Balancing the Moorestown Board of Education - Vote November 7th!

To the Editor:

Recently I wrote about the dynamic on our Board of Education, which saw its most qualified member, then-acting president Brandon Pugh, denied the opportunity to be president due to his conservative values. While the Board purports to be separate from partisan politics, and open to all views, it clearly is not, and there is a large imbalance with the left side of the political spectrum in full control, working primarily in the interests of the employee unions, while underrepresenting many parents and the taxpayers. Therefore, in the interest of balance, and of a fuller representation of all constituents, I am writing to endorse three candidates running for the three full term positions: Kameron Rabenou, Tinamarie Nicolo-Dorfner, and Pete Palko. These folks are willing to engage in the hard work of fiscal review that is in all of our interests, whereas the president the Board recently elected has publicly indicated her lack of interest in “the minutiae of budgets and such things”. I am convinced that these three will have a high regard for the quality of education in Moorestown as being not inconsistent with a careful stewardship of the sixty-five million dollars being collected annually in taxes.

They will also hold in high regard parents who are concerned about agenda-oriented curriculum, which even one book’s author recently admitted he had not intended for school-aged children. A more balanced school board would debate such things, and may push back on trendy and controversial literature, the main purpose of which seems to be to make those blessed with favorable circumstances feel badly about it. Parents who have chosen to raise their families in Moorestown, with all of its benefits for families, should not have to be worried that the school’s reading list is at odds with values they are trying to instill at home, even if those values have become a popular target for some.

Judson B. Van Dervort, Jr.

Moorestown