The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
For the fifth straight year, the race for the Princeton Board of Education (BOE) is too close to call while municipal elections are uncontested. This year, there are six BOE candidates vying for three seats: Mara Franceschi, Ari Meisel, Lisa Potter, Chris Santarpio, Erica Snyder, and Shenwei Zhao.
Princeton University students registered to vote in Princeton may not see the importance of voting for BOE in a school district that they do not attend, but their ability to sway the outcome of a tight school board election cannot be underestimated: last year’s third seat was won by just 78 votes.
As a Princeton town local and Princeton University undergraduate who remains involved in town and school district affairs, I have some advice I hope you’ll consider when casting your ballot — though by all means, conduct your own research as well. I will be voting for Mara Franceschi and Chris Santarpio, and you should too.
Vote Franceschi and Santarpio for experience.
Mara Franceschi is the only incumbent standing for re-election, and her refrain in this election has been that “experience matters.” Co-chair of the Personnel Committee, she also serves on Operations and Long-Term Planning, and by all accounts has done so very capably. These committees deal with such riveting matters as fascia replacement and job descriptions, making them particularly thankless and unseen labor, even compared to other board-member duties.
At a time of high turnover on the Board (four members over two years) and in the administration (five administrators just in 2023), experience does matter, and for her diligent service, I endorse Franceschi for re-election.
Chris Santarpio, like Potter, Meisel, and Snyder, is a fairly recent arrival to Princeton, having moved here within the last five years. Nevertheless, he is extremely involved in the schools as the co-president of the Community Park Parent Teacher Organization (PTO). The co-owner of a family business in industrial operations, he has extensive experience in both finance and operations management — experience in high demand for a Board which spends much of its time on the nitty-gritty. Santarpio’s highly relevant experience is unique among this field of candidates, and for that, combined with his record of service to the schools, I endorse him.
Potter’s “Chmiel Spiel”
I am not making an endorsement for the third seat on the Board, but I will share some thoughts about the other candidates. All non-incumbents are running on platforms of increased communication and transparency (a quick look at their platforms will suffice to confirm this), which are always popular.
And they are salient ones right now: multiple candidates have mentioned the recent controversial dismissal of Princeton High School Principal Frank Chmiel ’98 as an example of poor communication from the District.
Lisa Potter has by far been the strongest supporter of Chmiel — she initiated a petition demanding the reinstatement of Chmiel and the termination of then-Superintendent Carol Kelley which over two thousand angry students and parents signed. Chmiel’s dismissal would be upheld, but Kelley would also be forced out.
Unofficially, Potter is banking on residual discontent with Chmiel’s dismissal and her Asian identity to win this election. She has highlighted the fact that, if elected, she would be the only Asian member of the BOE.
Meisel and Snyder: Default Options
Ari Meisel and Erica Snyder are running more establishment-oriented campaigns than Potter. Both currently serve in PTOs, Snyder as another co-president of the Community Park PTO. In that capacity, she has worked with Santarpio — and in general, both she and Meisel seem to be on the same page as Santarpio. It was the distinction of Santarpio’s experience that earned him my endorsement.
All six candidates have ideas about how to save money and keep the budget under the 2 percent growth cap — and many of these ideas are shared between most or all of the candidates — but Meisel’s experience as a productivity expert seems particularly relevant. Meisel also serves as the vice-chair of the municipality’s Committee on Affordable Housing, Racial, Economic, Social Equity, and Services (CARES), established earlier this year after a controversial consolidation of three committees.
Any form of experience in addressing racial and social inequities is greatly desirable for BOE service because, like most other school districts, Princeton Public Schools has a serious problem with inequities in academic achievement which is deserving of greater and continued attention.
Snyder has a unique angle in this race: she is an educator with experience in secondary teaching and curriculum development. She currently directs a pre-school and runs an Ayurvedic health business. If elected, she would join two other educators on the Board, both elected last year: Adam Bierman and former Assistant Professor Eleanor Hubbard. Hubbard’s focus on curriculum and instruction, both in her campaign last year and in her short tenure on the Board, has been greatly valued by the community and within the Board. Snyder has campaigned as more of a generalist and is unlikely to replicate Hubbard’s singular focus on academic issues, but her experience is certainly still relevant.
Zhao: A Contrarian’s Choice
Shenwei Zhao is the candidate least afraid to break from the pack. He is the only candidate to oppose an upcoming $80 million bond referendum to fund facility expansions and other needs. Potter is hedging, Franceschi has been a strong proponent, and Meisel, Santarpio, and Snyder are now supporting the referendum, after initially having asked for more information. Since bond referenda are always unpopular with voters (but almost always pass anyways), that might have been a good move.
More controversial was his answer to a recent forum question about whether and when the Board should be more involved in the curation of school libraries by ordering that “inappropriate” books be removed — commonly known as “book-banning.” Zhao said that removing a book may be justified if a group, as opposed to an individual, is advocating for it, and in later remarks, he highlighted the fact that he was the only candidate to support this policy unequivocally.
This dubious distinction evinces a seeming unfamiliarity with the landscape of American public education which, for a prospective Board member, is startling. As has been widely reported, “book-banning” allows small groups with values which may not be accepted by a community — like homophobia, anti-Semitism, or racism — to make books they do not like inaccessible to all students.
There’s much more to be said, and I encourage you to do more research about all of the candidates in this election. I hope you will join me in voting for Mara Franceschi and Chris Santarpio on Nov. 5!
Akash Jim is a junior in the Mathematics Department from Princeton, N.J. Readers with or without children enrolled in Princeton Public Schools are welcome to write to him at ajim[at]princeton.edu.
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