Six candidates will compete for four seats in this year’s Board of Education elections, which will be held on Tuesday, November 4.
Three candidates are vying for the two available West Windsor seats: Richard Kaye, Dana Krug, and Yingchao “YZ” Zhang. Kaye and Krug, both incumbents, are seeking re-election. Kaye, who is currently the vice chairman of the board, was first elected in 2005. Before retiring, he was principal of South Brunswick High School.
Krug, first elected in 2011, seeks a second term. A West Windsor resident since 1995, she has three children in WW-P schools. She worked for more than 18 years in marketing, communications, and project management and now devotes her time to volunteer work.
Zhang ran unsuccessfully for the board last November. He holds a PhD in high energy physics and is director of sales engineering at NetScout Systems.
The two winners from West Windsor will serve three-year terms.
The Plainsboro election is slightly more complicated. Two candidates are seeking to fill the one available three-year term; incumbent Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz and newcomer Peien Isaac Cheng. Like Krug, Hurwitz was first elected in 2011 and seeks a second term. This is Cheng’s first bid for a board seat.
Hurwitz moved in Plainsboro in 2000 and is the mother of two High School South alumni. She has been active in the Walker Gordon Farm community. Cheng, a 2008 graduate of High School North, attended the University of Chicago.
In addition, Rachel Puno Juliana is seeking re-election to her position, which is a one-year term. Juliana — a lawyer and mother of two who moved to Plainsboro in 2007 — was chosen by the board to replace Yibao Xu, who passed away unexpectedly last year. That appointment began in January and will end in December, 2014. Juliana must now seek reelection in November for the remainder Xu’s unexpired term, through December, 2015. Should she choose to continue her service on the board after the completion of this one-year term, she will have to run again in 2015 for a full three-year term.