The Cherry Hill Zone PTA hosted a Cherry Hill Board of Education Candidates Forum at Rosa International Middle School last Wednesday. The forum allowed candidates to a variety of school issues leading up to the Nov. 7 board of education election.
Voters got a chance to hear the positions of five candidates who are hoping to be elected to the Cherry Hill Board of Education.
The Cherry Hill Zone PTA hosted a Cherry Hill Board of Education Candidates Forum last Wednesday at Rosa International Middle School. The League of Women Voters moderated the forum and asked questions about many of the major issues affecting students in the schools.
Five candidates are running for three, three-year terms on the board this November. Incumbents Eric Goodwin, Carol Matlack and Lisa Saidel are running for re-election. Fredrick Dande and Sally Tong are newcomers running in the election.
Dande is running for the board for the third consecutive year. A member of the PTA at Cooper Elementary School, Dande spoke about how he wanted to improve transparency on the board and make the voice of the community a greater priority.
Goodwin is running for his fourth term, having been first elected in 2008. He is serving as the board’s vice president and talked of how the district has made numerous improvements during his tenure.
“I really do want to focus on making the Cherry Hill schools the premier schools here in South Jersey,” Goodwin said.
Matlack is running for her third full term, having served since December 2010. Matlack served as board president in 2015 and 2016 and spoke about her vast experience, which includes serving on four of the board’s five committees at some point.
Saidel is running for her second term after first being elected in November 2014. According to her bio on the school district’s website, Saidel ran for the school board because she has a passion for educational excellence in the Cherry Hill Public Schools. Saidel formerly served as the chair of the Cherry Hill Zone PTA.
Tong has been an active participant in the PTA organization at her child’s schools for many years. She talked of how she wanted to run for the board so the district would see greater state funding, improved security and upgrades to its buildings.
Four of the five candidates on this year’s ballot participated in the forum. Saidel was unable to attend the forum as she was out of town due to a pre-scheduled work commitment. An opening statement from Saidel was read at the start of the event.
Candidates answered numerous audience-submitted questions. The questions touched on many areas, but a particular focus was put on the state of the district’s infrastructure and buildings, the district’s planned bond referendum in 2018 and full-day kindergarten.
In a few areas, all four participating candidates were on the same page. When asked what the top priority was in the proposed bond referendum, all four candidates said it would be buildings and infrastructure. Tong talked of how she has seen the poor condition of some of the buildings herself.
“When we go to Back to School night, I can see this is a big problem,” Tong said.
All four candidates also said they support the concept of full-day kindergarten, though Dande and Tong both raised questions about its implementation.
“The question is how, as a district, we’re going to do it,” Dande said.
Board communication was another big topic at the forum. Goodwin and Matlack both talked of how the district communicates in many ways through social media, the district’s mobile app and through Superintendent Joe Meloche’s online videos and Coffee with the Superintendent meetings.
Dande and Tong both felt there needs to be a steadier form of communication from the board, saying there were multiple issues last year where parents didn’t know about what was going on until right before a board meeting.
The candidates also discussed the amount of state funding the district receives and the importance of advocating for more. Goodwin and Matlack both said they have met with Assemblyman Lou Greenwald, Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt and State Sen. Jim Beach on the issue multiple times and will continue to fight for more state funding if re-elected.
“This is not something we can stop advocating for,” Matlack said about fair funding.
Tong talked of how she has participated with Fair Funding for Cherry Hill Public Schools and plans to do so, regardless of the outcome of the election. Dande said he believed more needed to be done to get additional state funding and criticized local legislators for not doing enough in Trenton.
Candidates also discussed a number of other topics, including the high school start time, giving kids additional options to move around during the elementary and middle school days, the district’s history curriculum, and how to improve the teaching of black history in the district.
Voters can vote in the Cherry Hill Board of Education election on Nov. 7. To view the full bios of all five Cherry Hill Board of Education candidates, visit www.chclc.org/uploaded/Departments/Public_Information/BOE_Candidate_Bios_2017.pdf.
