The South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education election takes place on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Three of nine seats come up for election each year. 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 profiles for each candidate. The following profile was submitted by Anthony Mazzocchi. Read our 2023 election guidelines here.
Anthony Mazzocchi
Biography
Tony grew up in Maplewood and attended Tuscan, Maplewood Middle, and Columbia High School. It is his public school experience in SOMSD that set him up for a successful life steeped in the arts and leadership. As well as serving as SOMSD’s Supervisor of Fine and Performing Arts from 2010-2013, he served on the SOMSD BOE from 2018-2020 after running on an arts and creative subjects platform to address many issues plaguing our schools.
A consummate educator, Anthony Mazzocchi has taught students from Kindergarten through college and has served as a consultant for a variety of organizations throughout the nation. Tony has served as faculty and frequent guest lecturer at The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and Mannes College of Music. He recently served on a NJ State Taskforce for reopening schools and arts organizations during COVID, collaborating on the “September Ready” document that was utilized nationally. Tony led a nationally recognized safe in-person reopening of a university school in Fall 2020. He is currently on a national taskforce to solve issues around our national teacher shortage, and is on the board of directors of Equity Arc — a coalition charged by its diverse membership of local and national organizations to align, promote, and develop equitable opportunities for aspiring classical musicians from underrepresented ethnicities.
A GRAMMY® nominated music educator, Tony has performed with symphonies across the nation and on Broadway and movie soundtracks. His TEDx talk about how a trombone choir can teach the world about collaboration can be found here.
Tony currently serves as Director of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University and Executive Director of Kinhaven Music School in Vermont.
Tony has two children; an 8th grade daughter at MMS, and a son who is a senior at CHS.
Platform (with Jeff Bennett)
A Strong Operational Leader for the District
As former BOE members, Tony and Jeff have firsthand knowledge of how running a large and complex district like SOMSD is not an easy task. However, they have observed ongoing instability and missteps with critical initiatives like re-opening safely during COVID, implementation of the III, management of the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP), and how our back-to-school process has suffered from deep operational missteps. One of the critical responsibilities of the BOE is to hire and manage their one employee, the Superintendent. Tony and Jeff want all community members to be aware that the Superintendent’s contract is up for renewal in 2024, and the incoming BOE will be responsible for making the decision to renew or non-renew. Tony and Jeff both served with multiple SOMSD Superintendents (Tony also as an employee). Before hiring Dr. Taylor, the BOE that Tony served on, arranged something unprecedented — they “cleared the deck” so that interims occupied virtually every leadership position in the central office. This allowed the next Superintendent to “pick their own team” in their own image — few professionals get a chance like that in their professional lives. Since Dr. Taylor took on the role, we have experienced unprecedented turnover of other senior leadership administrators and the most lawsuit exposure — many upper admin positions have turned over twice. They will do their due diligence to evaluate the Superintendent’s performance, making thoughtful and researched decisions.
Student and Community Centric Policies, with a Focus on Successful III Implementation
Tony and Jeff will not support Board policies that are driven by adult-centric agendas that lack empathy, proper planning, and without a clear vision and desired outcomes clearly defined. Tony and Jeff’s agenda is solely to promote student-centric, K-12 education policies that drive impact without creating instability or hardships. In the near term, their focus will be on ensuring transportation policies are effectively implemented for the III. They are committed to the Intentional Integration Initiative (III) and they will make it a priority to hold the Superintendent accountable for restoring adequate and fair bussing, without putting massive stress on taxpayers, and ensuring that our kids are getting to school safely and on time. They will responsibly explore policy enhancements, using the Berkeley model and yet unfulfilled recommendations from our consultant (The Alves Group), including transfers, which will continue to improve outcomes and increase advocacy for the III.
Student Outcomes
Our students are this district’s greatest assets and strength. Tony and Jeff believe the BOE must drive accountability around student outcomes and will seek to do that in two ways. First, through effective use of data. With Jeff’s acumen in data analysis, he will re-frame the data committee into an impactful arm of the BOE, positioned to hold the district accountable for data collection, analysis, and transparent reporting with a higher degree of excellence. Second, they will ensure the district delivers on its commitments, as dictated by law, toward the Black Parents Workshop settlement agreement, which (along with NJQSAC) offers a key framework for accountability. They will work to ensure the district finally fulfills Dr. Fergus’s recommendations – strengthening our curriculum, ensuring our broken interventions and support systems (I&RS) are consistent and stable, and that they are promoting a culture/climate where both students and teachers feel they can thrive. Tony & Jeff believe these recommendations will not only improve outcomes for students of color but also our often-overlooked Special Education students, and all students generally. Tony & Jeff support a broad, rich curriculum steeped in the arts and creative subjects, and believe in its power to transform lives and help close the achievement gap if expanded, especially at the K-5 level.
Fiscal Responsibility and Oversight
Tony and Jeff believe there should be more rigor in the budget development process and that ongoing budget management is key to addressing pressing issues like teacher attrition, as well as support our key district priorities. They believe the District should seek out additional revenue sources beyond having taxpayers shoulder the burden for the district’s missteps around bussing and the LRFP. Jeff is a state aid expert and successful activist in state funding and other avenues of revenue generation while Tony has had firsthand experience on the Financial, Facilities & Technology (FFT) Committee, having collaborated with the District’s former Superintendent (Dr. Ficarra) to bring the school budget from being ‘on a fiscal cliff’ to being able to fund key SOMSD initiatives while increasing SOMSD reserve balances.
Improved Board and Community Relations
Tony and Jeff have both been successful in driving impact through collaboration with BOE colleagues offering differing points of view. They will bring their skills and experiences to a BOE that sorely needs to work better together. Tony and Jeff believe that empathy led, collaborative, transparent, and frequent communication is a vehicle by which both board relations and the district’s relations with the community can be improved. They will make this a priority in their collective work.
