Two Indian Americans elected in South Brunswick School Board

November 8, 2017

Indian-Americans Deven Patel re-elected for three-year term and Joyce Mehta was newly elected for two-year term in South Brunswick Board of Education:

Deven Patel, Indian-American from South Brunswick got re-elected for three-year term as a member of the South Brunswick Board of Education with more than 3,500 votes in Tuesday’s general election. Another Indian-American woman Joyce Mehta who received more than 3,700 votes got elected first time in the board for two-year term. Township of South Brunswick is one of the most culturally diverse in the state with more than 23% South Asians living in the town.

The South Brunswick school system is very competitive in the state and provides safe environment and teachers are highly professional and dedicated. The Board of Education elections had three open seats with five candidates ran for three-year term and two candidates ran for one vacated seat for two year term. The other two winners were incumbents Patrick Del Piano received more than 3,400 votes and Arthur Robinson received more than 4,000 votes. Deven Patel is a dedicated community activist and hard-working, honest and loyal board member has been serving diligently for the past six years in school board. He is currently employed as a Civil Engineer at New Jersey Department of Transportation. Patel serve as a Chairman of the South Brunswick Township Transportation Advisory Committee and a member of the Middlesex County Transportation Coordinating Committee representing South Brunswick Township. He has been actively involved in school board committees as a Chair of Curriculum and Academic policy, Policy Committee and District Evaluation Advisory Committee (DEAC). He serves as a school liaison for Cambridge Elementary School, Crossroads North Middle School and South Brunswick High School. In addition, Patel also served as a Vice President and Secretary for the Middlesex County School Boards. As a current school board member, Patel has maintained and enhanced district policy, core curriculum standards, suggested and implemented school security protocols for safe environment for children and link between South Brunswick community and Board of Education. He is a current Executive Committee member of Indo-American Cultural Foundation of Central Jersey – IACFNJ, a community organization in central jersey and serve as a Vice-President.

While Joyce Mehta is newly elected to the board, but not new to the school system as she has been actively serving as parent advocate and resident of South Brunswick for the past 12 years with two daughters in school system. She is a lawyer by profession and actively involved and working tirelessly for the past few years for all children in South Brunswick school district. It is because of her efforts that the school district is now sitting up and looking at serious academic and social emotional issues affecting the children. Through Mehta’s sincere efforts, the school district is examining issues such as academic stress, conflicts in AP tests schedule, children overburden with homework, and many other issues affecting children. Mehta has been successful in pushing for homework free holidays and does all of these by effectively working with students and teachers and administrators. Mehta’s principal goals are to engage the community, to facilitate collaboration, maintain fiscal responsibility and to introduce inclusion and diversity to all areas of the school system to enrich and strengthen South Brunswick school system.

In their messages to community, both Patel and Mehta thanked all residents and their supporters for electing them and expressed the feeling that they will work hard to continue supporting curriculum at all school levels, support safe environment for students to achieve higher academic skills and support teacher mentoring, information technology and continuing education programs. They also mentioned that they will ensure opportunities for all students are maintained to include music and athletics programs, community education programs for adults and ensure the balance between children and tax payers are its best in the township. The Indian American communities in New Jersey are very proud of re-election of Deven Patel and election of Joyce Mehta and extend their best wishes to both candidates to serve diligently in school board.