Elections for the city’s school board yielded three winners backed by the local teachers’ union, while an incumbent went down in defeat.
The unofficial figures for the 24 candidates had Terrence Curran winning the most votes, at 1,790, followed by Edward Cheatam at 1,503 and Sergio Lamboy at 1,482. In fourth place and presumably out of the running was Momotaro Torres, with 992 votes. Incumbent Sonia Araujo garnered 572 votes.
Lamboy, a former council candidate and a captain in the Jersey City Fire Department, had no illusions about winning his position on the new board.
“Right now, it’s like a paper tiger,” he said of the board’s powers, “and the state does what it wants anyway.”
The nine-member fully elected board does not have control over personnel decisions and is still in the dark about how it will function in the future, as the state is working to smooth the transition of the Jersey City School District from state control back to local control. The failing district was taken over in 1989 by the state.
Nevertheless, Lamboy plans on proposing some new policies in the schools, like an ordinance warning parents of the consequences of assaulting a teacher, as a parent was recently convicted on such a charge.
Losing her seat was Sonia Araujo, a librarian in the Jersey City Public Libraries. Araujo did not return calls for comment.
It was a typically desultory showing, with only 4.2 percent of eligible voters casting ballots Tuesday, and top vote-getter Terrence Curran feels it’s an indication that the board should do more to get parents involved in the schools.
“People need to realize that parents make the school system strong,” he said.
For Curran, a South District police officer and soon-to-be medical student at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, it will be a chore to juggle school, a child and the board responsibilities, but the 30-year-old thinks he’s up to it.
“I’ve always been a hard worker,” he said. “What they can expect is I’ll look at the issues individually.”
Does he believe he’ll be beholden to the teacher’s union as a result of their backing?
“I’m not a person who’s influenced by other forces,” Curran said.
But he acknowledged the fears that may come from parents. “I know there is a concern that we were elected as part of the teachers union,” he said. “I spoke to Tom Favia, [the head of the union], and he said he wouldn’t be exerting pressure on school board members to vote.”
The other winner was Edward Cheatam, a 53-year-old retired Port Authority Police Officer and Vietnam veteran.