Which slate of school board candidates would you rather vote for: “Putting the Children First” or “Kids First”? Despite their similar names, there are differences.
The two slates are running to fill three seats on the city’s nine-member Board of Education on Tuesday, April 18. “Putting the Children First,” is a “fusion” ticket supported by Mayor David Roberts. It features Wanda Santana-Alicea and Frank Raia, who are incumbents, and Hoboken Police Captain Anthony Romano.
They are facing “Kids First,” a reform ticket made up of community activist Theresa Minutillo, accountant William Tobias, and former board member Carrie Gilliard.
Duties include managing an approximately $52 million budget (see sidebar), negotiating contracts with teachers, and setting education policy for the schools. Hoboken’s public school system includes Hoboken High School, two middle schools, three elementary schools, and two charter schools.
The polls are open from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Are schools improving, or still problematic?
This election boils down to a referendum on the leadership at the Board of Education.
The “Putting the Children First” slate believes great gains already have been made over the past few years in the district’s six public schools (there are also two public charter schools).
But the “Kids First” reformers charge that patronage and cronyism are still prevalent in the schools.
They say that too much of the district’s $52 million budget goes to political payback and not enough goes back to the students.
They added that while Hoboken’s test scores might be among the highest in the Abbott “special needs” districts, they are still mediocre compared to the state averages.
Additionally, only 39 percent of eligible students took the SAT last year, and those who took it performed well below national averages.
Will choose new superintendent, see new construction
The Hoboken Public School district is in a transitional period. There will be major changes in administrative leadership, school construction, and staffing over the next several years.
Superintendent of Schools Patrick Gagliardi and school Business Administrator Anthony Curko are planning to retire. The board will have to decide how to choose Gagliardi’s replacement.
Additionally, there will likely be an opening for a principal of the high school and at least one middle school. Also, the district will see major construction over the next decade.
In January, the Hoboken Board of Education approved an updated $200 million construction plan that was submitted to the state’s Schools Construction Corporation (SCC) for review. The updated plan calls for rehabilitating four existing schoolhouses and constructing a new high school and an elementary school. The Board of Education is proposing a configuration in which there are two pre-K through fifth grade primary schools, four pre-K through eighth grade schools, and one high school.
The renovation of the Salvatore R. Calabro and Thomas G. Connors primary schools in the city for a combined $24 million already has been fully funded via the SCC’s first $6 billion.
Also, Hoboken has already completed $19 million in emergency safety renovations.
But plans to build a new high school and an elementary school in Hoboken’s northwest redevelopment zone are stalled while the district awaits state funding. Also, the renovation of the Brandt and Wallace schools is currently without funding. For those projects to be completed, it would take an additional $158 million in funding, said local school officials.
In the best-case scenario, the district gets full funding and construction could begin in the near future. In the worst case, the money isn’t allocated. Then it will be up to this board to develop a new plan to manage the district’s aging facilities.
New teachers, at last
Another area where the district is experiencing transition is with staffing.
Because Hoboken had several decades of declining enrollment, school officials have hardly ever been able to hire new teachers, so there is an unusually high number of teachers with over 25 years of experience. The average Hoboken teacher still earns around $70,000 per year, which is higher than the state average of about $50,000.
The district has taken steps to remedy this situation over the past several years by offering a teacher buyout package. In the last few years, there has been an infusion of new teachers, especially at the high school. This turnover will likely continue in the near future, so it will be up to this board to establish a policy on how to fill these open positions.
The following are candidate profiles. Voters can choose any three candidates; they do not have to be on the same slate.
‘Kids First’ candidates
Theresa Minutillo
Minutillo has been a homeowner in Hoboken for 17 years and owns an image development company that works with women to develop their corporate image.
She first got involved with Hoboken schools three years ago when she created Senior Prep Day, which helped non-college-bound students prepare for their lives after high school graduation.
“When I got into the schools, I realized that students that weren’t going to college had absolutely no support system,” Minutillo said.
The experience motivated her to start attending Board of Education meetings, where she has become a fixture. Minutillo says that when she started going to the meetings, she discovered that more effort was being put into rewarding politically connected firms and allies than developing new educational programs and curricula.
She said that with a $52 million budget, Hoboken should offer the best education in the state, but that hasn’t happened yet.
“We have the resources in this community to provide an excellent public education,” she said. But, she said, politics and patronage has gotten in the way.
“We have really dedicated teachers that see the shenanigans that are going on at the board,” she said. “How can you expect them to feel good about the environment where they are working?”
She said that the biggest challenge is to take the politics out of the schools and to take the mayor out of the schools.
“[Board members] shouldn’t be the mayor’s advocate; they should be the children’s advocate, and I think that is completely missed right now,” Minutillo said.
She added this is why the search for a new superintendent is so important.
“I don’t have a problem with hiring from within, but before we do we must have a national search,” she said. “If that person happens to be from Hoboken, then great. I don’t think that’s where we should start the search.
Because Hoboken is a great place to live, we will be able to attract the top caliber of educators to apply for this superintendent position.”
Carrie Gilliard
Also on the reformers’ ticket will be Gilliard, a 29-year resident of Hoboken, and the first and only African-American female elected to a citywide position in Hoboken’s history when she was previously elected as a Board of Education Trustee twice in the mid 1990s.
She is currently a real estate agent with First Platinum GMAC Realty of Hoboken. She is also active in the Hoboken NAACP.
“I’m someone who will always be an advocate for what is in the best interest of our children,” she said. “We have a responsibility to give an education where they are able to compete in the world and give back to this community as productive citizens.”
She said that, because of politics the current Board of Education, it hasn’t done all it can to improve educational options.
“Right now there are too many people that are aligned with the machine, which is problematic,” she said. “There are programs that are being cut to facilitate jobs for people that are owed political favors. Enough is enough already. We need board members that are going to be committed to the children and board members that aren’t solely committed to the power brokers.”
Gilliard said that she is not seeking this elected office to get a new job or to get firms lucrative contracts. She said she can be an independent voice.
As for the search for a new superintendent, she feels that unless there are changes in leadership, the job won’t go to the most qualified candidate.
“If you take your marching orders, then you are not going to get the best person for the position,” she said. “That is my concern.”
Gilliard’s platform includes paying added attention to the Connors Primary School, which is currently lagging behind the other schools in test scores. She also would like to see the money that could be saved on alleged cronyism to be spent on after-school programs, and vocational and art programs.
William Tobias
Tobias is an accountant for a brokerage firm in Jersey City. He bought a condominium in Hoboken in 2000, and became active in municipal government several years ago when he helped lobby for a public referendum to ban the practice of pay-to-play, or rewarding politically connected campaign contributors.
“I want to see my tax dollars spent well, and I want to see the academics in all of the schools improve,” said Tobias Wednesday about his motivation to run for the board.
He said that one of the biggest problems in the schools today is that the “political machine” is controlling the process, which has led to rampant patronage.
“This is Hudson County, where it seems like the politically connected are always ahead of the taxpayers and the students,” Tobias said.
He said that because “business as usual” is so prevalent, it has led to demoralization within the teaching ranks. “The staff has tremendous potential,” Tobias said. “But I think that good leadership is needed to bring them up to the next level.”
He added the district’s leadership needs to be committed to an open and transparent public process. He added that he would also like to see a national search for the next superintendent.
“I want to stick around for a long time in this town, and part of that means making the schools work, and making the taxpayers feel like they are getting a fair deal,” Tobias said.
‘Putting the Children First’ slate
Wanda Santana-Alicea
Incumbent Santana-Alicea is the executive director of the Friendship Day Care Center in Paterson. She’s running for her third term in the board. She is married with two boys, both in public schools. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she obtained a BSW in social work and a masters in early childhood education.
Her husband Angel Alicea, a Union City police officer, is the chairman of the volunteer board of the Hoboken Housing Authority.
“I really feel that the six years went by so quickly, and while we have made a lot of progress, I feel like we are a critical point in our school district when we will have to make some important decisions,’ Alicea said. She said that here, experience as an educator and as a board member gives her the wherewithal to make the right decisions.
She said that during her time on the board, the district has expanded the its 3- and 4-year-old programs, and implemented the well-regarded International Baccalaureate program into the middle schools. The program provides an internationally-accepted curriculum for advanced students.
She also said that the district’s administration has been successful in hiring a new crop of young energetic teachers, which has created a nice balance where the new teachers add fresh eyes, while the veteran teachers can share their experience.
“It’s really the best of both worlds,” Alicea said.
But she added that with all that has been accomplished, the next several years will be pivotal for the district. She has supported bringing in Rutgers University’s Dr. William Liberea, who is the state’s former commissioner of education, to perform an independent assessment to determine where the district is today and where it wants to go.
She also recognized that the Board of Education will have to search for a new superintendent of schools in the next year.
“It’s so important that we get this right, because [the new superintendent] will be setting the tone for the whole district,” Alicea said. “This board has been working together carefully construct a plan on how we are going to approach the superintendent search. We will find the most qualified candidate.”
Additionally, Alicea said she is an independent voice on the board that will be an advocate for new after-school programs, district wide facility upgrades, increasing the number of mentoring programs, and completing the district’s plans for construction.
Frank Raia
Raia is a born-and-raised Hoboken resident whose family has been in Hoboken for the past 150 years. Raia has development holdings throughout Hoboken. Most of his projects have been gut rehabilitations of buildings in the city’s interior. He has also built some affordable housing. Raia has also been a member of the HOPES Head Start Board of Trustees, and was a longtime a board member of the North Hudson Sewerage Authority.
Last year, Raia ran against Roberts for mayor and finished third.
He said that he would like to greatly expand the vocational programs that are offered in the schools. He said he would like to bring back wood shop, machine shop, and mechanical drawing. He added that the board has already approved starting up a drivers’ education class for next year.
“We have a lot of students that want to work with their hands and could be very successful if they were taught a trade,” Raia said.
Raia is also in favor of creating an “academic high school” for some of the more advanced students in the city. “One of the biggest challenges we face is getting the newcomers to enroll their children in the high school,” Raia said. “Creating an academic school, like McNair in Jersey City, would, without a doubt, attract families that would otherwise enroll their children in other schools.”
Raia added that he is also excited about the possibility of building a new high school building. Raia said that he was a student of Hoboken High School when its current building opened.
“I remember what it felt like when I walked into the brand new school for the first time,” Raia said. “I would like for our current students to experience that same feeling.”
Raia said that his primary reason for running for the school board is that he has a vested interest. His son attends Hoboken High School, and he is the guardian of two other students who attend Hoboken public schools.
Anthony Romano
Born-and-raised Hoboken resident Anthony Romano is a captain in the Hoboken Police Department, where he oversees the Community Policing Bureau. With the department, he has been active in the DARE program. He has an undergraduate degree from St. Peter’s College and a master’s from Jersey City University. Currently, he is an adjunct professor of sociology St. Peter’s College. For seven years he taught history at Hoboken High School.
Also, for many years he has coached local sports and is currently the president of the Babe Ruth League. Last year he finished fifth out of six candidates running as an independent, but this year the mayor is supporting him. “I consider myself qualified because I think I have had a connection and link with community at-large and the students,” Romano said. He said that because he works in the Community Policing Department, he believes he has the unique experience to reach all segments of the community.
“I want parents and taxpayers to know that I’m open-minded to their suggestions,” Romano said.
As the cornerstone of his platform, Romano is advocating for returning the district to kindergarten-through-eighth grade alignment. He said that the change would allow siblings to attend the same school, and would make for a smoother progression of their education. He added that it also is good for the students because it eliminates a disruptive transition when children are particularly insecure.
“Middle schools seem to cause fear and hesitation for parents,” Romano said.
He added that guiding the district through the process of rehabilitating and building new schools is of vital importance over the next several years.
“If you are going to attract young urban professionals, they are going to need to see facilities that are state of the art,” he said.
Romano also said he believes that the district is going in the right direction in its recent hiring of a new crop of young teachers.