HOBOKEN — Of all the slates running for the Hoboken Board of Education this coming Tuesday, Nov. 4, Parents for Progress has emerged as the clear favorite of Mayor Dawn Zimmer and the current six-member board majority known as Kids First. Kids First member Irene Sobolov wrote a letter to the editor of The Hoboken Reporter this past Sunday in support of the slate, and former school board president and current Kids First member Leon Gold told the Reporter he thought they were the three best candidates.
However, on perhaps the most controversial issue of the past school board term — the decision to file a lawsuit to block a charter school from expanding — Parents for Progress appears to be reticent about stating their opinion on the move, a move that had split some of their voter base.
Parents for Progress candidate Monica Stromwall voted twice to fund the attorney against the HoLa charter school after she was appointed to the board in January. However, she now says that does “not wish to close Hola or limit their expansion” and will not support further money for the lawsuit.
“The decisions I have made have been extremely difficult and have been very challenging and have not been made to hurt any particular school or student, but I have to keep in mind the students I represent and the needs of them,” said Stromwall when asked why she had voted for the lawsuit if she is changing her mind. “That being said, I can no longer support any more money to be allocated to the lawsuit when the district is facing a very difficult budget for the next 2-3 years and we will need every dollar (and more) for the district. It’s a very sad and upsetting situation that we are all in and I would like to think that no one would want to take resources away from any student.”
Stromwall said she wants the state to change its charter school funding formula so that the money does not come out of district tax levies.
Both of Stromwall’s running mates, Antonio Gray and Sharyn Angley, refused to say whether they would have voted for the HoLa lawsuit, stating that they had not been on the board at the time and did not have all the information that was available to board members.
Angley would only say she supports “fair and equitable treatment per student,” but did not specify what this means.
The other two slates in the election have made it clear that they are against funding a lawsuit to limit the charter schools.
In a letter to the editor to be published in the Reporter this week, Mayor Dawn Zimmer had broached the HoLa issue. She said she had spoken with each of the Parents for Progress candidates and was “pleased to learn that the candidates’ views reflect a spectrum of opinion with regard to” the expansion of HoLa.
“I believe that this diversity of opinion would be a real asset to the School Board going forward,” she added.
However, these diverse opinions on the crucial vote seem to remain unclear.
Before the charter school issue, Zimmer was a prominent political supporter of Kids First. But her children attended charter schools, and she came out in favor of HoLa’s expansion and against the lawsuit challenging it.
Some parents in town who had supported Kids First were upset with remarks the majority had made about charter schools. This is seen as a reason that none of the slates ran with the “Kids First” name this time.
The Parents for Progress slate, including Stromwell, has said they are independent and not allied with Kids First.
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