2017 Hamilton school board election promises governance shakeup

HAMILTON » The ninemember board of education that governs the Hamilton Township School District is guaranteed to be shaken up this fall.

That’s because 13 candidates have filed petitions to run for Hamilton school board this year as two out of three incumbents have decided not to pursue reelection.

School board member Susan Lombardo is hoping to get re-elected to three more years this November, becoming the only incumbent who will appear on the ballot because her colleagues Christopher Scales and Jennifer Kraemer are not seeking new terms. Lombardo, of Elmore Avenue, first won election to the school board in 2014 with 7,339 votes.

The remaining 12 candidates include former school board member Albert Gayzik, 2017 Hamilton High School West grad Manuel Jimenez, Angelo Hall, Gary Schuck II, 2015 Steinert High grad Cameron J. Cardinale, Girard A. Casale, Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District teacher Susan Formica, Michael J. Donnelly, Sherry Morency, Spencer Sydorko, Robbinsville School District teacher Joseph J. Golding, and Joy Kerlin.

Here is a little more background on the candidates:

• Gayzik, of Terrapin Lane, first won election to the Hamilton Township Board of Education in 2012 by receiving 8,863 votes, but he lost his reelection bid three years later when he fell short with 3,356 votes.

• Jimenez, of Orchard Avenue, is a young face hoping to make his mark. He graduated two months ago from the district, drawing comparisons with Scales, who first won election to the school board in 2014 as a freshman student at Rider University.

• Hall, of South Broad Street, is the new executive director of the nonprofit John O. Wilson Hamilton Neighborhood Service Center in Hamilton Township. He was a longtime New Jersey state worker.

• Schuck, of Whitehorse-Hamilton Square Road, has been politically active with the Hamilton Township Democratic Party before filing his petitions to run for the nonpartisan school board.

• Cardinale, of Baggaley Road, recently graduated from the district and currently attends Rutgers University. He is considered an up-and-coming young Republican.

• Casale, of Harwick Drive, ran unsuccessfully for school board last year, collecting 6,069 votes in his losing effort. He is once again running on the slogan “Children’s lives matter” and has gone on record that he does not support the Sept. 26 special election referendum in which voters will decide whether the district shall issue $55.4 million in bonds to finance critical repairs districtwide. “They are wasting money. They can’t allow it to pass,” he said of the referendum. “I am against it.”

• Formica, of Grayson Avenue, teaches at the John I. Dawes Early Learning Center in Manalapan Township.

• Donnelly, of Locust Hill Boulevard, is running for school board for the first time.

• Morency, of Paxson Avenue, is a local parent hoping to make a difference in the district.

• Sydorko, of Olszak Court, is listed as a member of the Hamilton Township Democratic Club of Mercer County. His wife is an educator at the Hopewell Valley Regional School District.

• Golding, of Marksboro Way, is a married father and music teacher at Pond Road Middle School in Robbinsville. He has worked in the Robbinsville School District since 2000.

• Kerlin, of Merham Court, is a local parent and is married to a Willingboro public school teacher.

Of the 13 declared candidates, only the top-three vote-getters in the Nov. 7 school board election will be sworn into office next January to a three-year term. With Lombardo being the only incumbent running, at least two new members are guaranteed to be elected.

While school board members are unpaid for their nonpartisan service, they have great power to shape public education. Board members give final approval on which textbooks students read in the classrooms, and they get to hire new employees into the school district and determine whether school board meetings should be recorded and televised in full.