We’ve seen real signs of progress this past year – most notably, the return of a collaborative spirit to the Board of Education. This change has made it possible to begin tackling long-standing challenges with focus and transparency. Early steps have been taken to address the findings raised in the long-overdue Special Education audit, and work on the recommendations coming out of the Access & Equity audit are moving forward through the Rutgers Implementation Committee, with some initial progress already visible. There is still much to be done, but we are committed to continuing this essential effort under the Superintendent’s leadership.

We’ve also seen improved communication with the community and greater transparency around district finances, including the establishment of the Budget Advisory Committee, which two of us are proud to serve on. However, we recognize that this work is incomplete. The findings must still be shared with the broader community, and we must take responsibility for ensuring that past fiscal missteps are not repeated. That means clearly explaining how we got here, and identifying the innovative, forward-thinking measures needed to overcome our current structural deficit.

The District is finally beginning to acknowledge the depth of the problem – and the need for real problem-solving. It's time to move from talk to action, particularly when it comes to building meaningful public-private partnerships and pursuing sustainable financial strategies.

• Partnering with the Superintendent to build the structures and systems necessary for long-term success.

• Continuing to implement the recommendations from the Access & Equity audit to close gaps in student opportunity and achievement.

• Using findings from the Special Education audits to help our teachers and better serve all learners.

• Strengthening family and community engagement through transparency, consistent communication and increased outreach.

• Continuing a collaborative Board culture that values respectful debate and models integrity, curiosity, and care.

• Advocating for a district that reflects and teaches the values of equity, inclusion, and respect for all.

• Celebrating the diversity that makes our community strong and ensuring it is reflected in our schools.

• Fostering open and inclusive communication where all voices – students, families, educators, and staff – are heard.

• Strengthening partnerships between schools, families, and community organizations.

• Creating a supportive environment where every student feels seen, valued, and empowered to succeed.

• Promoting transparent dialogue and responsive leadership to build trust and accountability.

We are entering one of the most financially challenging moments in our district’s history. After a turbulent 2024-25 budget cycle that saw 28 staff positions eliminated and a 35% cut to materials and textbooks, the district has survived another year only by gutting maintenance and capital reserve accounts – a short-term solution that pushes greater risks into the future.

While a 6% increase in state aid for 2025–26 is welcome, it doesn’t erase the broader context: a structural deficit approaching $10 million, soaring health benefit costs, and uncertainty around federal funding. This is not sustainable – and it demands an honest reckoning with how we got here, what we must do now, and where we want to go.

We were encouraged by the district’s decision to create a Budget Advisory Committee and to open it to community applicants. Out of more than 100 applicants, Ashley and Ashwat were among those selected to serve – and their participation provided critical insights during a difficult process. They were chosen to return to the committee this year, but this information should not be reserved for a select few. The community deserves full transparency, year-round engagement, and access to the tools and context needed to understand our district’s finances. We’re committed to building out the information infrastructure to make this possible – and to ensure that this level of fiscal crisis is never allowed to creep up unnoticed by our community again.

We believe budgeting should be collaborative, student-centered, and grounded in values. It’s not enough to simply “balance the books” – every dollar must reflect a commitment to strong schools, equitable access, and responsible long-term planning.

We are committed to protecting the classroom, advocating for equity, and ensuring that families not only understand how the budget works – but are empowered to shape it.

Key Focus Areas

1. Protect the Classroom, Prioritize Equity: We oppose cost-saving measures that disproportionately impact our most vulnerable students, like the recent proposal to move away from the K-5 In-Class Resource/Support (ICRS) full co-teaching model which has been successful in supporting both students and teachers. Equity is not an optional line item – it's the foundation of a healthy school system. We will fight to keep support staff in classrooms, maintain inclusion programs, and ensure every child receives the resources they need to thrive.

2. Build Multi-Year Sustainability: We support the administration’s move toward multi-year budget planning. After depleting maintenance and capital reserves just to make it through this year, we can no longer delay hard decisions. We must reassess contracts, explore public-private partnerships, pursue external funding, and align spending with a clear long-term vision that balances short-term needs with long-term viability.

3. Open the Books to the Public: Budgets are moral documents – and they belong to the public. We believe it’s time to go beyond small advisory groups and build a true infrastructure of transparency: publicly accessible summaries, real-time updates, plain-language explanations, and community forums. Transparency isn’t a gesture – it’s a system. We are committed to making that system real and permanent.

Teachers are the heart of our district. They shape our children’s academic and emotional lives – and when we fail to support them, students lose the most. Over the past year, many educators in SOMSD have felt dismissed, disconnected, and demoralized. The result has been painful: talented, dedicated teachers have left, and others are questioning whether they can stay.

We were pleased to see the Board reach a fair contract agreement with SOMEA – though the process was all too lengthy and needlessly fraught. With new negotiations on the horizon during our term if elected, we believe now is the time to build a more efficient, transparent, and collaborative approach.

Supporting teachers isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s essential to student success. If elected, we are committed to restoring trust, honoring professionalism, and ensuring SOMSD remains a place where great teachers want to teach. That means:

• Engaging educators early in decisions that affect their work.

• Creating meaningful opportunities for professional growth.

• Ensuring compensation reflects the true value of their contributions.

We owe it to our teachers and our students to do better – and we will.

Our Commitment

1. Teacher Engagement and Voice: Teachers must be at the table – not after the fact, but from the start – when it comes to creating, implementing, and reviewing policies. The Board must open clearer, more direct lines of communication with educators, including regular feedback loops and climate surveys that inform real decisions. Rebuilding trust means listening first, acting with integrity, and owning mistakes. That’s how we reduce attrition – and build a workplace rooted in respect.

2. Purposeful Professional Development: PD should empower, not burden. We will advocate for teacher-driven professional learning that addresses real classroom challenges, supports restorative practices, and reflects the daily reality of SOMSD educators. Educators must help shape the training they receive – not be passive recipients of top-down mandates.

3. Competitive, Fair Compensation: We must prioritize a budget that enables competitive salaries and benefits - not just to attract top educators, but to keep the great ones we already have. We will closely monitor comparative salary trends and support responsible budget planning that keeps us ahead – not behind – of our peer districts. We hope the contract with SOMEA marks a shift toward a consistent, good-faith approach to labor relations – one that honors the professionalism of our educators and keeps the lines of communication open year-round.

As we continue to implement the Intentional Integration Initiative (III), we must never lose sight of what matters most: the well-being and outcomes of our students. Integration is a vital equity goal – and so is the need for policies that honor family realities, reduce unnecessary stress, and prioritize what’s happening in classrooms every single day.

To that end, we continue to retain a consultant with deep expertise in school integration to help us optimize the III year over year. This professional has consistently provided thoughtful, data-informed recommendations, and we believe we should follow the advice of the experts we’ve hired. We strongly believe that championing diversity means responding to ever-evolving demographics, data, and budgetary realities with intention and care.

We also support the Board working collaboratively with the District on potential modifications to increase the district’s placement variance – creating more flexibility for hardship transfers and enabling more children to attend school closer to home. When done transparently and equitably, this is not a step backward in integration – it’s a step forward in responsiveness.

Finally, we believe it's time to revisit and clarify the metrics of success that will guide this work moving forward. Simply moving students around does not, on its own, achieve integration. True integration requires equipping teachers with the professional development they need and ensuring that students are fully supported once they arrive in their new schools. Only by defining our shared goals can we ensure the III continues to reflect our true north: an inclusive, equitable, and thriving school community for all students.

Key Focus Areas

1. Support District in implementation of Hardship Transfer Process:

• We support clearer and more accessible hardship transfer policies that recognize complex family circumstances, including childcare challenges, work schedules, and student social-emotional needs.

• Families should never feel punished for seeking a better fit. Transparency, empathy, and dignity must guide every placement decision.

2. Increase Variance* to Reflect Community Realities:

• The current narrow variance* limits have led to rigid placements, long bus rides, and neighborhood disconnection. Increasing variance*, as recently discussed by the Board, would allow more common-sense placements – especially in schools with space and staffing capacity.

• An analysis from The Alves Group, the District’s Intentional Integration Consultant, confirmed that increasing the variance* from 5% to 7.5% or 10% did not significantly affect placement outcomes, racial balance, or distance to school. This shows that slightly higher variance* will still meet integration goals while also giving families greater flexibility and stability.

*What “variance” means in the integration plan
In plain terms, the district is making sure that every school looks like the district as a whole when it comes to family socioeconomic status (SES) levels. No school can be more than 5 percentage points higher or lower than the district average.

For example: if about 35% of all students in the district are middle-SES, then each school's middle-SES enrollment would have to be between 30% and 40%.

This keeps schools balanced so that no one school has too many or too few students from a particular SES group.

3. Refocus on the Classroom: Our integration initiative must be matched with deep investment in what happens once students arrive at school. That means:

• A renewed commitment to academic outcomes across all elementary schools.

• Real instructional support for teachers – especially in classrooms serving a broader range of learners.

• Ongoing evaluation of curriculum effectiveness, intervention strategies, and learning conditions at every school.

4. Equity with Accountability: Equity isn’t just about placement – it’s about what supports follow the student. We will advocate for robust data monitoring, disaggregated by school and demographic group, to ensure that all students are thriving – not just being placed.

Our school buildings tell a story. For too long, that story has included broken ceilings, leaky roofs, unreliable HVAC, and classrooms that don’t reflect the pride we have in our students or educators. That must change.

The District is now entering the early phases of Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) – a critical step in assessing what still needs attention after the recent capital bond improvements. While some progress has been made, decades of deferred maintenance remain, and some long-promised projects have yet to begin.

This moment calls for board members who are fiscally responsible, equity-focused, and deeply grounded in student needs. Facilities aren’t just brick and mortar – they are where students should feel safe and secure, allowing creativity and opportunity to come to life.

Our Commitment

1. Complete Outstanding Capital Projects: We will push to prioritize long-delayed maintenance and renovation efforts – especially those that directly impact health, safety, and instructional space.

2. Plan Wisely for LRFP: We support a transparent and data-informed approach to LRFP, including input from facilities staff, educators, families, and community stakeholders. Equity must guide decision-making: every student, regardless of school assignment, deserves a clean, functional, and inspiring environment.

3. Fiscal Responsibility with Student Impact at the Center: Capital investments must be aligned with educational outcomes and classroom needs, not just cosmetic upgrades. We’ll ensure that every dollar spent on facilities is spent with long-term value and student benefit in mind.

4. Advocate for Safe, Inspiring Spaces: Our students deserve more than functioning spaces – they deserve environments that spark learning, support mental well-being, and reflect the high expectations we have for them. That includes adequate arts, athletics, and support service spaces – not just core classrooms.

Athletics are more than games—they build teamwork, resilience, and school pride. Yet, too often, our students face inequitable access to safe, high-quality facilities and opportunities. We believe athletics must reflect the same values of excellence and equity that we expect in our classrooms.

Key Focus Areas

• Expanding Opportunities: Support the District Athletic Director’s initiative to introduce middle school sports, giving students earlier access to the benefits of team participation, skill-building, and community.

• Ensuring Equity: Address inequities in resources and field access for girls’ teams, ensuring fairness across all sports programs so every student athlete feels valued and supported.

• Investing in Facilities: Install all-weather sports fields at Columbia High School’s Ritzer Field—aligning with three prior Boards of Education who voted to move this work forward—and complete overdue upgrades across the district so students have safe, reliable spaces to practice and compete.

•Building Community: Strengthen partnerships among community groups, local leagues, and school athletics to share resources and grow support for all student athletes.

The removal of district-owned transportation and our bus fleet was a short-sighted decision that has seriously disrupted families and strained our finances. The ripple effects have been clear: long bus rides, missed instructional time, family stress, and a system stretched too thin.

As candidates who approach financial decisions with a long-term lens, we are committed to avoiding choices that handcuff the district for years to come. Sound fiscal strategy means investing in systems that work – not kicking costs down the road and leaving families to pick up the pieces.

We believe transportation is more than logistics – it’s the bridge between home and school. If students and families cannot rely on safe, predictable, and respectful transportation, everything else suffers.

Our Commitment

1. Prioritize Student Safety & Well-Being: Transportation is not just about getting students from Point A to Point B – it’s about ensuring they arrive safely, calmly, and ready to learn. We support the Superintendent’s focus on adding monitors to buses, shadowing routes, and holding vendors accountable to guarantee both physical and emotional safety for every rider.

2. Strengthen Accountability with Vendors: We cannot afford a repeat of the 2024-25 school year. Contracts must be monitored and evaluated, with clear performance benchmarks, strict enforcement of obligations, and transparent reporting to families. When vendors underperform, the district must act swiftly to protect students and restore trust.

3. Improve Efficiency & Communication: Families deserve reliability and clarity. That means:

• Smarter routing to shorten ride times.

• Consistent communication so parents know when delays happen.

• Dedicated staffing in the transportation office during peak times to ensure families get real answers, not voicemails.

We support the district’s recent steps to split routes and enhance dispatcher communication, and we will push to ensure these fixes become permanent, proactive solutions – not temporary patches.

As we face a historic budget crisis and an accelerating shift in how knowledge and skills are valued – driven by the rise of artificial intelligence – we must reimagine public education to be both academically rigorous and creatively relevant. Our focus must now include not just what students learn, but how and why they learn it, a future-ready school district.

Key Focus Areas

• Restoring Rigor and Purpose Across Classrooms: All students, regardless of course level, must be challenged and supported. High expectations and meaningful content should be non-negotiable. As AI begins to perform routine tasks, our role is to ensure students are mastering the human skills that matter most: problem-solving, innovation, communication, critical thinking and ethical reasoning.

• Rebuilding and Reinventing Special Education: With a new Assistant Superintendent of Special Services and a completed audit, we have an opportunity to not only fix what’s broken, but build a special education system that leads with inclusion, responsiveness, and excellence.

• Reinvigorating Gifted and Talented Education: In a time when creativity and original thinking are more important than ever, we must stop sidelining gifted education. A transparent, well-designed G&T program that corrects the errors of past efforts can serve as a model for advanced instruction and help close achievement gaps by identifying and nurturing underrepresented talent.

• Expanding Career & Technical Education (CTE) Through Partnerships: CTE is no longer optional – it’s essential. These programs open doors for students whose strengths lie outside traditional academics and prepare them for careers that AI cannot easily replicate. We must urgently pursue grants, business partnerships, and nonprofit collaborations to grow these offerings while protecting our strained budget.

• Building a Network of Public-Private Collaborations: We must actively seek partnerships with arts organizations, tech companies, labor unions, cultural institutions, and universities to bring in expertise, mentorship, and funding. These relationships can help us build programming that is relevant, diverse, and affordable.

• Enhance Communication with Families: Building on the progress made by the current Board, we aim to continue improving communication between school leadership and families. By setting clear expectations for timely and effective responses from school administrators, we can ensure that issues are addressed efficiently, strengthen trust between parents and school leadership, and reduce the need to escalate concerns to the Superintendent.

• Design Inclusive, Community-Wide Feedback Loops: Building on the current Board’s commitment to equity and transparency, we will ensure that surveys and focus groups are thoughtfully designed to reflect the experiences of all stakeholders - not just the most vocal. This includes intentional outreach to families, teachers, and students, and refining tools like the Intentional Integration Initiative’s “Experience Survey” to gather meaningful input on issues such as transportation, school hours, and social connections. By centering diverse perspectives, we can make more informed, responsive decisions.

We want a District that champions academic excellence and protects and elevates the arts. Academics, sports, and the arts should never be an either/or proposition. Yet, with the impending fiscal cliff and recent cuts to arts programs, the creative subjects that enrich and define our students’ education are at serious risk.

In a time when artificial intelligence and technology pose new challenges to the way we teach and learn, the arts are not part of the problem—they are part of the solution. Creativity, critical thinking, empathy, and collaboration are exactly the skills students need to thrive in a changing world. It is imperative that we lift up these subjects, not diminish them.

To create a truly well-rounded educational experience, we must invest in our arts programs, ensuring that students have access to high-quality opportunities in all areas of their development.

Key Focus Areas

• Reinvesting in the Arts During a Fiscal Crisis: The arts are often the first to be cut, even though they play a critical role in fostering creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and joy. They are linked to improved outcomes in literacy and math, yet our district spends only $6–$12 per student on arts and music per year. With looming budget shortfalls, we must commit to protecting these programs instead of allowing them to be disproportionately targeted.

• Using the Arts to Elevate the District: Rather than stunting our arts programs, we should leverage them as a strength to position SOMSD as a model of creativity and innovation. By aligning arts funding with the values of our diverse and vibrant community, we can demonstrate to students, families, and neighboring districts that we are committed to educating the whole child—mind, body, and spirit.

• Exploring Public-Private Partnerships to Sustain the Arts: A creative solution to preserve and expand opportunities is forging partnerships with community institutions like the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC). A district-SOPAC collaboration could lift up all students by providing access to professional venues, artists, and resources while simultaneously strengthening an important local cultural nonprofit. Such partnerships ensure that the arts remain vibrant and accessible to every student, even in the face of financial challenges.