Voters Tuesday are, for the first time in Montclair's history, directly electing members to the Board of Education. See this post after polls close at 8 p.m. for results as they become available from the Essex County Clerk's office.
Update, 10:37 p.m.: With only one of Montclair's 35 districts yet to report results, it appears Phaedra Dunn and Melanie Deysher outdistanced seven other candidates by comfortable margins to win terms on the Board of Education. See our developing story here.
Montclair Local is working on an updated story.
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Seeking two newly created seats on the board are Yvonne Bouknight, Melanie Deysher, Phaedra Dunn, Jerold Freier, Noah Gale, Lauren Quinn Griffin, Holly Shaw, George C. Simpson and Jennette Williams. The new seats were added after November's referendum in which voters chose to convert Montclair from a Type I school district with a seven-member, mayor-appointed school board, to become a Type II district, with a nine-member, elected board.
The candidates on infrastructure, communication, learning loss
Going forward, board elections will be held every November, for three seats at a time.
On Nov. 8, Montclair will elect candidates to fill the three board seats set to expire in January 2023 — board President Latifah Jannah, Vice President Priscilla Church and Monk Inyang. Inyang was chosen by the board in January to fill the seat of the late Dr. Alfred Davis Jr., who died Dec. 12 at the age of 65.
The two candidates elected Tuesday will each serve a term of one year and nine months before their seats will join the normal cycle of three-year terms. Their seats will be up for election in November of 2023 along with the one currently held by Allison Silverstein; the next terms for those seats would start in January 2024.
As mid-day Tuesday, the Essex County Board of Elections reported it had received 958 mail-in votes. Those don’t include any that may arrive in the mail Tuesday or later. Voters could return mail-in ballots through the mail as late as Tuesday, or drop them off at a ballot box at the Montclair Municipal Building, 205 Claremont Ave., until 8 p.m. By contrast, more than 3,400 people voted with mail-in ballots in the November referendum.
How board candidates differ on priorities