20-year Paterson school board veteran Jonathan Hodges appears headed for defeat
PATERSON — The city’s longest-serving school board member — 20-year incumbent Jonathan Hodges — is headed for defeat in a jumbled and unfinished Board of Education election in which the current top vote-getter avoided local candidate forums.
With votes counted from all of Paterson’s six in-person polling sites, Hodges sits in sixth place in a nine-person contest for three school board seats.
The candidate currently in first place, Mohammed Rashid, was backed by a coalition of City Council members allied with Mayor Andre Sayegh, along with key figures in the Passaic County Democratic Party and a Washington-based super PAC that produced a flurry of mailings attacking recent Paterson school tax increases.
Education activists said they have never seen Rashid at a Paterson school board meeting. Rashid could not be reached for comment for this story. His supporters proclaimed his victory on his Facebook page.
The candidate in second place, 12-year school board veteran Kenneth Simmons, is holding off on any celebrations until after the results become official. But political observers said they think Simmons is secure in winning reelection.
Things start getting messy in the battle for the third seat.
Corey Teague, a social justice activist and former board member, is clinging to third place, with a 14-vote edge over another former board member, Vincent Arrington. Political insiders said there’s a chance the man now in fifth place, former board member Joel Ramirez, could leapfrog Arrington and Teague to win a seat when all the votes are counted.
Where do the candidates stand?
The latest tallies, which were issued Wednesday morning, do not include all the mail-in and provisional ballots that were cast in the race. Those may not be counted for another week or two, officials said.
Here are the latest numbers:
Mohammed Rashid: 2,463
Kenneth Simmons (i): 2,444
Corey Teague: 2,259
Vincent Arrington: 2,245
Joel Ramirez: 2,169
Jonathan Hodges (i): 2,129
Flavio Rivera: 2,083
Dania Martinez (i): 1,458
Akkheem Dunham: 545
Those numbers seem to reflect the type of situation Hodges warned about in 2013, when the Paterson Board of Education decided to move its elections from April to November. At the time, Hodges predicted that city school elections would become contests in which politics trumped education issues.
Before the votes were tallied: Paterson’s school board election battle includes seven current and former board members
A surrogate battle between Benjie Wimberly and Andre Sayegh?
In many ways, the 2023 city school election became a surrogate battle between Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly and Sayegh. The same political figures who backed Rashid also supported Ramirez and Rivera. Meanwhile, Wimberly endorsed Simmons, Arrington and Martinez.
“I ran a campaign about education issues,” Hodges said. “I’m not worried about losing, it doesn’t hurt me. I’m an old man. I’ve reached that point in time where it’s OK.
Hodges said he is concerned about Paterson's children. "They need people who are going to care about their education,” he said.
Hodges said Rashid, Ramirez and Rivera didn’t attend the candidates forums. He noted that the campaign literature supporting them emphasized taxes.
“You saw the flyers that came out, did they say anything about education?” Hodges asked. “Did they have any ideas for improving education?”
Some of Rashid’s campaign literature included the slogan, “Every student matters.” On his Facebook page, he listed among his qualifications his accounting degree from a university in Bangladesh, his experience as a substitute teacher in Paterson and his current employment as an account in the city government’s economic development department.
Rashid said on his social media that he wants to expand social and emotional support services in city schools, improve access to mental health programs, “create more opportunities for college and career choices,” and build relationships between the district and academic institutions.
One of Rashid’s strongest supporters was Paterson’s 6th Ward councilman, Al Abdelaziz, a key figure in the local Democratic Party.
“The guy values education and he knows the struggles that immigrant families go through,” Abdelaziz said of Rashid.
The councilman said Rashid would be good for Paterson’s taxpayers because he will be “fiscally responsible.”
“This is a big win for the city,” Abdelaziz said.
Rashid stands to become the first Bangladeshi candidate and second Muslim to win a school board seat in Paterson. His vote totals were particularly strong in the city’s 2nd and 6th wards, Paterson’s most heavily Islamic sections.
'Just glad to be in the mix'
Meanwhile, Teague — who had won two school elections and lost two others during the past 12 years – said he’s not sure whether he will hold on to the third board seat.
“I’m just glad to be in the mix,” Teague said. “It’s a good showing.”
Teague said he spent maybe $20 on his election, making copies of flyers at the Paterson library. His opponents, Teague said, had tens of thousands of dollars at their disposal.
“You would think I’d get squashed and left down at the bottom,” Teague said.
Arrington said he was “cautiously optimistic” about his changes of jumping into third place, but said it’s hard to tell what the mail-in and provisional ballots will bring.
“Corey ran a great campaign,” Arrington said of Teague. “I know he’s passionate about the children and will do a great job if he gets in.”
Rivera, who like Rashid had been backed by campaign mailing attacking school tax increases, said he doesn’t expect to rebound from his current spot in seventh place.
“There’s not a big gap between third and seventh,” Rivera said. “But being realistic, there’s other people ahead of me.”
Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com
More: Paterson’s school board election battle includes seven current and former board members
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ: school board race
