In Newark School Board Race, Voters Pick Slate Backed By Political Heavyweights

Newark NJ

20 April, 2022

2:38 PM

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By Catherine Carrera, Chalkbeat Newark April 20, 2022 Newark voters on Tuesday picked a slate of candidates endorsed by politicians and charter school advocates to fill three seats on the district's nine-member school board, preliminary results show. Newcomer Crystal Williams and incumbents Daniel Gonzalez and A'Dorian Murray-Thomas were running far ahead of the other four candidates, though not all votes had been counted as of Tuesday night. Voters overwhelmingly approved the district's $138 million tax levy with 87% of votes in its favor, according to the preliminary results. Newark School board race: What you need to know Check out all our coverage of today's election. Newark school board race draws money from out-of-state, charter school supporters Meet the candidates for the Newark school board Newark will vote on $1.2 billion district budget on April 19 The vote count showed Williams with 2,600 votes, while her slate mates Murray-Thomas and Gonzalez had 2,559 and 2,475 votes, respectively. Williams graduated from Newark schools and has more than 25 years working at Verizon. Gonzalez, also a Newark school graduate, previously served as the city's chief financial officer. He was elected last year to serve a one-year term and this would be his first full term. Murray-Thomas will now serve her second full term on the board. She's the founder of a mentoring program for girls in Newark and works at Morristown Beard School, a private school in Morristown, as an English teacher. The slate had support from state Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz, Mayor Ras Baraka, and eight out of nine city council members. Around 11,200 votes were cast in the race, out of about 165,000 registered voters in the city, signaling another year of very low turnout in the Newark school board April election. About 16 out of 95 precincts in Newark were reporting no votes cast, while many others reported low numbers. One precinct in the north ward stood out, however, with about 1,500 ballots cast out of just over 2,000 registered voters. Thomas Luna, a math teacher at a KIPP charter school in Newark, and Maggie Freeman, a longtime community volunteer, each had more than 1,000 votes. Phillip Wilson, who has a career technical education background, had 804 votes, and Allison K. James-Frison, a social worker and founder of a nonprofit organization supporting girls in Newark, had 679 votes, the preliminary results showed. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here.