Tambudzayi Miranda Chibwe: Warren School Board Candidate

WARREN, NJ — The Warren Township School Board has six candidates vying for three seats in the upcoming election on Nov. 2.

Tambudzayi Miranda Chibwe is one of the candidates running. The other candidates include:

• Aparna Virmani - (is running together with Desai and Croson)
• Daniel Croson, Jr. - (is running together with Desai and Virmani)
• Mehul Desai - (is running together with Croson and Virmani)
• Eric Winch
• Ryan J. Valentino

All of the candidates are running for the three, three-year seats on the board.

Are you running for office in Warren? Contact Alexis Tarrazi at alexis.tarrazi@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate's profile and submitting campaign announcements to Warren Patch.

Tambudzayi Miranda Chibwe

Name: Tambudzayi Miranda Chibwe

Age: 44

Town of residence: Warren Township

Position sought: Warren Township Board of Education

Family: Husband Brian, 3 children – 8th grade (Warren Middle School), 4th grade and 2nd grade (Mt. Horeb).

Education: Bachelor of Accounting Science

Occupation: Stay at home mom; Former audit manager (worked at Ernst and Young as well as EisnerAmper LLP)

Previous or current elected appointed office: None.

Why are you seeking to run for school board? I am very invested in my children’s welfare. I know that a good education opens their minds and it ultimately opens doors for them and allows them to live the lives they want to and that I want for them. I am actively involved in volunteering in their schools. Running for the Board is an extension of my service to my children’s school community, using much more of my professional skillset. This position requires time and energy to make a meaningful contribution to important discussions and decisions. As a stay-at-home mother, with all of my children in school full time, I have the time to commit to this important role. The best ideas come out of discussions from different minds, experiences, backgrounds and personalities. The more the Board reflects the best of the diversity of voices within its own student body, the stronger it can be. I want to contribute towards that. I want to be in the rooms where the decisions are made that impact the quality of education my children and their peers receive, including the experiences that are not purely academic.

What is your stance on masks in schools? Masks are an inconvenient but necessary part of our defense against a pandemic that is still very prevalent. Our current infection rate within the district is significant, with our numbers for September being the highest ever since the start of the pandemic. That puts us at risk of schools having to close. I think it is critical for schools to remain open, so all our students have live instruction from teachers and social interaction with their peers consistently. If we want schools to stay open, we need to continue to take the recommendations from the CDC and local health officials that we took this past year, that allowed our schools to remain open almost the entire year. It comes down to this – schools need to stay open; students and staff need to feel safe and supported in staying healthy in school. Wearing masks is a good way to accomplish that.

Should schools offer a virtual option? Since we are now back to full school days, the strain on our staffing and space resources is too great to make this a viable option especially when considering that, based on many families’ experiences last year, it does not offer the best learning experience for students. The cost outweighs the benefits. I would much prefer to do what we can to maintain safety in schools.

What other issues do you feel must be tackled in the school district? This school year, the Board will need to determine how to balance its student population across the elementary schools, considering the new housing that is planned for Warren. Doing this successfully requires someone who can appreciate the needs of the entire community and the complexity involved in such decisions.

The pandemic and its effects have exacerbated the gap between the students who struggle and those who excel, while the middle is mostly ok. Meeting the different needs of the students means giving the ones who struggle more of the appropriate supports they need to thrive, as well as providing enough challenges to those who are advanced, so everyone has the best opportunity to flourish.

What sets you apart from the challenging candidates? The Board is a governing body that serves to run the entities that are our schools. There are many facets to running a group of schools — staffing, finances, curriculum, compliance with legal and state requirements, record maintenance and so on. My professional background is in accounting and compliance. My last professional role was as an Audit Manager in New York City. That experience equips me with an understanding of the need to fully know the rules, requirements and expectations for an organization to be in compliance with the different bodies it reports to (such as the SEC, shareholders and the IRS) and to balance that with the realities on the ground with regards to human and financial resources, corporate structure and culture, and employee needs. I have been in this community for almost 5 years. I don’t know everything, but I understand the diversity of our community (income levels, family make up, races, cultural and religious backgrounds, even the complexities of having a child at the Middle School vs at the Elementary level). As a parent of students currently in the district, not only am I extremely vested in its success, I am also in a position to know in real time what the students are experiencing, what they need and what is happening in the community (both school and broader community).

What else would you like to share about yourself or your campaign? As I have stated before, my children are extremely important to me, as are yours to you. We all really do want the same thing; we just perhaps have different ideas as to how to get where we want to go. What’s needed is balance. The ability to listen well to all perspectives and boil down the noise, reduce it to what’s at stake and make the best decision for the community. That is something I can do.