Eight candidates for three seats on the Princeton Public Schools Board of Education will make their case for election at a virtual candidates forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Princeton Area and Princeton TV Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m.
The forum can be viewed on Comcast Channel 30 (Princeton only) and Verizon FiOS Channel 45. It will be live-streamed on Princeton TV at www.princetontv.org and at www.facebook.com/Princeton Television.
Up for grabs in the Nov. 3 school board election are the seats held by Beth Behrend, Jessica Deutsch and Michelle Tuck-Ponder. Behrend and Tuck-Ponder are seeking re-election to three-year terms. Deutsch is not seeking another term.
Behrend and Tuck-Ponder are being challenged by Adam Bierman, Hendricks S. Davis, Jean Y. Durbin, former school board member Bill Hare, Paul M. Johnson and Karen Lemon.
The virtual forum will duplicate the live forums held by the League of Women Voters of the Princeton Area before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The candidates, who will be divided into two groups, will field questions submitted by voters prior to the forum. Those questions may be submitted by Sept. 27 to the League at lwvprinceton@gmail.com.
The candidates will field questions in three rounds. In each round, a question will be asked of the first group and then a second, related question will be asked of the second group. All candidates may add to, disagree with or comment on any of the responses in that round.
A final question will be posed to the candidates, without the chance for rebuttal. The candidates may offer a closing statement as the 90-minute forum wraps up.
Behrend is seeking her second term on the school board. She has three children, and worked for 20 years as a corporate attorney who advised companies on finances, joint ventures, governance and regulatory matters.
Behrend said the school board will be asked to make decisions that will impact public education for years to come and pointed to the need for continuity on the board. She cited the continued COVID-19 pandemic and related financial crisis, hiring a new superintendent of schools, settling labor contracts and deciding how to accommodate projected enrollment growth.
Bierman, who grew up in Princeton, is a teacher in the state Division of Children and Family Services working with at-risk students in Trenton. He graduated from Princeton High School.
Bierman said steps must be taken to keep Princeton affordable and that the school board must live within its means. The school board has “blindly” supported the administration without asking questions or exploring other options, he said. He pledged to scrutinize all spending requests and to leave no path undiscovered.
Davis has lived in Princeton since 1973. He has no children in the public schools, but he has worked on behalf of students as the executive director of the Princeton Blairstown Center, and with Corner House and the Princeton United Middle School. He is a licensed realtor.
Davis said he wants to serve on the school board because he believes that the school district and the community must work to address the immediate needs and opportunities that come through population growth and affordable housing increases, plus the long-term impacts of the many health, social, environmental and political disruptions that are impacting the community, the state, the nation and the world.
Durbin, who is a 14-year resident of the town, has two children. One son graduated from Princeton High School and her second son is a student at the high school. She leads the contract management program at Princeton University’s Office of Finance and Treasury.
Durbin said her focus would be to hire an experienced superintendent with a track record of advancing the principles of equity, access and inclusion. Every child should have the tools they need to learn and succeed – equal access with equal outcomes. She also wants to focus on planning to seek sustainable sources of revenue and cost savings.
Hare, who served on the school board from 2017 to 2019, has lived in Princeton since 2008. Two of his three children are graduates of Princeton High School, and his third child is enrolled at the high school. He is an attorney who specializes in intellectual property law.
In a second term on the school board, Hare said he would work to reduce the achievement and opportunity gaps between White, Asian and mixed-race students and minority students, such as Blacks, Hispanics and special education and economically disadvantaged students.
He said he would like to make the district more affordable and to provide transparency between the board and taxpayers.
Johnson, who is a fourth-generation Princetonian, has three children enrolled in the Princeton Public Schools – two at the Community Park School and one at Princeton High School. He owns a sports training and mentoring company that specializes in student-athletes.
Johnson said he is running for the school board because he wants to address the issues of equity and equality “head-on.” He said he wants every child to feel that he or she “belongs.” He wants to ensure that the schools remain diverse, the town remains affordable and that there is a feeling of trust and transparency between the school board and the public.
Lemon, who moved to Princeton 10 years ago, has two sons who graduated from high school before the family relocated to Princeton. She retired from AT&T in March, where she was a vice president and general manager responsible for running large corporate IT networks.
Lemon said her biggest concern is that the school board leadership believes in the need for consistency, while she believes there is a need for “strategic and creative leadership” if the goal is to deliver excellent education and for the town to remain affordable. She wants to focus on the achievement of low-income students, Black and Brown students and special needs students, which she said has “stagnated.”
Tuck-Ponder, who has lived in Princeton for 29 years, has two children. One child has graduated from Princeton High School and one attends the Princeton United Middle School. She is the executive director of Destination Imagination, Inc., which is a global creative problem-solving program for young people.
Tuck-Ponder said she is seeking another term on the school board because there is more work to be done in area of equity. Pointing to her background as a mayor of the former Princeton Township, a commissioner on the Princeton Public Housing Authority’s board of commissioners and her position as the only Black member of the school board, she said she brings a unique perspective to the issues confronting the schools.
For voters who may miss the candidates forum, it is being recorded and will be posted at www.VOTE411.org, on the League’s website at www.lwvprinceton.org, the Princeton TV website and on facebook.com/lwvprinceton. It will also be re-broadcast on Princeton Community TV.
