SCHOOL BOARD CONTEST: Four newcomers, competing in the November 8 election for three seats with three-year terms on the Princeton Public Schools Board of Education, squared off in a public forum last week, sponsored by the League of Women Voters (LWV). Hopefuls are (L to R) Debbie Bronfeld, William Hare, Alex Martin, and Gregory Stankiewicz, with Karen Siracusa (on left, standing) moderating for the LWV. (Photo courtesy of Princeton Community Television)
With a range of financial, academic and philosophical issues on the table, and a teacher contract to be negotiated in early 2018, four Princeton residentsСDebbie Bronfeld, William Hare, Alex Martin, and Gregory StankiewiczСare competing for three open seats in Princeton School Board elections on November 8.
The four newcomers are seeking to replace outgoing board members Molly Chrein, Tom Hagedorn, and current board president Andrea Spalla, who will be stepping down when their terms expire at the end of this year.
The candidates, who bring a range of backgrounds and experiences to the contest, have all expressed concerns about maintaining and improving the high quality of education in Princeton Public Schools (PPS) in the face of an expanding student population and serious tax and budgetary constraints.
At a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters last Thursday evening at Monument Hall, all expressed a strong desire for open, accessible communication among the Board and the various stakeholders in the schools and community.
Debby Brookfield
Ms. Bronfeld, 55, is the mother of two sons who have gone through the PPS, from Littlebrook to John Witherspoon (JW) to Princeton High School (PHS). One son graduated from PHS in 2015 and the other is a junior. Currently a Program Associate at the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, she has an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and an MBA from Babson College. She has worked for about 20 years in corporate positions and for the last ten in the non-profit sector. Living on Dodds Lane since 1998 with her sons and her husband, who is head of pharmaceutical development IT at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ms. Bronfeld has done extensive volunteer work with the PTO at Littlebrook, JW and PHS over the years.
Her desire to run for the Board emerged after she started to attend Board meetings about two years ago. “One of the most important skills I have developed from my experiences is the ability to listen to others and appreciate points of view that differ from mine,” she said. “I have worked on many teams, both professionally and non-professionally.”
Citing increased enrollment, the need “to close the opportunity gap,” and upcoming negotiations as the most important challenges facing the PPS, Ms. Bronfeld expressed her commitment “to preserve our educational excellence by having a strategic plan, rather than reacting to each crisis.”
She emphasized the importance of starting contract negotiations by next spring, in order “to make sure we’re hearing all positions, and we’re doing it early so we’re not jeopardizing the quality of education for the students.”
In additional comments, Ms. Bronfeld expressed her opposition to the PARCC tests—her son opted out last spring—and support for the current Princeton Board’s appeals to the State. “We spent too much time and money on it, an expensive adventure by a testing company,”she said.
William Hare
Mr. Hare, 53, is a patent attorney focusing on generic drugs with a son in seventh grade at Princeton Charter School (PCS), a daughter in ninth grade at PHS and a son in eleventh grade at PHS. All three children attended the Princeton French School before entering PCS. Growing up in Clemson, South Carolina, Mr. Hare received a BS in chemical engineering and an MS in bioengineering from Clemson University, then a law degree from University of Houston and an MS in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins. He has worked in various jobs in medical research, engineering and law. Mr. Hare, with his wife, currently completing her doctors of nurse practitioner degree at Rutgers, and three children, moved to Princeton in 2008, and they have lived on Jefferson Road since 2009.
Noting that his top priorities for PPS are ”academic integrity” and “fiscal balance,” Mr. Hare stated, “We will need to be creative in how we handle the finances in responding to expanding enrollments. Our kids are the most important part of our lives, so we want to give them the best schools money can buy, but we need to be able to afford for our property taxes to stay here.”
Mr. Hare suggested that the contract negotiations process “needs to be more open,so that residents know what the fight is over and know who they should be upset with or not upset with.” Pursuing his concern for fiscal balance, Mr. Hare asked, “How can we give the teachers the income they need and want so that they know they are valued?” But, he added, “Every time the taxes go up somebody can no longer afford to live here.”
Explaining that his children all originally went to PCS in order to be able to continue their study of French in the elementary grades, he stated that they “had a great experience there” and that he’d like to see more communication between the charter school and the other elementary and middle schools so that each could learn from the other. “What are they doing right that we could learn from?”
Alex Martin
Mr. Martin, 49, the CEO of PuriCore, a small biotech company, studied government at Cornell and received his MBA from Harvard. He and his wife, a gynecologist who founded Women’s Healthcare of Princeton, moved to Hun Road in Princeton in 2007 with their four children, who have attended Johnson Park, PCS and PHS. Their oldest son graduated from PHS in 2015, and they now have sons in the senior and sophomore classes and a daughter in the eighth grade at PCS.
Describing managing change and paying for change as top priorities, Mr. Martin stated, “I would address both of these challenges by looking to best practices nationwide. There are lots of great ideas out there. Effecting change is not easy,but I have worked my professional life to bring positive change to the organizations where I have worked and look forward to working with interested parties to do the same at PPS.”
He cited his experience on multiple boards over the years and his understanding of “the role a board can play in helping shape and drive positive change.” He pointed out that “having four children going through PHS gives me additional ‘real-time’ data on where there are strengths and where there may be room for improvement.”
Mr. Martin mentioned an endowment for the public schools as one idea that could help reduce tax burdens and also the possibility of modifying curriculums to reduce academic pressure.
On the subject of the Charter School, Mr. Martin said, “There should be a positive, healthy and strong relationship between the schools. There should not be a bad relationship. There is a lot we can learn from every other school.”
Gregory Stankiewicz
Mr. Stankiewicz, 53, currently self-employed, recently served as chief operating officer for a nonprofit community development financial institution and previously worked for six years for the New Jersey Office of Management and Budget. He received undergraduate and masters degrees from Harvard University, a graduate diploma in international law from the Australian national university and a masters and PhD in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
He and his wife, a professor of public policy at the Bloustein School at Rutgers, and their daughter, a PHS ninth grader, live on Jefferson Road. Their daughter attended Community Park (CP), then PCS for two and a half years before returning to CP, then going on to JW.
“The organizing theme throughout my career has been an emphasis on the effective,” Mr.Stankiewicz stated. Working together with administrators, teachers and staff, parents and students and community residents to maintain “the quality of our Princeton public schools in the face of economic and political threats to public education” would be Mr. Stankiewicz’s top priority, he said, noting his “combination of experience and skills that will help me make a contribution.”
Mr. Stankiewicz, whose wife is one of the co-founders of Save Our Schools New Jersey, praised the District for “highlighting the State’s misguided efforts at trying to force acceptance of the PARCC exam as a new high school graduation requirement,” and emphasized the importance of the District’s efforts to provide “a broad curriculum for all our students,rather than focusing narrowly on core skills.”
He also noted the important challenges of collaborating on “the best means of increasing our school capacity in response to the growth in our neighborhoods and downtown” and “protecting the District’s nationally-recognized efforts at promoting inclusion and equity.”
Mr. Stankiewicz went on to pledge to the voters that he would be “as accessible to each of you as possible, while insisting on the need for transparency in, and local control over, our public schools.” He criticized the state government’s underfunding of schools in Princeton and throughout the state, and described Princeton as ”an incredible school district.”