Edgemont SBNC Endorses Candidates for School Board

Here is a letter from members of the Edgemont School Board Nominating Committee: Dear Edgemont Resident: This year, there are four open seats on the Board of Education, for which five candidates were nominated by members of the community. The School Board Nominating Committee (SBNC) interviewed all five candidates. As members of the SBNC, we appreciate that all five candidates participated in this rigorous process, and we are pleased to have endorsed the following four candidates: incumbents Tom McCormack and Gerry Stoughton, and David Chao and David Stern. We are writing now to ask you to support the four SBNC Endorsed Candidates at the election on May 18.

All four endorsed candidates are active members of our community, and all care deeply about it. Many of you already know them from their involvement in our schools and school related organizations, including Edgemont Rec, the Edgemont School Foundation, PTA programs, and the School District’s Citizens Budget and Long Range Planning Committees. In addition, they have a history of civic involvement within our community as well as beyond it, and they all bring valuable experience gained from their participation on other boards.

Incumbent Tom McCormack is a litigator and managing partner at a major international law firm; he is a graduate of Stanford University and Cornell Law School. Incumbent Gerry Stoughton heads a Financial Analysis division at a major public authority; he is a graduate of Columbia University and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Both McCormack and Stoughton are in their third year on the Board of Education, and are seeking re-election for a second term. Both have amply demonstrated their capabilities during their time on the School Board, as has David Chao in his prior service on the School Board. David Chao works on special projects in the financial services industry; he is a graduate of Dartmouth College. David Stern runs a management consulting firm that provides strategic and financial direction to various non-profit and for-profit organizations; he is a graduate of Yale University and Yale’s School of Management. We are thrilled to have endorsed four candidates who bring such a wealth of talent and skills to the table. Their expertise will be instrumental in managing both the short-term and long-term needs of our School District.

The Board of Education is a crucial link in the chain of teachers, programs, administrators, staff and dedicated parents that support our School District, and the mission of the SBNC is to select from among qualified candidates those individuals who, in the Committee’s judgment, can best serve the School District’s needs. Edgemont’s SBNC is made up of volunteers nominated and elected by members from each of the civic associations as well as a high school representative. The SBNC is charged with interviewing and endorsing candidates for the School Board. As SBNC members we are required to attend School Board meetings and to be informed about school matters so that we can conduct a thorough interview and make an informed recommendation about a candidate. It is a time consuming process, but one that has served our community well by providing an intensive vetting process for selecting School Board candidates.

We believe the four SBNC endorsed candidates, incumbents Tom McCormack and Gerry Stoughton, and David Chao and David Stern, will best serve the needs of our School District as a whole and will maintain a diverse and balanced School Board which includes Michaeline Curtis, Wasim Salimi and Lisa Wexler. We hope you will support the endorsed candidates by voting for them on May 18.

Please feel free to contact us or SBNC Chair, Michelle McNally, if you have any questions, and please feel free to share this letter with other Edgemont residents.

Sincerely,
Edgemont School Board Nominating Committee Members

Kim Aslanian Adam Bench Marshall Donner Liz Kaufman Linda Lorch
Mark Romney Domingos Romualdo Robert Rosenberg Deborah Schenfeld
Nancy Shifren Gary Stern Catherine Woods