All Three Non-Incumbent BOE Candidates Running for First Time

Six candidates will be vying for three seats on the Fort Lee Board of Education in the April 27 election, and three of them are running for the first time.

The terms of current board vice president Peter J. Suh, Michelle Stux-Ramirez and Joseph J. Surace are set to expire this year, and all three incumbents filed petitions to seek re-election before last Tuesday’s filing deadline, said district business administrator and board secretary Cheryl Balletto.

The other three who filed to run were Paul Umrichin, Tracy Mattei and Helen Yoon.

First-timer Umrichin, who has three children in the district—sixth, seventh and eighth graders—including his son and two step-children, said there are two major reasons he decided to run.

“The first is that I don’t think that the parent base of the school is represented,” Umrichin said. “On the board there are members whose children are either schooled out of district, at private school, have no children or have children who have already completed their schooling. The other reason is that there has to be better ways to deal with not only the problems that are plaguing the district but how the school board deals with the public.”

Umrichin said there are several issues the board will face in the near-term that concern him.

“As with all the parents of Fort Lee students, I am concerned with the state of the schools and the budget,” he said. “I think that there are solutions available that have not been considered. If you ask me what they are now, I honestly couldn’t tell you without looking at the information the school board has utilized to make their decisions. What I do know is that the referendum that was brought to the community was not the right answer.”

Also running for the first time is Tracy Mattei. The mother of two already has one child in the school district, her 8-year-old son, who attends School No. 4.  Her 4-year-old daughter will be entering Kindergarten in September.

“They are the joy of my life, and I want to create a life in Fort Lee that resembles my own childhood,” Mattei said.

A Special Education teacher with an M.Ed in teaching reading and mathematics, Mattei said teaching was a second career for her after years as a sales consultant. She’s currently a proud stay-at-home mother and housewife and said she has recently been doing pro-bono advocacy work outside of the district for special needs children when she’s not volunteering her time in a variety of ways, including with the Fort Lee American Little League, a charity called PlayBall 4, indoor soccer and “when I can with the PTA.”

On why she decided to run for the board, she said she believes it’s important that BOE members have children currently in the school system.

Mattei offers a litany of other reasons for her decision:

• Education First

“I would like to see the focus return to maintaining and developing the quality of education in our school systems,” Mattei said. “This has to be coupled with updating facilities and solving the overcrowding issues. Things like formalizing and updating the curriculum, so teachers are free to teach, making the school year more fluid in respect to the calendar. I think in some respects these issues got lost in the referendum debate.”  

• Community Outreach

“The school system has wonderful activities and events going on continuously,” she said. “I would like the greater community to know about them; I would like the greater community to see the progress and enrichment their tax dollars provide, as well as an education.”

• Restore trust

“I will never be able to please everyone, but through listening to my fellow parents and bringing their views and perceptions to the BOE, we can restore the trust,” Mattei said. “There is so much the BOE cannot communicate, due to laws and regulations that listening and explaining the why’s and how’s is important.”

• To volunteer in a more formal capacity.

Mattei also referred to “the most talked about issues,” such as over-crowding in Fort Lee schools, aging infrastructure and a “limited budget” the result of which is that “cuts need to be made.”

“I would like to have influence if possible,” she said. “And I would like to represent wants and needs of the parents currently in the school system, give them a voice on these issues. After all, it’s their children who will be impacted every year.”

Helen Yoon, another first-time candidate, is the only one among the three newcomers who does not have kids in the school district. But she doesn't see this as a disadvantage or even an issue.

Yoon believes her background in media and marketing is an advantage and something the board can benefit from.

"Since I was not part of the board, I’m not really sure about all of the facts or everything that was going on," Yoon said. "But I do know about the recent referendum. I think that moving forward - the referendum being an example - there were just issues in the way it was being presented in the community, and I think it affected the results of the referendum and the community’s take on it. And that’s something of my specialty and something that I can contribute to the board."

On why she decided to run, issues such as the referendum and how it was presented in the community aside, the native of Korea had this to say:

"The main reason is I’m a product of the Fort Lee school system. I went to School No. 3. That was the first school I went to in the U.S., and I gained so much there. I feel the Fort Lee school system now is not what it was before. And I think it’s just my time and my duty to give back."

The Fort Lee Homeowners Association will also host a "Board of Education Candidates Night" on April 5 at the Fort Lee Middle School.  All six candidates will be invited. Election day is April 27.