook and Instagram and “the response has been great,” he said in an interview today.

Palmer attended Riverhead schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. He was a student at Roanoke Avenue Elementary School when it was named a national blue ribbon school. There’s still pride in his voice when he talks about it.

“We all knew it was a special place to learn,” Palmer said. “All of the teachers and students knew the award was justified.”

The education he got in Riverhead schools served him well, he said. He studied the classics in college and has worked in the field of arts and humanities as an adult. He cofounded a local theater company and works as a director.

“I know what a great opportunity Riverhead gave me and I want to help give the next generation the same opportunity,” he said.

Palmer thrived in Riverhead’s Latin, theater and music programs. It shaped who he is as an adult, he said.

One impetus for running for school board, he said, is the demise of the district’s Latin program, which he believes is a result of “the current board’s handling of Dr. Greenberger’s retirement and failure to figure out a succession plan for a more than 100-year-old gem in the crown of Riverhead.”

Influenced by the education he got in Riverhead under the tutelage of “Doc and Ms. Custer,” the husband and wife duo that taught Latin in Riverhead until their retirement last year, Palmer studied classics at St. John’s College in Maryland.

“I wanted a traditional, classical liberal arts eduction,” he said. “It helped shape me as a critical thinker. It made me think about education in a new way,” he said, looking back at the education he got at St. John’s College.

“First year was basically the ancient Greeks. Everyone took the same classes. Studying mathematics was reading Euclid. Science was Ptolemy and Aristotle,” he said.

“It opened up something in my mind that has allowed me to think critically.”

Inspired by his love of theater, he spent a year in London and then decided to finish his undergraduate degree at Stony Brook.

He believes education is about more than gaining skills for a job or scoring well on assessment tests.

The emphasis on STEM “comes at a detriment to arts and humanities,” Palmer said. “K-12 education isn’t just about getting students ready to work. It’s about getting students ready to live life — to learn what it is about life that makes it worth living.”

There are two open in this year’s school board election. They are presently held by long-time member and past president Susan Koukounas, a mathematics professor at Suffolk County Community College and Brian Connelly, a NYC firefighter who is finishing his first term as a trustee. Neither have yet announced whether they intend to seek re-election.

The position of school district trustee is an unpaid, voluntary post. The term of office is three years.