“My philosophy is to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, so if you see something wrong step up to try to fix it,” Diane Hausman said last Thursday as she reflected on her upcoming retirement from the Montauk School Board.
Ms. Hausman has served on the board for 30 years, 20 of those as president.
She joined the board in 1995, when her son, Jason, was 8. “Jason was in school and I felt it was necessary to become involved,” she said. “It’s my way of giving back.” During her time on the board, she has also seen three nieces and several members of her extended family go through the school.
She had considered retiring at the end of her previous term in 2020, but that changed when the pandemic hit. “That felt like abandoning ship and I just couldn’t do it,” she said.
“Diane is an amazing human, she’s been an amazing bastion for Montauk,” said Joshua Odom, the school’s superintendent and principal. “Fulfilling civic duty is a part of who she is.”
In addition to serving as school board president, she also serves as president of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, which she has been involved with since the late 1980s. She was previously on the board of the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation, and served for 11 years on the board of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce.
In her early years on the board, it had the distinction of being the only all-female school board in New York State, a fact that the former superintendent and principal, Jack Perna, shared with its members with pride. “None of us ever checked him on that,” Ms. Hausman said.
Other points of pride for her were seeing the school institute a full-time prekindergarten, encouraging Spanish as a second language, and “doing as much as we were able to do within our means to have the children learn as much as they could in a second language.”
Always at the top of her mind during her tenure was making sure that she and the board were making the best decisions possible for both the district and the students. “The most important thing was balance,” Ms. Hausman said. “It was a challenge at times to balance doing the best that we could for the students yet remembering our fiduciary responsibility to the rest of the taxpayers as well. And I think every board I’ve worked on has always put the students first.”
Finding consensus was also important for Ms. Hausman. Looking back, she said that she’s always worked with a “good team” and that each iteration of the school board has been able to talk through whatever disagreements they may have had.
“That was a big thing for me,” she said, “making sure we’re communicating and making sure we looked at all sides of the issues and if someone wasn’t in agreement, at least we could come to a compromise.”
As her time on the board comes to an end, she hopes she will be remembered as a listener who was always open to discussion and seeing things from a different viewpoint. “I love communication,” she said, “being able to talk through things and coming up with the best possible thing for the students.”
“I have a tremendous respect for Diane,” said Mr. Odom. “She’s been a big support for me, and a wealth of knowledge for the Montauk School.”