Republican primary candidates bid for seats on Bridgeport school board
Vote set for Tuesday
BRIDGEPORT — Incumbents and educators are vying for the Republican nominations for the city school board.
This year’s municipal primaries will be held on Tuesday, including the Republican primary for the Bridgeport Board of Education. GOP-endorsed John Weldon, the board chair, and newcomers Peter Perillo and Mary Gaits will be on the ballot. Joseph Sokolovic, also an incumbent, is running as a petition candidate for the Republican nomination.
Five school board seats are up for grabs this November, including those of Weldon and Sokolovic, and also those of Republican Chris Taylor and Democrats Jessica Martinez and Sosimo Fabian, who was filling a one-year vacancy on the nine-member panel.
The open seats are for four-year terms and, due to a state minority-party representation rule and the current makeup of the board, cannot be filled by more than three Democratic members.
Whoever wins Tuesday’s Republican primary will move on to the general election in November against the Democratic candidates and those endorsed by the Working Families Party.
The Democratic Town Committee at its July convention put three candidates forward for the general election: Christine BaptistePerez, an attorney; Erika Castillo, the director of communications at King School in Stamford; and Michael Maccarone, a professor at the University of Bridgeport.
Also in the running are the Working Families Party candidates, including Jose Lopez, Khalid Muhammad and Sokolovic — putting the incumbent on the ballot in November, regardless of Tuesday’s outcome.
Republican voters can select up to three candidates in the Board of Education primary. The candidates shared their platforms this week with Hearst Connecticut Media.
John Weldon, incumbent
Weldon is running as part of the slate of GOP-endorsed candidates.
“The three of us are all about accountability, transparency and collaboration, most importantly,” he said.
Weldon has been on the Bridgeport school board for five years and has been chairman for four years.
“We’re not the hijacked, dysfunctional board that existed four years ago,” he said. “We’re actually starting to do things the right way, and I’d like to keep that stabilized.”
The chairman said he and the board hired “a capable, competent superintendent” and “were able to keep things moving forward during COVID.”
He also said he oversaw the rewriting of board bylaws and established stable lines of communication between the board, superintendent and staff.
But Weldon still has ideas about more to fix on the Board of Education, including rethinking board committees, purchasing procedures and the interviewing of job applicants. He suggested the board “stop focusing on the small stuff” that does not directly impact front-line operations.
“I’d like to continue down the path of getting the board where it should be — operating at a 30,000 foot view,” he said.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “The district is completely different from what it was four years ago, but that change took four years to happen. Give me another four years, you’ll see another marked improvement.”
Peter Perillo
Perillo is the product of Bridgeport Public Schools and a former long-term substitute, middle school science teacher in the district.
Perillo, a Central High School graduate, came to the United States from Italy when he was 6 years old and learned English in its public schools. Running for school board, he said, is a way to give back.
“I really believe in public education,” he said. “I do truly think it’s a backbone of freedom.”
As a board member, Perillo said he would focus on superintendent stability, pandemic recovery and fully funding the often cashstrapped district.
“Why does Bridgeport get such little funding compared to other communities?” he said. “I will be a very loud, vocal voice in fighting to find out once and for all why that’s happening.”
The GOP-endorsed candidate said he hopes to make Bridgeport “a model for what urban schools can be.”
“I think the resources can be there, the talent can be there,” he said.
Perillo made the argument that it would help not only current Bridgeport students, but the Park City itself too, creating a more educated community and promoting the city’s reputation.
“That’ll help Bridgeport in general,” he said, “and the kids deserve it.”
Mary Gaits
If elected, Gaits said she would hardly be new to the school board room.
“I had been attending board meetings over the past 30 years,” she said.
Gaits had a lengthy career in Bridgeport schools before leaving the public system a few years ago.
“I want to stay involved in education,” she said. “I’m retired, but I want to stay active.”
Most recently, Gaits was a special education teacher at Harding High School and an assistant principal at Blackham School. She also spent a few years as supervisor for special education services, and lately taught English as a second language at St. Andrew School.
The longtime educator said her classroom experience would help her on the school board, especially as the district recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures.
“As a teacher and administrator in so many buildings, I’ve seen so much going on,” she said. “Every school has individual needs, and those needs need to be addressed.”
Gaits, who was briefly a computer teacher at the turn of the 1990s, said she would focus on technology literacy and social-emotional education — both in the classroom and at home. She suggested the district hosts parent workshops, not only for reading and math, but also for behavioral learning and well-being.
She also said she would prioritize transparency of district spending and relationships among those involved in Bridgeport schools.
“Parents need to be listened to. Everyone at the board meetings needs to be treated with respect, because that has not happened in the past,” she said.
Joseph Sokolovic, incumbent
Sokolovic, who was also endorsed by the Working Families Party, said he still has work to do on the Bridgeport school board.
“My mission has not been completed yet,” he said.
“I have a son in Bridgeport Public Schools,” said Sokolovic, the father of an eighth grader who recently transferred to Discovery Magnet School. “When I originally ran, it was because I had some issues with my son’s school, then found our schools weren’t up to par.”
Sokolovic, chair of the board’s finance committee, said he is a fiscal conservative with a 100 percent attendance record and voting history at regular meetings to prove it.
The candidate is a vocal advocate for district funding at the local and state level, and has expanded his work outside of regular board meetings to educating others on school finance and holding a virtual meeting on the budget.
To that end, Sokolovic said he is also a strong proponent of transparency and openness to the public. He is usually a reliable vote against executive session at board meetings.
Sokolovic is no stranger to voting in the minority or even alone.
“If you go back in the history, oftentimes I’m in the minority vote,” he said. “Anything that hasn’t changed is because I’m outvoted.”
Sokolovic said that with the public’s help, and a shaken-up board post-election, he will work to bring about change.