Millburn School Board Candidate Profile: Prasoon Saurabh

MILLBURN, NJ — Millburn residents have a big choice to make in November: who will serve on the board of education?

Millburn is among the New Jersey towns holding a school board contest as part of the 2026 general election. Seven candidates have filed to run for three open seats on the Millburn Board of Education, including Prasoon Saurabh.

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Saurabh, 45, recently shared some background about his qualifications and plans if elected with Patch. Learn more about his campaign here.

PATCH: What qualifications and background make you a good fit for the position?

PRASOON SAURABH: My wife and I have lived in Millburn for over 10 years. Our two children, now in 4th and 8th grade, have come up through this district from the beginning, so most of what I know about our schools I learned the ordinary way: at back-to-school nights, in the pickup line, and over dinner hearing how the day actually went.

I've also spent a fair number of evenings in the audience at Board of Education meetings, not as a candidate, just as a parent who wanted to understand how decisions here get made and what the board weighs when the answer isn't obvious. If elected, I'd be joining a body I've already watched work.

Professionally, I lead analytics for HSBC's US business, with more than twenty years in quantitative work. My days are spent on questions a school board faces constantly: is this number telling us what we think it is, what does the trend actually say, and how do you tell a real improvement from a well-marketed one. A growing part of my work is helping a large institution decide what AI can responsibly do, what to adopt and what to hold off on. That is a conversation our schools will be having whether or not we're ready for it, and I'd like us to be ready.

Outside of work, I've spent years coaching recent graduates and women re-entering the workforce through job searches and interviews. It's slow, one-person-at-a-time work, and it taught me how often the gap between a capable person and an opportunity is just someone willing to explain how the process works. That's a fair description of what I think a school board owes families.

PATCH: What are your plans if elected?

PRASOON SAURABH: Five things I'd push on:

A real answer on enrollment - Enrollment has declined significantly over the past few years, alongside an increase in the number of students leaving our public schools, and the district has commissioned demographic work without producing a strategy that follows from it. I'd ask for a review, followed by a plan with stated targets and an annual public update on whether we're meeting them.

Spending that reaches classrooms - Administrative costs have grown faster than spending on our teaching staff. I'm not against spending; I'd like the budget presented in a way that lets any resident see that split clearly and judge it for themselves.

Consistency in grading - A student's grade shouldn't depend on which section they happened to land in. That's a question of common practice across classrooms and clear communication to families before the year starts, not of rolling back any single policy.

Keeping our strongest educators, and strengthening where we need to - We have lost excellent teachers, principals, and staff over the past couple of years, and departures at that level deserve an honest look: why are people leaving, and what would have kept them? At the same time, not every staffing change is a loss. Where quality or capacity genuinely falls short, the district should be able to act on it. I'd want a policy that does both, so that Millburn is a place great educators want to build a career, and leadership has a clear and fair process for strengthening a team where it needs it. Today we tend to absorb turnover quietly rather than measure it and report on it.

A genuine technology and AI policy - Not a ban, not a free-for-all. Clear guidance on what tools students and teachers can use, what we do about assessment integrity, and what we tell parents about student data. Very few districts have done this well yet, and I think we can be one of the ones that does.

Underneath all of it: a board that asks its questions in public, gives real answers, and remembers that it governs rather than manages.

PATCH: What is one thing about the Millburn school district that always makes you smile?

PRASOON SAURABH: How seriously this community takes its schools. Show up at a board meeting, a curriculum night, or a parent group thread, and you find people who have actually read the material, know the details, and have thought hard about what would make things better. Nobody here is content to let the schools simply be good, and nobody expects someone else to do the work. That combination, high expectations paired with a genuine willingness to roll up sleeves, is rarer than people realize, and it's the reason I think this district's best years can still be ahead of it.

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