There might not be a contest for municipal government on the Tuesday, Nov. 8 ballot, but there’s still a hotly contested local race in which Lawrence residents can cast their ballots.
A total of seven candidates are running for election to the Lawrence Township Public Schools Board of Education.
They include three incumbents, a husband-wife team and a recent graduate of Lawrence High School.
Running for re-election to the board are Patricia “Pepper” Evans, Michelle King and Amanda Santos. Also running are Carlos Raziel Rodriguez, Thomas Figueira, Amy Gregory and Nathaniel Gregory.
The Lawrence Gazette asked each of the candidates to provide biographical information about themselves and a statement regarding why they are running for the board. Their answers are presented in alphabetical order below.
Patricia “Pepper” Evans, 65, has been a resident of Mercer County for over a half-century, 40 years in Lawrence Township. A current member of the board, she is running on a slate with incumbents Michelle King and Amanda Santos on the “Building Tomorrow Together“ slate.
Evans says she was denied the opportunity for higher education and is largely self-taught. She says she is committed to becoming a highly-trained school board member.
Building on her Certified Board Leader certificate, she earned Master Board Member, ultimately reaching the highest level from the Board Member Academy, Certified Board Leader. Passionate about reading, she tries to meet the 100 Book Challenge each year.
Evans has launched several successful entrepreneurial enterprises and now works as an independent living consultant helping older adults age with dignity. She is also a long-time staff member of the Silver Century Foundation, a private family foundation that addresses ageism and proactive aging issues.
Evans, whose husband died in 2006, has two daughters who are now in their 20s. Both attended the LTPS and graduated from Lawrence High School.
Before her board service, Evans was the founding board president of what is now HomeFront. She served three three-year terms on the LTPS Board, including a year as vice president and president.
She is currently vice president of the Woman’s Club of Lawrenceville. Always active in the PTO in her daughters’ schools, Evans served as PTO president. Additionally, she was a Girl Scout leader and coached recreation sports teams. On the Board, she chairs the Finance Committee, chaired CIAPD for many years and served on the others as a committee person.
Evan’s statement: The number one reason I am running for another term is gratitude. My daughters attended LTPS from Toddler Town at age 3 to graduation. They are flourishing today due in large part to their years in LTPS. I want to retain the high academic standards families expect from their schools, but equally, I am wholly empathetic to the long-term effects of the pandemic: trauma and mental health.
To address this, we must stay the course with our staff trained in social-emotional learning and relationship building. Every child has an adult to turn to if needed.
I want to support the superintendent and school leaders in achieving our strategic plan, emphasizing academic excellence, emotional health and diversity.
As a long-serving chair of the Finance and Facilities committee, I have a deep knowledge of the district’s fiscal health and its challenges in the coming years. I believe in focused spending on our buildings and grounds to preserve our investment and keep us moving forward with technology.
I’m non-partisan and a team player; I will work with others to support the experts–our teachers–to put forth science-based education in a classroom where all children are free to grow and learn as their authentic selves.
The challenges facing school districts today are vast. I believe Michelle King, Amanda Santos and I offer the best chance at meeting the challenges head-on and overcoming them, preparing every student for success. We will Build Tomorrow Together.
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Thomas Figueira, 73, has lived in Lawrence Township for 35 years. He is running on a slate called “Quality–Community–Family” with Amy and Nate Gregory.
Figueira was educated at public schools in Washington Heights, New York City and Poughkeepsie, New York. His PhD was from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977, and he has also attended Fordham University, the University of Chicago, Oxford University, the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (the U.S. Archaeological Institute in Greece).
He currently is a distinguished professor of classics and ancient History at Rutgers University, where he has worked since 1979. He has also taught at Pennsylvania, Stanford, Dickinson College and Princeton and has won numerous academic honors and many accomplishments in various academic categories.
He and his wife, Sarah George Figueira, have three children who were educated in LTPS schools—Elizabeth, who graduated LHS in 1998, Julie, who graduated LHS in 2001, and Charles, who was placed by Lawrence at Midland School and finished in 2007.
Figueira has mainly been involved in groups and organizations serving the New Jersey higher educational community including: many leadership positions in the Association of American University Professors, including Executive Council for six multi-year terms; the New Jersey Education Association, including Chapter Leader, Rutgers NJEA 2000-5; the American Federation of Teachers, including president, Rutgers-New Brunswick, AAUP/AFT, 2014-16; the Committee for Academic Freedom at Rutgers University, including co-chair (1998-2005). He has also served multiple terms both as university senator (representing the School of Arts and Sciences) and as New Brunswick faculty counselor (advising the chancellor-provost).
Figueira statement: In my period as a member of our community, the standing of the Lawrence Township schools has declined calamitously in every evaluation, dropping from ca. 40th in the state to a level barely median (if that). This is shocking in a community that has not been socio-economically transformed nor struck with natural or environmental disaster.
The situation can only be reversed by adopting a singular focus that brings to bear both remedial measures and careful tailoring of planning for students in a try-everything approach. At one end of the spectrum, struggling students need multi-vectored intervention, which might include enhanced study halls, supervised study and tutoring; at the other pole of expectation more and more intense advanced placement options and better counseling for future educational prospects.
Responsible leadership means no more wasting resources on ideological pretention and signaling of politically correct adherence. It means focusing on educational issues based on the best practices and ditching divisive initiatives taken off partisan media and amateur blogging, where extreme formulations tend to sound most loudly.
It means board members once again committed to the traditional curricula that have sustained American democratic society for generations. These curricula should always be in a process of modernization and expansion to foster a greater spirit of inclusivity, but they must never be gutted in an effort to destroy faith in essential American institutions. I was a child of lower socioeconomic status, whose generation was mightily advantaged by the scare that the Soviets dealt America with the launching of Sputnik. Rather than bigger scares, we need larger hearts.
Let’s return to age-appropriate sex education, firmly rooted in a health science curriculum that is sensitive to the maturational clock operating for children, and let us not fall for the last-century’s science fiction dolled up as “woke” thought. No kiddie porn masquerading as instructional material and zero toleration for grooming/proselytizing. In short, science from mainstream medicine instead of self-therapy from poseurs.
Let’s remember that parents are the ultimate authorities for their childrens’ emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being and their progress. Parents must be enabled to make healthcare decisions (advised by professionals of their selection) in a context of full information, without anyone withholding or denying data. School boards, including our BOE, have not been given authority (and in fact cannot legitimately be given such authority) to make medical decisions regarding students in our schools. Our schools are not clinics and certainly not psychiatric facilities.
Let’s avoid wasting time on extraneous matters that have been introduced for mere political advantage. What was the rationale for our school board to conduct ill-informed inquiries into the question of “reparations?” How would any finding in this matter have an appropriate bearing on educational decisions affecting Lawrence Township students? Would a reparative system teach different types of geometry or chemistry? At best, such issues are matters for legislative consideration.
Let’s commit to treating every child, every student, in accordance with his/her individual skills, aptitudes and inclinations as they have actually and fairly been demonstrated, without labeling, stigmatization, or attribution of group traits. This is, in fact, what our society has traditionally always understood as basic aspirational “civil rights.” Meanwhile, we shall be emphasizing that such skills, aptitudes and inclinations are not set in stone, but are subject to intervention and improvement. That policy is what our laws instruct; what decency requires.
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Amy Gregory, 42, and her husband, Nate, have lived in the township for almost 17 years. She is running on a slate called “Quality–Community–Family” with her husband and Thomas Figueira.
Gregory attended Empire Beauty School and is individually licensed by the state of New Jersey. She currently works at Chase Williams Hair Studio.
She and Nate have three daughters. One has already gone through the LTPS starting in Slackwood Elementary and graduated from Lawrence High School. She said their 5-year-old just started Kindergarten at the Saint Ann’s school in Lawrence, and “she’ll stay there until the LTPS makes significant changes.” Their two-year-old daughter is currently in preschool.
Amy Gregory’s statement: The current board of education has failed the parents of Lawrenceville and all others committed to quality education. Our families are looking for an exceptional education for their children, and we are losing the company of neighbors, no longer prepared to raise a family here.
The current board of education seems infatuated with an extremism that disregards parents and taxpayers who seem sidelined in deciding the curriculum taught to our children and decide what is best for our families. I intend to provide full transparency to parents and offer a voice to our forgotten families. Are they being defrauded of the access they deserve by the current dispensation?
In the midst of pursuing so-called “social justice” issues, our underserved and low-income students are falling behind and have considerable achievement gaps. The average test ranking is 5/10, which is in the bottom 50% of public schools in N.J. ranking LTPS at 339 out of 652 school districts. Our young people are suffering with an average math proficiency score of 44% and reading proficiency at 59% when only a few short years ago these numbers were around 80%.
The Lawrence Middle School is our only above average facility, while the other six schools in the district are either average or below average. This is simply unacceptable for our children, it’s unacceptable for our community and an outrage to our taxpayers who once benefited from a vibrant exceptional school system.
As a mother of three girls and a hair stylist, I speak with many parents, guardians and grandparents every day in our community and surrounding areas. It’s clear to me that these families agree that public education is going in the wrong direction.
With the ability to listen to the community and love for our children, I’m confident I can offer a perspective that represents the public while finding new innovative ways to afford our children an exceptional learning experience.
My professional experience offers a lengthy track record building and leading customer experience and operations functions and designing and implementing process improvement initiatives.
My expertise as a persuasive communicator and negotiator with a proven capability to nurture productive relations with existing and new clients presents me the unique opportunity to assist in solving the complicated issues we’re challenged with today.
As a parent of three children and a small business owner, most of my time is spent parenting and providing exceptional services to the community.
My priorities are to return LTPS to an outstanding place for our children to learn and prepare for the future. I will facilitate curriculum transparency to assist parents in making the best decisions for their principles and encourage public discourse so we can shape the curriculum to reflect the values of the community and traditions of sound teaching.
I will focus on the underserved and low-income students by finding ways to aid them in getting the assistance they need to succeed.
I believe parents are the stakeholders of our educational system, my intention is to restore trust between the parents and the public school system that has been eroded by poor policy decisions over the last few years.
I was not naturally inclined to seek this role. As most parents of young families, I would rather be playing with my children, teaching them to ride a bike, or how to read and being a good mother. I am not temperamentally the type of person who seeks to exercise power, and I do not have any political aspirations.
What I want is for our children to have a strong education without being indoctrinated with non-traditional radical prejudices that do not align with community values.
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Nate Gregory, 43, is running on the “Quality–Community–Family” slate with his wife, Amy, and Thomas Figueira. He and Amy have lived in lawrence for almost 17 years,
He has been trained in the Green Futures Management Program in 2011, Construction Project Management in 2011, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design in 2011. He earned an associates degree in Computer Graphics in 2001.
He works as operations manager/owner at Clearview Detailing and has been Health and Safety Manager at ATC Associates and Construction Foreman at ATC Associates.
He and his wife, Amy, have three daughters. One has already gone through the LTPS starting in Slackwood Elementary and graduated from Lawrence High School. She said their 5-year-old just started Kindergarten at the Saint Ann’s school in Lawrence, and he says, “she’ll stay there until the LTPS makes significant changes.” Their two-year-old daughter is currently in preschool.
Nate Gregory’s statement is essentially the same as his wife’s. Printed below are the sections that are different: As a small business owner here in Lawrenceville I talk to parents, guardians and grandparents every day in our community, I have yet to meet anyone that approves of the direction the LTPS is taking.
I’m a growth-focused operations leader with a two- decade achievement record in small business management, construction and client relations.
I have proven to be a dedicated professional with impressive communication, leadership and relationship-building skills.
With my finger on the pulse of the community and background in construction project management I’m confident I can offer a perspective that represents the taxpayers while finding new innovative ways to afford our children an exceptional learning experience.
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Michelle King, 58, has lived in Lawrence Township for 24 years. She is a current member of the school board and is running on the “Building Tomorrow Together“ slate with incumbents Pepper Evans and Amanda Santos.
King earned a BA in Special Education from La Salle University in 1986. In 1989, she completed an master’s degree in Educational psychology from Temple University and then received her PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997
She is currently in her 20th year as an adjunct professor in the School of Education at The College of New Jersey. She has taught courses in the elementary education program, the special education program and in the first year seminar program. She also supervises student teachers in local public schools. Prior to teaching at TCNJ, she taught in Pennsylvania in special education settings and in a vocational rehabilitation program.
King and her husband of 32 years, Charlie, have five daughters ranging in age from 17 to 28 years old. The youngest daughter is currently in her senior year of high school.
Of the older daughters, one is in her second year of college and the other three are post-college, living and working in New York and California. Their children attended St. Paul’s School in Princeton for grades K-8 and then attended The Pennington School for high school.
For 18 years, King was involved in youth sports, coaching soccer teams through Lawrence Hamnett Soccer Association and basketball teams through the CYO program. Currently, her six years on the Lawrence Township School Board have been her primary community involvement.
King’s statement: Over the course of my six years of experience on the Lawrence Township School Board, I have established a strong, collegial working relationship with my fellow board members and district administrators and we share many similar goals and positions.
I am well aware of the responsibilities and priorities of our school board and participated in the creation of our current district strategic plan. The unique position I have as an active, local, education professional, currently working in teacher education and a long-time township resident affords me a “big picture” perspective for the district.
In my time as a school board member, I have been a strong advocate of our SEL objectives, specifically supporting an increase in our guidance staff at the high school, in order to decrease the size of the counselors’ case loads, bringing us in alignment with what several other local school districts offer their students.
For the past three years, the district hired additional counseling support which has had a significant and positive impact on the emotional well-being of our students from Kindergarten through twelfth grade and I support identifying funding streams to continue to provide this valuable district-wide resource.
As the current chair of the CIAPD committee, I have been active in the exploration of the schedule changes at the high school and middle school and plan on evaluating the results of these changes as they unfold.
I am anxious to advocate for the ongoing collection of data that informs us of our current achievements in curriculum and instruction, and that will help the district implement changes to reach its goals stipulated in the strategic plan. The district’s strategic plan is bold, yet achievable.
My focus will be on seeking information from our administrators to help the district monitor its progress toward goals such as ensuring that all students read at grade level by grade 3 and that all 8th grade students are prepared for algebra.
In the spring of 2019, I was the board liaison for special education while the district underwent a thorough evaluation of special education programming resulting in a detailed and ambitious action plan.
Unfortunately, COVID undercut the district’s ability to enact that action plan, but our current strategic plan supports taking necessary measures to assess and implement changes to enhance outcomes for those students identified as having special needs. As the current board liaison to Mercer County Vo-Tech, I am working to ensure that students have all the information and options they need to create a firm plan for post-secondary education or employment.
As a member of the finance committee this year, I am deeply aware of the struggles inherent in the school budget. It is not possible to fund all the expenses we desire to meet our goals. The school board and district need to carefully determine the most affordable and effective solutions to meet our goals and resolve upcoming challenges.
My own education and career highlight my knowledge and skills in the area of teaching, learning and school management.
My passion is understanding the dynamics that create success between teachers and students and the nuances inherent in a large school system and then turning ideas into realities to improve education for all.
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Carlos Raziel Rodriguez, 20, has lived in Lawrence Township for almost 9 years. He graduated from Lawrence High School in 2020, and is currently a sophomore at Mercer County Community College, with aspirations of transferring to either Princeton or UPenn.
In addition to being a student, Raziel Rodriguez is an author and eCommerce entrepreneur. He has recently become involved with Lawrence Neighbors Together, and he is a board member of the Energizing Young Voter’s Advisory Board. He is also the president of La Sede, a Latino student union at Mercer County Community College.
Raziel Rodriguez’s statement: I graduated from the Lawrence Township public school district in June of 2020, the same year as the pandemic and subsequent lockdown.
I’m an LGBT Filipino-Puerto Rican American. My campaign has been endorsed by the Run For Something Organization and am awaiting word on Congressman Andy Kim’s decision to endorse my campaign as well.
To preface, all of my platform positions are interdependent and complement each other. Lawrence Township Schools can become a place where students don’t have to dread going. Where is the ambition to innovate and become a leader in education? Not in the county, but in the State of New Jersey at the least.
A 44% student proficiency in math, 60% in reading and a ranking of 94th out of 243 N.J. school districts is not acceptable to me.
What do mindfulness, opportunity and security have to do with one another? We also know that suicide, self-harm, adolescent drug abuse and feelings of loneliness are prevalent in young people today.
The CDC reports that in recent years: “suicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34.3.” We can also infer that as those trends continue, that historically disenfranchised groups will disproportionately feel the impact.
I stand on these pillars that we must innovate. We can rid the district of outmoded practices in favor of superior ones and make opportunities for all students. By shifting around some of our priorities, the district can be made safer and perform better—thus providing more opportunity.
Mindfulness-integrated schooling would resolve internally-originated threats before they arise. Save children in crisis, suffering silently. It would also provide students with the mental toolkit they require to matriculate at universities of their choosing.
No one wants to see the look of disappointment on their talented kids’ faces when they’re rejected from Harvard or Colombia because the poor kid fizzled and burned out.
Confident, enthusiastic people perform better than anxious and depressed ones—in all disciplines, more so and–most critically–academics and athletics. Imagine a school with fit, happy, mindful students.
My solution isn’t waving a magic wand and saying that I’m doing mindfulness or mental health. I would ask school administrators about the purpose of detention—for example—amongst other practices. In reality, it’s a relic and a drain of school resources based on antiquated conventions or traditional thought.
Schools can’t claim to be temples of thought and learning, and the administration does not confront their own preconceptions. What I coin “soft discipline” as a tangible part of my mindfulness program encourages students to look at themselves and within.
Thirty minutes of mindful breathing, or an hour of detention. This is not woo-woo new ageism. Mindfulness is as legitimate and empirical—according to the APA—as we know gravity to be. We know there’s a positive correlation between increasing class 3 officers or SROs and harsh discipline.
What community stands to lose the most in their formative years as recipients of disproportionate encounters with disciplinarians? Lawrence’s minority communities.
I have no current intentions of reducing officers on school grounds, but I want to explore with the other board members how we can better understand our security personnel.
Is it worth discussing student schedules rotating every day and asking if it’s a distraction? Is it worth discussing changing our district’s schedule so that it’s less taxing on students? Is it worth discussing implementing robust mindfulness curriculums, practices, etc. in the interest of our student’s academic performance and personal well-being? Is it worth asking, do we really care about our students—all our students—whether we care enough about their flourishing to acknowledge the trends I’ve mentioned previously and make substantive reforms in the right direction?
We ought to up-skill our teachers and build capability around teaching the whole student, through the modality of school-based mindfulness practices. Review outdated practices for more wholesome ones, re-apportioning some of our time and priorities. Building up our mental-health infrastructure and hiring student counselors, advocates and therapists.
To have only one Latino in AP (advanced placement) classes should strike people as an enormous red flag—and self-evidently.
For me, the question isn’t about Latinos per se. It’s a matter of asking: in a school district as diverse as ours, why aren’t smart kids in underrepresented communities showing up in our AP classes more often?
I’d further ask, in demographic terms, how many of our underrepresented students are matriculating at elite universities? How many students joined trades confidently and are happy with their trade? How many know what career aligns with their natures and tendencies and know the steps they need to take? The issue I see is a lack of resources. I know from experience.
I would advocate introducing a new program for the high school on Saturdays, offering an adjacent curriculum that would run like a typical school day. Rigorous and mentor-driven. I would enlist the help and expertise of organizations that already do this i.e. reputable and subsidized third-party organizations dedicated to this purpose. Maybe it can be accomplished in partnership with other school districts.
This can all be accomplished—not via the tax-and-spend status quo—but through the intelligent crafting of beneficial policy. But Lawrence needs a young, dynamic voice, whose diverse identity reflects Lawrence Township, to lead that conversation.
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Amanda Santos, 39, has lived in Lawrence Township since 2017. She is currently a member of the School Board, and she is running on a slate with incumbents Pepper Evans and Michelle Kind on the “Building Tomorrow Together” slate.
Santos has a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in Vocal Pedagogy from Rider University. She will graduate in December 2022 with a master’s degree in Political Science, with a concentration in Public Policy.
She currently works for the state Department of the Treasury, and she previously (and currently part-time) is a small business owner, running her own private music studio.
She and her husband, Daniel, have three children. Their oldest attends Mercer County Special Services District, their middle child is in the Lawrence School District, and their youngest is a toddler, but will attend Lawrence schools in two years.
Santos’ primary civic work is with the Board of Education, but she is also a member of Lawrence Neighbors Together, the Lawrence Pride Alliance and Mercer County Moms Demand Action. She participates in community theater productions and local music recitals.
Santos’ statement: I am running for reelection because after my first year of appointment to the Board of Education, I have identified areas in which our district could use improvement, and I have gained the necessary experience in how to create policies to work towards these improvements.
As a parent of three children, witnessing policy-making firsthand has given me great insight as to how I can work as a board member to devise strategies that will strengthen our district and make learning and life greater for all students.
Also because of the nature of my position, I have had the opportunity to hear from many members of the community about issues they are experiencing as parents and students. I believe that listening and responding to these diverse voices in our community is of utmost importance as a school board member.
As a parent of a child with a disability, I have experienced many challenges while advocating for my child and their education. I think that by listening to and engaging with all of our community members we can work towards creating a district where parents and students truly feel like they are represented and heard by staff and administration.
In a time when we are at odds politically, we must be careful not to take our divisiveness out on our children and instead focus on how we can make their time spent in the classroom more valuable, while offering a safe and healthy learning environment for all learners.
Primarily, I think our district should be focused on strengthening the academic achievement of our students. There was a significant loss of learning and development during the pandemic shutdown, and our district should be focused on restoring our students. We can work towards that in a few ways, but most importantly, I think that a commitment to social emotional learning is vital.
More than anything, our students were compromised on an emotional level during the pandemic, and repairing that damage will take commitment from our entire community.
I also believe we should be heavily focused on celebrating our students’ differences, working towards a more unified, diverse district. By engaging and lifting up students from all backgrounds, we create a stronger district across the board.
Carlos Raziel Rodriguez,
Pepper Evans,
