Bernards Township Board Of Education General Election 2025: Faisal Chaudhry

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Basking Ridge's general election on Nov. 4 has four candidates running for three open seats on the Bernards Township Board of Education.

Board member incumbent Keith Molinari, along with newly appointed Smrithi Mohan, are both running for re-election to the board. Mohan was selected on June 16 to fill a vacancy on the Bernards Township School Board after Csilla Csipak resigned in May.

Nimish Amin, who has served on the board since 2023, did not file to run.

The candidate field includes two challengers: Adam Lefkowitz and Faisal Anwar Chaudhry.

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Faisal Chaudhry

Age: 48

Town of residence: Basking Ridge

Position sought: Board of Education 3-year term

Family: Wife, 3 children (13, 11, and 10 years old)

Education:

• B.A Biology (concentration Genetics, Minors in History and Religion)-Ohio Wesleyan University
• PhD Cell and Molecular Biology-Purdue University

Occupation: Regulatory Affairs in small oncology-focused biotech company

Previous or current elected appointed office: None

Campaign website: candidates.goodparty.org/faisal-chaudhry

Why are you seeking election for Bernards Township Board of Education?

My desire to work with the School District started 3 years ago when I began volunteering in the Cedar Hill Elementary library. It was eye-opening to see the growth and development of my children’s 3 respective grades through that time. I also saw firsthand the amount of hard work that teachers and administrators put into educating our children, not to mention the multitude of issues they must deal with daily.

School finances and school budget difficulties have been continuously discussed in the district. The district has suggested holding a special election to help raise funding. Would you be in favor of this?

As of mid-September, there is no special election on the docket. Regardless, any special election held in early 2026 means any changes will not be effective until the 2026-27 budget cycle, per my understanding. I would conditionally support such a measure and would first ask how such a ballot initiative would be formulated, who would be involved in the discussions to propose the initiative, and whether there will be a larger public discussion on the initiative before deciding if it should be voted on or not. The larger public must be involved in the discussion to generate the ballot measure before bringing it forward for a larger vote.

Do you have any comments or suggestions on how the district could handle its budget?

Economist Thomas Sowell said “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.” We must realize that, under the current economic climate, with the ending of federal funding like ESSER, and lower state funding, we must make tough decisions. For example, this could mean cutting back in small segments on a combination of items, such as sports (introducing more pay -to-play requirements), or administration personnel (but work hard to hold on to the top performers) while remaining leaders can take on more responsibilities.

These potential cutbacks should be put towards reducing the budget shortfall and minimizing the tax levy back down to the state-mandated 2%.

Ultimately, we should listen, brainstorm, and problem-solve our budget issues with parents and the larger community in forums outside of the BOE (such as a BT Connect Meeting). We need to dedicate more time to budget conversations. This allows more ideas to pop up through a robust back-and-forth. According to the Brookings Institute, during budget discussions, in 53% of sampled BOE public meetings, board members are silent observers. Budget approvals appear to run on autopilot. Votes on multiple items are bundled together into a single vote. brookings.edu/articles/school-boards-should-focus-budget-deliberations-on-student-outcomes-financial-sustainability

I would suggest diving deeper into individual line items and discussing whether there is an opportunity to re-assess and either cut down on expenses or remove them all together. This means educating the community on what budget expenses are within the BOE’s spending control. This means discussions ranging from recurring/nonrecurring expenses for future planning or understanding what discretionary spending opportunities are available for deliberation. We can perform effectiveness checks to see if any programs, especially long-running programs, are providing value anymore. If they aren’t they could be cut to save money.

There is no shortage of ideas within the community. We just need to spend the time to evaluate, discuss, and decide together, with the BOE serving as a leader and facilitator in this conversation.

The district recently implemented a phone-free policy in the high school. How do you feel about this?

I support the no cell phone policy. I cited statistics at a BT Connect HIB forum on June 3, 2024 held by BTSD where silencing phone notifications led to increased math and English scores for students. No cell phones mean more interactions between students face-to-face. I would encourage students to also silence their phones at home or in social gatherings. I realize that students will experience a fear of missing out or saying they are bored. But, as Arthur C. Brooks from Harvard University states in his article “You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why”: “If you embrace the skill of boredom, you might get better at confronting life’s bigger questions around meaning, happiness, and work. When we are bored, our brain moves to its default mode network, which are structuresthat switch on when you don’t have anything else to think about. When this happens, your mind wanders and thinks about, for example, big questions of meaning in your life. This makes us uncomfortable, but this kind of thinking is beneficial.”

hbr.org/2025/08/you-need-to-be-bored-heres-why

What other issues do you feel need to be tackled in the school district?

Student wellness. HIB issues are prevalent. Even though there is marked reduction in HIB issues, particularly at WAMS, I have not seen any follow-up statistics (qualitative or quantitative) indicating if these issues have completely stopped. The general impression is that many students just give up on reporting HIB issues because they feel there is no accountability, at least that is apparent to the public. Because of HIB issues, anecdotally, parents are pulling their children out of public school and investing hard earned money into private schools. Or parents are investing time and resources into home-schooling their children instead. I don’t want this to happen. We pay roughly 2/3 of our taxes towards the school district. We should have a return on our investment by having a more welcoming environment for our children to be educated in, and to develop lasting social bonds.

What sets you apart from the challenging candidates?

I am running my campaign alone, without donations. This way, I feel that whoever votes for me is doing it solely for the priorities I have outlined and signifies my independence from divisive issues. Therefore, I feel I can make practical and data-driven decisions. Being independent allows me to be more approachable to people from different perspectives. To discuss issues in a non-judgmental manner. I will always support sensible decision-making but being realistic enough to know not everyone will be satisfied. Our ultimate customer is the student, whose health, well-being (both mental and physical) is our utmost priority.

Lastly, I grew up in the Middle East and South Asia. I came to the United States as an 18-year-old for college in Ohio, went to graduate school in Indiana, and worked in the Boston area for 5 years, followed by 7 years working in Albany, NY. The last 6 years I’ve lived in New Jersey. I travel for work consistently to the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. I have family and friends in Europe, North America, and Asia and we constantly exchange thoughts and ideas related to how our children are being raised in different environments and cultures.

Therefore, the cultures, values, peoples, and societies of all these places I have lived and experienced have molded me into the person I am today. This is what sets me apart from the other candidates, and I want to share this personal experience and perspective with the school community. I can now speak freely without fear of retribution which has made me appreciate what America has provided me. I can raise a family under these very freedoms I did not have at their age. Out of sheer gratitude, sense of duty, and the desire to give back, I am running for this position.

Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself or your campaign?

We must work as a team to use a risk mitigation approach to ensure a balanced budget while also ensuring high educational standards for our children in the school district. For the greater good of everyone, collective sacrifice is a must to make sure Bernards Township remains affordable for all residents but also has a top-class school district for our children to attend and flourish.