Maya McFadden Photo
Darnell Goldson joining teachers and parents in person to watch and participate in a then-still online-only Board of Ed meeting.
Fresh from battling cancer into remission, Darnell Goldson has decided to enter the fray for another term on the Board of Education.
Goldson informed the Democratic Town Committee Tuesday evening that he will seek a third four-year term in one of the board’s two elected slots.
He faces a challenge for the Democratic nomination for the District 2 seat this time from Andrea Downer. Read all about that in this previous story.
“I love democracy,” Goldson said about the challenge in a conversation Wednesday with the Independent. “I think it’s important for people to have choices.”
Consistently one of the board’s most outspoken members, Goldson said he’s proud of having served on a board that “maneuvered through a pandemic, two superintendent searches, multimillion dollar deficits, and still ended up in a place where … we have turned around finances and contracting.”
“What I am most disappointed with is that we have not been able to turn around academic achievement. That is going to be my biggest goal for the next term,” Goldson added.
He said he also wants to seek a review of how the magnet school program has, and hasn’t, succeeded. “I’m frustrated that we don’t have neighborhood schools anymore. Kids don’t know each other,” the Sheridan and Hillhouse grad said. He said he’s open to the idea of closing and consolidating some schools in the wake of declining enrollment.
Goldson, 62, had originally planned to resign during this current term after he found out he was diagnosed in 2021 with an aggressive form of diffused large B cell lymphoma. For months had needed to undertake five days a month of chemotherapy rather than the customary one day per month. He had trouble walking from his car to the hospital sign-in desk, he said.
Then the cancer went into remission. “I feel 100 percent better,” Goldson said. He hasn’t missed a meeting in the past year, including when in-person sessions resumed. He has played an active role in debates.
“It gives you a new outlook on life. You appreciate every day,” he said of the medical experience. “You appreciate the shortness of life.”