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What’s INSIDE
New senior-care program announced Page 6
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DECEMBER 28, 2023 - JANUARY 3, 2024
Vol. 24 No. 1
HERALD PERSON oF THE YEAR Christine Waters
Christine Waters, a champion for equity and inclusion By Jordan Vallone
A dedicated educator for decades in East Meadow and a tireless promoter of diversity, equity and inclusion in schools, Christine Waters has left an often indelible impression on students and colleagues alike in the East Meadow Union Free School District, and beyond. The vice president of Equity 4 LI Youth, an East Meadowbased organization that tackles issues across Long Island, and the education chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people in New York state, Waters has proven that she is an effective leader who does everything in her power to make sure all students have opportunities to learn. t is inspiring For her efforts in advocating for to see that students and ensuring a brighter, more she advocates equitable future for all, the Herald is proud to name her its 2023 Person of for all children the Year. — and that’s the Waters was born and raised in Brooklyn, and attended the all-girls way it should Bishop McDonnel Memorial High be. School, which closed in 1973. Because Waters was a junior at the time, she Dafny IrIzarry graduated from high school a year early, Youth chair, at age 16, and continued her studies at Equity 4 LI Youth Brooklyn College. She earned a degree in elementary education in 1978, and later received a master’s from Stony Brook University, writing her dissertation on the significance of Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement. Waters began teaching elementary school in Brooklyn, and moved to Long Island with her husband, Alfred. They raised two children, Steven and Michele, in Freeport. Steven is now a music educator, and Michele has a career in biomedical engineering. Commuting to Brooklyn was a challenge with two young children, Waters said, so she began searching for jobs closer to home. She recalled the day she got a call asking her if she wanted to apply for a position in East Meadow. She had broken a finger while teaching and was home recovering, feeling burned out in her job in the city. “I said a prayer,” she recounted. “I said, ‘Heavenly Father, I think you’re trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be doing all of this commuting and that you’re sending me someplace else. I don’t
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know where it is, but I’m ready. And I literally put my head on the pillow, and the phone rang. Someone, one of my friends, said, ‘Would like you to interview in East Meadow?’ And I said, ‘Where’s that?’” Waters would soon get to know East Meadow. She was hired as a kindergarten teacher at Barnum Woods School in 1993 — one of just three teachers of color in the district at the time — and later taught first grade for the rest of her career before she retired in 2017. In her local branch of the NAACP, Waters served as the education chair beginning in 2008, she said. Tackling issues in education that she believed were important, like vision screenings for students at an earlier age, she became involved in the state’s NAACP conference. At the state level, she has held the title of education chair since 2019. As a teacher, her dedication to children was always of utmost importance. “I had really great people on my team that worked with me,” Waters said. “Of course, over the years there were microaggressions that happened. But I pretty much focused on making learning fun for the kids and working with the parents, to have
Continued on page 2
Courtesy Equity 4 LI Youth
Christine Waters, a former longtime educator in the East Meadow Union Free School District, is committed to ensuring that students in East Meadow and across Long Island receive a fair and equitable education. Waters, center above, with Soh Young-Lee; Patrick Pizzo; Barbara Powell, president of the NAACP in Hempstead, and Alvin McDaniel.