Pay Attention To The Local School Board Race: Letter

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Basking Ridge resident Laurie Saloman wrote this letter to the editor about the upcoming school board election:

I urge all residents, even those without children in the schools, to pay attention to what is happening behind the scenes in our local school board race. You’ve no doubt noticed the plethora of large signs and billboards lining our streets and lawns. What gives?

In short, a group of candidates for the traditionally nonpartisan school board are now operating from a heavily-funded right-wing playbook. This well-oiled machine is designed to whip up anger, convincing parents that Bernards Township is overpaying its teachers and administrators and, worse, that a sensitive and inclusive state-mandated sex-ed curriculum is indoctrinating children by exposing them to pornography. Supporters of these candidates have been prolific commenters on sites like Basking Ridge Patch, where they adopt fake names and personas to stir the pot and create hate.

Never mind that any parent who wishes to opt their child out of a particular lesson, whether it’s about sex and gender or dissection in biology lab, is free to do so and always has been. Not only do these right-wing candidates not want their children exposed to certain subjects, they don’t want your children learning about them, either. That’s right: In a public-school setting, they want to control what other people’s kids learn.

Sadder still is that the respect for the people who work so hard to teach our children is woefully lacking. One candidate, Larry Rascio, wrote in the Patch that it’s dishonest to say teachers are underpaid and overworked. The median teacher salary in Bernards Township is $75,887 per year. That’s quite a bit less than in neighboring districts, such as Watchung Hills Regional, whose median teacher salary is $92,275. And yet during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, before vaccines were even available and people were dying in droves, Rascio declared that teachers should stop appearing “lazy” and go back to work full time.

What a noxious screed! As the mother of two successful adults who benefitted from our local school system and the daughter of a New York City public school teacher, I know what goes into being an educator and how much talented teachers do for students behind the scenes. That’s why I support Erica Blackman, Janice Corrado, Suzanne Schafer-Skalski, and Guddia Singh as candidates for the board. Schafer-Skalski and Singh already serve on the board, which gives me confidence. Running together under the tagline “Bernards: Education For All,” these four offer decades of classroom and administrative experience, credentialed in everything from literacy, writing, and language arts to college counseling to health and wellness innovations. They understand the value of teachers and how they can change lives, and they’re not interested in cutting corners to the detriment of our students.

You know what’s better than slashing the school budget to shreds and driving away skilled, committed teachers, which is what will occur if those other candidates are elected? Working with school personnel to ensure that children are given the very best opportunities to learn, think critically, and understand the world around them. We can keep Bernards Township at the very top of the school rankings, and our property values high, by voting for https://bernardseducationforall.org/ candidates this fall.

Laurie Saloman
Basking Ridge