A Letter in support of Opper & Stroever for North Caldwell BOE

North Caldwell Friends and neighbors, we have important choices to make on November 2nd that significantly impact our schools. I spent two terms on the NCBOE and it was one of the greatest honors of my life to serve this community alongside some of the smartest, most devoted, dedicated, humble and hardworking people I have ever known. In November, two members of our Board are up for re-election, Mindy Opper and Jo Stoever.

Here are the 10 key reasons my husband, children and I are voting for Mindy Opper and Jo Stroever for North Caldwell Board of Education:

1. PROPERTY VALUES: Our homes are in high demand and property values continue to increase because of the quality of our schools and the fine work of the NCBOE. Last year our Gould School was one of only 367 schools in the country recognized by the federal government as a Blue Ribbon school.

2. COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE: Jo’s reputation on the NCBOE precedes her. She’s an attorney and worked in the foster care system and with CASA. She has been notably involved with the North Caldwell Partnership for Education (NCPE) for many years. Although she has served on the NCBOE for just a short while, she graciously stepped in the thick of this pandemic for a board member who moved on to serve on Town Council. I worked with Mindy in my final two years on NCBOE and have profound respect for her. She has shown us time and again her commitment to making our schools the best they can be. She has served on the NCBOE for 6 years and has been on a variety of committees that give her a well-rounded view of a Board’s role within a school district including Union Negotiations, Transportation, Communications, Covid Committees.

3. CHILDREN IN DISTRICT: Both Mindy and Jo have children attending in-district. I know from my own experience that the effectiveness of a board member is greatly contingent upon being present in the school community. Whether it is at parent teacher night or on the soccer field, the importance of this cannot be overstated. It is significant to note that Ms. Mendez currently home-schools her children, due to her personal beliefs about masks, and thus has no current connection to our district. Mr. Formosa has a child in 6th grade and within just a few months, he will have no children in either school. The disconnect I experienced as a board member when my children moved on to West Essex was notable, and why I didn’t run for a third term.

4. ROLE OF BOE: Mr. Formosa and Ms. Mendez reasons for challenging Mindy and Jo are motivated by a personal agenda and based on a faulty foundation. They claim that the NCBOE refused to survey the community, but the NCBOE already stated that it will be doing so. The issue was just timing. They claim that the NCBOE decided in the summer to require masks, or muzzles as Ms. Mendez calls them, but that is simply untrue (and they would know that if they attended meetings). The NCBOE and administration specifically decided to wait to have that discussion until all the facts were available. They claim that the NCBOE should ignore the state mandate or lobby against it, but ignoring it would have dire consequences for the district. If they think the district should spend its limited finances to function as a lobbying arm for a particular agenda on which there is deep disagreement within the community, I don’t think they understand the role of a Board member, and they are running for the wrong position.

5. BOE IS NON-PARTISAN: Never was there a time during my 6 years on the NCBOE or 17 years in North Caldwell, where the politics of the day infiltrated our education based goals or decision making as a board. There is no place for political debate in our children’s schools. This is a real and dangerous threat should Ms. Mendez and Mr. Formosa be elected. Mr. Formosa and Ms. Mendez have brought the political divide of our time into their campaign. They have stated that the current board lacks “true social, cultural and political views.” They actually had a supporter ask one of the candidates what her cultural background is. I see you and I know what you’re suggesting and it’s disgraceful. They aren’t really looking for diversity and the challengers bring no more diversity than what already exists. As much as it disgusts me to have to respond, this Board does, in fact, come from social, political and culturally diverse backgrounds and despite their differences, work exceptionally well together and have a great deal of respect for each other. Their success speaks for itself. What they don’t see is that the members of the NCBOE do not always start out in agreement, but through the process of seeking community opinion, debate, research, investigation, assessments and gathering information, they come together to reach a compromise. They do what they were elected to do, unlike the outside political nightmare of a world we live in has failed to do.

6. PRIORITIZE OUR SCHOOLS, NOT PERSONAL ATTACKS: Not once have the challengers discussed wanting to run for the advancement of our schools, our children’s education, or acknowledged the issues facing our district. Not once. Ms. Mendez has, however, taken to social media to shame us as parents and call us unrefined cowards for allowing our children to wear masks to attend school. Along with that, she has attacked our board members, who dedicate so much of their personal time, as tyrants. Their personal attacks on people I am so honored to have worked beside, have kept me up at night. And let’s be clear here. They are very personal attacks that don’t deserve to be acknowledged, but the future of our schools are at stake, so here I am. I believe “cancelling” is the term we now use for when we dismiss others' views that are not in line with ours.

7. INTOLERANT AND UNKIND BEHAVIOR IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THOSE WITH CONSERVATIVE VIEWS: Ms. Mendez has used social media to mock homosexuality, transgender persons, and weight shame critically ill covid patients. She said that the people who stormed the capital on January 6th did nothing wrong, in spite of the fatal and horrific violence that transpired that day. She also defended the comments and comparisons of another parent that horrifically minimized the experience of Jews during the Holocaust. Ms. Mendez claims her posts reflect “socially conservative views.” I feel they reflect hate, intolerance and unkindness and are insulting to those of us in our community who do have conservative views. The litany of inaccuracies and falsehoods that have been put out by Ms. Mendez (and the silence from Mr. Formosa) are incredibly concerning. I am certain the “Freedom to Parent” ticket will not be reflective of or concerned with my family’s voice.

8. ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY: Mindy and Jo have clearly demonstrated valuing community opinion. They seek it out. They rely upon it. If you take a real look at how the Board conducts business, you’ll see that public hearings are held and widely publicized in advance when the Board evaluates critical issues, such as expanding school capacity or subscription busing. These public hearings include detailed presentations, outlining options under consideration, and reviewing the pros and cons of each option. The Board routinely conducts detailed surveys to assess public sentiment and understand community concerns, where results are openly reported, and used to help the Board make sound decisions that reflect community values. On the Board’s Community Relations Committee, Jo was critical in ensuring that BOE meetings included an opportunity for parents to participate remotely. Mindy, as chair of the Covid Committee, spent hundreds of hours of her personal time meeting with the administration, parents and professionals to work on a plan that resulted in most of our grades being in school, in-person, five days a week from the beginning of the last school year (and by March had everyone in every day), setting the district apart from most throughout the state and country. Mindy has built an exceptional relationship with the teachers and the administration. The strong relationship of trust among the board, administration and teachers is why when teachers in other districts were writing letters insisting that schools remain closed in August 2020, our teachers, knowing that our board members had their back, did not support those letters.

9. VALUING RELATIONSHIPS: Our school’s teachers, administrators, principals, and board members have worked tirelessly and done an outstanding job of keeping our children learning in-school and providing them some semblance of normalcy during an unprecedented global pandemic. Ms. Mendez has publicly supported social media comments referring to these same individuals as “petty tyrants” that love forcing masks on their fellow man and mocked one of our beloved principals. I call into question how someone who name-calls and publicly defames the character of people she will need to work with, will manage to be effective as a board member.

10. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: There is life beyond Covid. Our schools are facing significant challenges beyond this pandemic in the coming years. We will need to address population growth, due to increased development in the District, and the constant challenge of maintaining small class size. These challenges will require the experienced and proven leadership that Mindy and Jo have displayed consistently throughout their service on the Board and to the community.

Valerie Zaloom Buccino

North Caldwell Board of Education Member

2011-2017