School board seats will be uncontested in Princeton and Montgomery.
By: Jeff Milgram
West Windsor-Plainsboro’s emotional school configuration debate will most likely get a replay during the school board election campaign.
All three candidates for West Windsor’s two seats, Hemant Marathe of Clarendon Court, Diane W. Hasling of Jacob Drive and Jeanne Naglak of Hamilton Drive, supported the rejected K-5 plan.
And Michele Epstein of Blossom Hill Drive, a candidate for Plainsboro’s open seat, also supported the K-5 configuration.
The elections for the Princeton Regional and Montgomery Township school boards will be boring by contrast. Both are uncontested.
Monday was the deadline for candidates to file nominating petitions for the school board elections, scheduled for April 17.
In Princeton, school board President Charlotte Bialek of Jefferson Road, who is guiding the district’s through a $78 million renovation and expansion project, and board member Howard Wainer of Governors Lane, a senior analyst at Educational Testing Service, are running for re-election to their second three-year seats from Princeton Township. They are unopposed.
Alan Hegedus of Armour Road, a former business executive who ran as a Republican for Borough Council two years ago and is still active in civic groups, is the only candidate running for the one, three-year Princeton Borough seat vacated by board member Walter Frank, who decided not to see re-election.
In the West Windsor-Plainsboro district, the Regional Board of Education narrowly approved the administration’s recommendation last October on elementary school grade configuration, reversing the district’s long-range commitment to a kindergarten-to-fifth-grade configuration.
In a 5-4 vote, the board endorsed Superintendent John Fitzsimons’ recommendation to keep the district’s current grade K-3 and grade 4-5 model by establishing a second 4-5 school at Village School.
The board has struggled with the decision since Dr. Fitzsimons asked in June to revisit the district’s decision to go K-5, which many in the community believed to have been finalized by the $59.7 million building referendum approved by voters in 1996.
Following the controversial vote, opponents of the superintendent’s recommendation challenged the board and administration to develop a transition plan that will make the K-3/4-5 plan work.
The vote split the board roughly in half, with board President Cheryl Larrier-Jemmott and board member Linda Geevers, Dee Dee Dodson and Stan Katz voting against the superintendent’s recommendation and supporting K-5; and Barbara Friis, Stephen Smith, Matti Prima, Elliott Korsen and Henry Wieck supporting K-3/4-5.
Ms. Friis and Mr. Prima are not seeking re-election. Mr. Korsen is.
Ms. Hasling, vice chairwomen of the Reunions Committee at Princeton University, and Mr. Marathe, a member of the district’s Technology Committee, actively advocated the K-5 plan throughout the debate, and even founded the group, Keep K-5 Alive Committee.
Mr. Marathe said Monday there are still some outstanding redistricting issues, and unless they are resolved, the board should take another look at the K-5 plan.
Ms. Naglak is a member of the Board of Trustees of The College of New Jersey.
Ms. Epstein, adjunct professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and an associate producer of a PBS documentary on health care, is running against Mr. Korsen of Lowell Drive.
In Montgomery, incumbents are running for the three, three-year seats open this year. Board President Linda Romano of Monroe Avenue, a board member since 1995, is running for her third term on the board.
She serves on the Presidents’ Council of the Somerset County School Boards Association and the Montgomery/Rocky Hill Municipal Alliance.
Board Vice President William G. Hyncik Jr. of Richmond Drive, director of Princeton Orthopedics, is seeking re-election to his third term on the board. He was a board member for one year in 1992 and then was elected to two three-year terms in 1995 and 1998.
Susan Edwards of Grandview Drive, manager of Johnson Jewelers in Trenton, is seeking re-election to her fourth term. Elected in 1992, 1995 and 1998, Ms. Edwards is the chairwoman of the board’s Building Committee that helped the district plan and win approval for a $70 million referendum for a new high school.
Staff writers David M. Campbell and Helen Pettigrew contributed to this story.