The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education election takes place on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Three of nine seats are up for election. Three candidates filed to run by the July deadline and appear on the ballot: Shayna Sackett-Gable, Liz Callahan and Will Meyer. Two candidates, Jeff Bennett and Anthony Mazzocchi, announced a write-in campaign on October 7. Village Green is posting letters of support for all candidates: Deadline for submission is October 31 at 5 p.m. Read our guidelines here. Read all our election coverage here.
Our names are John Hung and Kay Puthaaroon. We are writing to support write-in candidates Jeff Bennett & Tony Mazzocchi for the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education. John is an immigrant from Taiwan while Kay is Thai-American. We have 2 special needs kids at Tuscan. As minorities, we believe in educating our children in an inclusive environment where students with diverse backgrounds & needs are given what they need to thrive. We chose SOMA and still believe this was the right choice.
However, we’re concerned about the district’s future. We’ve seen unprecedented leadership turnover in the last 3 years in key departments, e.g. Equity & Inclusion, Curriculum, Business Administration, Special Education, & Transportation. We’ve seen teachers have to fight for fair
compensation and speak about hazardous facilities that our children learn in (e.g. asbestos and crumbling ceilings).We’ve seen achievement gaps widen and experienced firsthand the struggles that special education families face navigating this district.
This election – and your vote – matters. We need pragmatic leaders who put students first. Jeff and Tony are these leaders. Both have previously served on the board and have the experience needed to tackle the deteriorating situations since they last served. Both have the rare ability to synthesize large amounts of information and collaborate with others to create data-driven, actionable solutions to complex problems.
Jeff has impressed us with his leadership on solving many pressing issues in this district. When he was on the board previously, he successfully lobbied for state legislative reform that helped secure an additional $2 million in state aid for our district. Budget was, and continues to be, the
primary source of the district’s largest issues. We need out of the box problem solvers like Jeff to help us navigate these issues.
Additionally, Jeff’s empathy and technical prowess is valuable in complementing our existing board. Jeff has reached out to many suffering families whose children were chronically and significantly late to school due to ongoing bussing issues. Many of the families most impacted were minorities and special needs families who were bussed the longest distances to balance the diversity formula. Jeff doesn’t just point out problems – he focuses on solving them. He conducted extensive analysis on bussing issues and proactively created concrete proposals to address them. We need this type of solutions-oriented thinking.
We came to know Tony after we spent hours listening to BOE meetings and reading dense budget/policy docs to try to understand the root cause of the district’s challenges. Long before his BOE candidacy, Tony patiently volunteered to help us navigate through dense data to understand the issues.
Beyond his thorough knowledge of our district, Tony has an unwavering commitment to helping students. He has years of experience teaching students from Kindergarten to college and has served on numerous statewide and nationwide educational taskforces. We admire Tony’s
dedication to putting in the hard work to solve tough problems and his laser focus on actionable plans. His ability to cut through the noise is what’s needed to get our district back on track.
Finally, we support Jeff & Tony’s stance in restoring efficacy in the superintendent role asap.
They have the conviction and proven leadership skills to turn things around and deliver what’s best for our students.
We urge everyone to join us in writing-in the names – Jeff Bennett and Tony Mazzocchi, under the “PERSONAL CHOICE” section on the ballot!
John Hung & Kay Puthaaroon
South Orange, NJ
