North Jersey school board candidates: Help us help you to reach the voters
Sex ed. Mask mandates. Banned books. Inflation.
It hasn't been a quiet time for North Jersey school districts lately. You can see the results on the ballot, where an unprecedented number of candidates are running for local school boards this fall.
In Bergen County, 236 people are running for 161 seats in 61 districts, including 12 seeking five openings in Teaneck. Passaic County, with only 16 municipalities, has 86 candidates. Morris and Sussex have bumper crops as well, including in Sparta, where 17 people are vying for six open seats.
To all of those candidates: We know you are concerned; we know you are passionate. Now we want to know why you're running, so your constituents can make informed choices.
The Record, the Daily Record, the New Jersey Herald and our websites recently emailed a survey to dozens of Board of Education hopefuls. Our brief online questionnaire asks where you stand on issues that have dominated the debate recently — the state's new sexual education and gender identity standards, vaccine and mask mandates, whether the curriculum is too politicized. We also left room for candidates to lay out whatever other issues are motivating their campaigns.
These surveys will form the basis for stories on the local board races, as we've already done in towns like Teaneck, Wyckoff and Rochelle Park.
Now, we need your help. If you're one of the approximately 150 candidates who have received the survey from a local reporter, please consider responding. It's not long, with just six questions.
Below, you'll find the list of districts we've surveyed and the reporters covering them. With more than 170 municipalities across our core North Jersey counties, we can't cover every race. But we have reached out to candidates in some of the biggest and most hotly contested districts, a list that includes Hackensack and Palisades Park, Wayne and Clifton, Morristown, Sparta, Paramus, Parsippany and others.
We think the voters of North Jersey deserve the opportunity to know where you stand, how you'd seek to change, defend and reform our children's education. If you've received a survey, please reply so we can share your vision. If you have questions, you can reach out to the reporter who contacted you or to me at nussbauma@northjersey.com. It's time. The Nov. 8 election is almost here. Healthy school districts require transparent leaders chosen by an informed electorate. Our communities, parents, teachers and, most importantly, kids deserve nothing less.
Thank you.
Here's the list of districts we're surveying and the reporters handling each one:
Hackensack, Ridgefield Park - Megan Burrow, burrow@northjersey.com
Palisades Park, Rochelle Park - Kristie Cattafi, cattafi@northjersey.com
Hawthorne, Wayne - Philip DeVencentis, devencentis@northjersey.com
Clifton, Lodi - Matt Fagan, fagan@northjersey.com
New Milford, Tenafly, Creskill - Citlalli Godinez, godinez@northjersey.com
Paterson - Joe Malinconico, jmalinconico2002@yahoo.com
Sparta, Morristown - Kyle Morel, kmorel@njherald.com
Paramus, Westwood - Stephanie Noda, noda@northjersey.com
Franklin, Newton - Bruce Scruton, bscruton@njherald.com
Teaneck, Wyckoff, Ramapo Indian Hills - Marsha Stoltz, stoltz@northjersey.com
Parsippany, Randolph - William Westhoven, wwesthoven@gannettnj.com
Ringwood, Pompton Lakes - David Zimmer, zimmer@northjersey.com
Alex Nussbaum is an assignment editor.
Email: nussbauma@northjersey.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey school board candidates can take survey
