Parents’ rights win big in north New Jersey school board races

Voters in North New Jersey elected slates of parents’ rights advocates to two area school boards, according to a report by North Jersey.

Voters in Wyckoff, New Jersey, some 25 miles north of Newark, elected two conservative candidates campaigning on parents’ rights to fill both of its open seats. Thomas Bogdansky and Doreen Mariani will serve on Wyckoff’s three-seat bloc on a larger, nine-member regional high school board that also serves Franklin Lakes and Oakland.

They join newly elected Kim Ansh, of Franklin Lakes, and current trustees Judith Sullivan and Marianna Emmolo, to make up a parents’ rights voting majority on the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education.

On Wyckoff’s grade school board, which serves its five elementary schools, incumbent Louis Cicerchia was re-elected alongside newcomers Juan Molina Jr. and James Schappert, each winning with at least 600 more votes than their competition.

The candidates built their platforms on educational excellence, fiscal health and protecting and preserving “the rights of parents and guardians to make choices for their child’s best interests.”