Nine in running for three open seats on BOE

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Nine candidates are contending for three Bloomfield Board of Education seats. Each seat is for three years and a registered voter may cast three ballots for this race. There are two incumbents in the race: Jill Fischman, the current BOE president, and Shane Berger. The challengers are Catherine Bumpus, Djanna Hill-Tall; Laura Izurieta; Lillian Mancheno; Benjamin Morse; Eileen Murray; and Gladys Rivera.

Linda Lo will be running uncontested for a one-year term. The one-year term is for the second year of what would have been Kent Weisert’s second year of a three-year term. Weisert died shortly before the election, which he won. Bumpus was appointed to fill the first year of his term. She relinquished her seat to run for a three year term..

All candidates were contacted for the following survey except for Lo. Those who responded were asked the same questions.Those candidates unable to respond by deadline will be given the opportunity to be heard at a later date.
Linda Lo is an uncontested candidate for a one-year term, was not included in this survey.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Djanna Hill-Tall
Challenger
Hill-Tall is a professor of education at William Paterson University. She has taught at the school for 16 years and has also taught in Baltimore and Brooklyn, for two years at each location.

Hill-Tall said she was prepared, through her schooling and profession, to do the type of work required by a board of education member.

“I am a member of the Bloomfield community, a teacher educator who teaches future teachers, and a professor at William Paterson University,” she said. “Being on the board is one way of giving back to the community.”

Hill-Tall said she would like to do the type of work, for which she was trained, within the Bloomfield community.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years,” she said. “People need to be productive in society. I can’t be on the sidelines and complain.”
She has a son who will be starting in kindergarten at Berkeley Elementary School, in September.

Hill-Tall is the chairwoman of the Department of Africana Studies at WPU.
She is also currently the chairwoman of the Bloomfield Civil Rights Commission. She is a member of the National Association for Multicultural Education; National Science Teachers Association; and the American Educational Research Association.

Jill Fischman
Incumbent
Fischman is pursuing a second term. She previously served as vice-president. She has no children in the school system.
“I think the last three years we’ve done a good job,” Fischman said. “But things are left unfinished.”

Fischman said a project she would like to see completed is the one-to-one chromebook initiative for a seventh- and eighth-grade team at the Bloomfield Middle School.

“I bring a perspective of having gone through the system,” she said. “I’m a graduate of the Bloomfield system. I began here in the third grade. Also, being a teacher gives me a different perspective. My main goal is to provide the best education to Bloomfield’s 6,300 students.”

Lillian Mancheno
Challenger
Mancheno has no children in the school system; all her children are grown.
“I’m new to Bloomfield,” she said. “I see a lot of need for people to have a better school system. I see the new development and I think there’s going to be overcrowding. I like to work with the community. I was a district leader in Newark for 18 years. Now I’m trying to get really involved. I can’t stay still. I’m a social worker and can bring a lot of skills for parental workshops.”

Mancheno is an employment counselor for the NJ Department of Labor, in East Orange.

She is a catechism teacher and parish member of Our Lady of Good Council, Newark, and has taught citizenship classes, as a volunteer, for Jewish Community Services, in Kearny. She is a member of the Latino United Political Action and has been a shop steward for the past 10 years for CWA Post 1037

Laura Izurieta
Challenger
Izurieta has a fourth-grade daughter in Fairview.
“I believe, being a Latino, I would make a difference,” she said. “I could reach out to the Latino community in town.”

Running for the board of education, Izurieta said, is a “different opportunity.”
“I have a child in the school system and would like to learn more about what is behind the scene,” she said.

She belongs to no other organizations.

Shane Berger
Incumbent
Berger, who has served for two consecutive terms on the board of education, said he was running to continue the progress made in restoring foreign languages to Bloomfield students, the progress made with facility improvements, and to raise expectations for greater success.

“I have six years experience on the board and have served on every committee twice,” Berger said. “I have been a home-and-school representative for every school and I am a master board member.”

Berger said a master board member must go through a training program provided by the NJ School Board Association.

“There are only 86 master-board members out of approximately 5,000 school board members in the state,” he said

Berger has no children in the school system. He said he has a passion and a love for public education.

He is the owner of a chain of laundromats. Berger currently serves as a trustee on the NJ Council for the Humanities. He is president of Essex County School Board Association and a member of the board of directors of the NJSBA. Berger is a trustee for the United Way of Bloomfield and chairman of the Curricular and Assessment Committee or the NJSBA.