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.
I enthusiastically endorse Jeff Bennett and Tony Mazzocchi for the Board of Education.
I have been a resident of South Orange since the 2022-23 school year. I met Jeff shortly after we moved, when our kindergartener was placed into an elementary school across town through the III. We live across the street from our nearest elementary school – we had no friends/neighbors going to our elementary school and we did not receive a bus because we were under 2 miles from our assigned school. At the time, Jeff listened carefully, and expressed his empathy with our logistically challenging situation. Throughout the year, I witnessed Jeff’s thoughtful research as well as practical and actionable recommendations on how to fix things.
Jeff takes both a bottoms up and tops down approach. He has spoken with many families in difficult situations in order to have a holistic view of what is and isn’t working. He has also analyzed data to understand how to fix the difficulties in the III so that it could work “in real life” for families. Jeff educated us about many aspects of what was happening, which provided us the context to fully understand the issues. He told us that even if we were to receive a bus this school year, the route would be difficult because we lived far from other kids that attend the same elementary school.
Thanks to Jeff’s advocacy as a passionate board watcher who spoke at BOE meetings during Public Speaks, we received a bus this year. And, we learned just how prescient Jeff was when he said the route would be difficult to accomplish. In our 9 weeks of school, our bus has never arrived to school on time. Jeff’s empathy and pragmatism are what our school district needs. Jeff has come up with a number of real, implementable solutions, and has written about them in detail here:
2021-22 Kindergarten Placement Data
Round One 2022-23 Kindergarten Placement Analysis
Both Jeff and Tony have prior experience on the BOE, so they can hit the ground running when they take their seats.
After our commuting situation did not resolve this year, I became more attuned to the many other issues confronted by the school system. I became aware that families are choosing to leave our public school system. As a fierce advocate for equity, diversity and public education, having witnessed Jeff and Tony in action, and seeing them take definitive stances, I feel confident knowing that a vote for them is a vote for empathetic and pragmatic solutions to these urgent issues.
Sarah Kishinevsky, PhD
South Orange
