It’s an election free-for-all in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District this year, with a total of 10 candidates running for three open seats on the WW-P Board of Education.
This year’s contest comes on the heels of a controversy in which the community was divided over a decision by the board last December to make various curriculum changes.
Six West Windsor residents are running for two board seats while four will vie for the lone Plainsboro seat up for grabs. The filing deadline was July 25.
Running in West Windsor are Carol Herts, incumbent Louisa Ho, former board member Richard Kaye, Deborah Marinsky, incumbent Scott Powell and Mirna White.
Running in Plainsboro are Shrenik Dagli, former board member Todd Hochman, Russel Melville and incumbent Yu “Taylor” Zhong.
The crowded field is a stark contrast to the 2015 election for three seats. Two Plainsboro candidates ran unopposed and the West Windsor incumbent only faced one opponent.
In Plainsboro last year, board President Tony Fleres and member Rachel Juliana cruised unopposed to reelection.
The 2015 race in West Windsor pitted board vice president Michele Kaish against 18-year-old Jordon DeGroote. Kaish succesfully fended off the high school challenger, but not before the South senior was able to capitalize on discontent within the community and garner more than 40 percent of the vote.
The News introduces this fall’s crop of candidates below in alphabetical order. (A forum featuring candidate responses to questions posed by the News will be published before the Nov. 8 election.)
Plainsboro candidate Russel Melville could not be reached by press time. The bio of West Windsor candidate Mirna White has been added to the online edition.
#b#West Windsor#/b#
#b#Carol Herts#/b#, 58, grew up in Massachusetts and holds a degree in math from Brown. Herts moved to Plainsboro in 1983. Her husband, Ken, is a media consultant at Empirical Media, and they have three adult children, all graduates of High School South.
Kate, 30, is pursuing her clinical psychology PhD at UCLA, Julianne, 27, her cognitive neuroscience PhD at the University of Chicago, and James, 24, works at a cancer lab in Chicago.
Herts previously worked in publishing and is now a CASA volunteer. When her children were in the district, she was a PTA and classroom volunteer and also co-chaired the post-prom committee.
#b#Louisa Ho#/b#, 56, grew up in California. She holds a degree in civil engineering and masters in transportation from MIT. She moved to West Windsor in 1996.
Husband Carl Van Dyke is a freight logistics consultant and local real estate developer. Her daughter, Rebecca, and son, David, are both South graduates who are currently in college.
Before her current job as a “full-time Girl Scout volunteer,” she worked for N.J. Transit bus operations. Appointed to the school board in 2013, Ho is finishing her first full term and is the finance committee chair.
#b#Richard Kaye#/b#, 77, is from Queens, New York. He holds a degree in political science and a master’s in curriculum, instruction and supervision from Queens College. He also holds a master’s in social studies education from NYU.
Kaye and his wife, Judy, moved to Village Grande in 1999. Their daughter is an assistant principal in South Brunswick. A long-time educator, Kaye began his career as a teacher. He was principal at South Brunswick High School for 20 years, and after retiring from the district in 1999, he served as interim principal for several New Jersey schools.
A school board member from 2005 to 2014, Kaye was board vice president and chair of the curriculum committee in his last term.
#b#Deborah Marinsky#/b#, 67, is from Buffalo. She holds a degree in far eastern studies from Barnard, a master’s in near eastern studies from NYU and degree in library science from Rutgers.
Marinsky moved to West Windsor in 1987, and her husband Frank DiGiacomo is a pharmaceutical consultant.
They have three adult daughters who graduated from the school district. Danielle, 38 is a film company executive in Los Angeles, twin Alana teaches in the NYC public school system, and Arielle, 30, is a coder working in New York City.
Marinsky retired last year after 16 years as a media specialist librarian at High School South. She currently volunteers for CASA and the Jewish Family and Children Services of Mercer County.
#b#Scott Powell#/b#, 44, is from California and holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from USC.
Powell moved to West Windsor in 2006. Wife Michele owns and operates a pre-school in Clinton. They have two sons—a rising 8th grader at Grover Middle School and a rising 5th grader at Village. Powell works in the pension department for Prudential Financial in Newark. Elected in 2013, Powell is finishing his first term as a school board member.
#b#Mirna White#/b#, 48, is from Queens. She has a degree in criminal justice from St. Johns University and a law degree from New York Law School. White moved to West Windsor in 2015 and her son is a rising sixth grader at Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart. She is a solo practitioner specializing in foreclosure defense. White ran for mayor of Newark in 2010. In Newark she also mentored young girls as part of her church’s community mentoring programs.
#b#Plainsboro#/b#
#b#Shrenik Dagli#/b#, 40, is from Bombay, India. He has an engineering degree from the University of Bombay and a master’s in biomedical engineering from NJIT. Dagli moved to Plainsboro in 2013 and works in IT for QBE Insurance.
Wife Priti is a dentist with a practice in East Brunswick. They have two children who both attend Wicoff School. They are also both Wicoff PTA members and they enjoy volunteering for the school science fair.
#b#Todd Hochman#/b#, 57, is from Smithtown, Long Island, and holds a degree in applied math and economics from SUNY Stony Brook, and a law degree from St. John’s University.
Hochman moved to Plainsboro in 1999. Wife Lisa Chandler Hochman is an administrative analyst for Middlesex County. Both of their sons are graduates of High School South. Ross, 24, has a degree in industrial and systems engineering from SUNY Binghamton and Laurence, 20, is studying at TCNJ.
A pension law attorney, Hochman works in New York City as assistant general counsel for a financial institution. Hochman was a school board member from 2009-2012 and decided not to run for reelection then due to his Florida job commute at the time.
#b#Yu “Taylor” Zhong#/b#, 46, is from Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, China. He holds a degree in physics from Fudan University and a master’s in physics from Clarkson University.
Zhong moved to Plainsboro in 2007. Wife Jennifer Zhang works in budgeting for an immigration law firm in Red Bank. They have twin sons, Andrew and Brian, who are rising 10th graders at High School South. Zhong works in New York City as a risk manager for BNP Paribas.
He is finishing his first term as a school board member.
