What a great ticket! The district will surely continue to succeed!!! Go Kids First!

I would like to thank Theresa Minutillo for all her dedication to the Hoboken Public Schools over the years. She gave up a lot of her own personal time to Hoboken and whether you agreed with every decision or not her efforts should be applauded and respected. It was and still is an unpaid position.

The addition of Tom to the Kids First Ticket is a very nice pickup as he is a Charter School founder that supports the District Schools too.

I have to wonder if the recent harassment she and her daughter endured that did not meet the legal definition enough for a conviction by a paid employee of the Mason Family Civic League was a factor in her decision not to run for re-election.

Perhaps that is the goal of Beth Mason and her political Old Guard allies, to discourage public participation (or at least any that goes against her). In fact recent behavior of some her activists is a SLAPP in the face against participatory democracy in Hoboken.

Thanks to Minutillo for fighting for the schools all these years!

Please see the big story today on the Hoboken Journal. It's a threat to the entire Hoboken community's right to speak:

http://thehobokenjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/breaking-news-lane-bajardi-and-wife_12.html

Congratulations to Beth Mason for showing she may be unelectable but her vindictive appetite is truly bottomless.

She never helped Chater schools she tryed to get Hoboken chater school closed.... and Hoboken test scores are down!!!!!!!!!

Claire - You spelled The candidates name WRONG!!!!

It is spelled Kluepfel. Please correct your mistake.

Great ticket. Go Kids First!

Im really sad to see Tom run with Kids First. He would have had my support because he has been advocate for the high school and has his daughter enrolled there. He has been a great guy to work with. But, after throwing his lot in with the "Real Housewives of Hoboken." I can not give him my support. Dumb move Tom!

Ok, so Mcallister says that TM has to focus on her carrer? Really? What career? She is a freelance something? Freelance is code word for Unemployed. I am glad to see she will be getting a job now.

Good for you Teresa! Finally. Welcome to the real world. Although, I must caution you: Baby sitting does not count.

Interesting and revealing comment by Here We Go! Here We Go! would have supported Tom Kleupfel as a Board of Ed candidate, because he has been an advocate for the high school and has his daughter enrolled there . . . and has been a great guy to work with".

But, because Kleupfel runs on the Kids First ticket, Here We Go! Is going to work to defeat him.

If you think the people opposed to the Kids First ticket care about schools, as opposed to politics, you are wrong. Look at this post for the proof.

The majority of dedicated unpaid board members throughout NJ give up their personal time . They make the committment to their School Districts knowing in advance they will be sacrificing time away from their families. They usually don't look to be applauded for their efforts. They realize that they will be subjected to public comments, both favorable and unfavorable. Perhaps just like Sullivan and Gilyard, Minutillio knows that KidsFirst has not been moving in the transparent direction for quite some time now . Best to abandon the ticket now before TM becomes target of a nasty campaign surrounding events of a not so open and honest process at the BOE. Bad Publicity is never a good think when job seeking. Klepfel may make a nice addition to the board, It would be interesting to know why he no longer desires to be an INDEPENDENT candidate

Watch out for spam from moveforwardhoboken@gmail.com. It will show up as coming from Hoboken BOE. I find that more than a little deceitful.

Why is Minutillio not running is it because the Districk is now so Bad after Kids first has run it in to the ground or is there some thing about a high School Teacher not going to class and was paid !!!! and rewarded

Funny how minutillo announces not to run right after the blogger lawsuit hits.
Coincidence or is someone a blogger and fearful about getting nailed for it?

Kids First will prevail November 6! Tom is a hard working professional that understands that when you are a member of the BoE you work in the best interest of the district students. Not Charters. District schools. Theresa has a daughter in the district and is very happy with the progress the BoE has made. 6.5 years is a long run for a Volunteer who has put her time in. She believes in the district and will continue to support the Board. Theresa is not going anywhere.

Many past board members have left and haven't looked back. Those that have left and do not have children in the district but attend meetings are solely there to create friction. You know who you are.

I applaud all the hard work that Theresa Minutillo has put into improving the districting -- insuring that students that attend the schools are residents, insuring teachers are certified, insuring that employees who are being paid are actually showing up to work, negotiating fair contracts, hiring an astute superintendant, hiring top legal council and business administration, planning for capital improvements, stabilizing the budget, creating a successful Senior Prep day and much more.

Theresa Minutillo has always put the KIDS FIRST and been very mindful of the taxpayers of this town. As a taxpayer and parent I applaud her. Again, thank you Theresa for all your hard work!

OH MY, 4thwarder you may be onto something. TM and RM have been unusually silent at recent board meetings. So out of character for both when you compare to prior meetings

Lorraine u couldn't be more off base. It's the summer and there was no July Board meeting.

Met Tom last night for the first time. Highly impressed. Glad to see Jean Marie back on the ballot.Go Kids First!

Theresa minutillo and kf FIRED paula Ohaus!!! on totally fabricated charges. That's why she's not running again. she knows that she would have to defend one of the stupidest decisions of her life. if she really wanted to put kids first, she would have saved paula and mrs. hillenbrand, another great teacher. too bad TM's quitting. i was looking forward to the debate. guess ruth macallister is left holding that smelly bag. and what about tom kluepfel? does he agree that paula was the biggest problem at hhs and had to be fired? or is he equally klueless? mitchell is just a head nodder so who cares what she "thinks"

Let's see: Olhaus not being a teacher for many years contrary to state law and don't forget having sleepovers with students. PB etal said the theater division would end yet it is still thriving.

With Minutillo not around to call and email the attorney - will the legal fees finally go down?

Take a look at page 4.

http://www.hoboken.k12.nj.us/hoboken/Recent%20News/Summer%202012%20Newsletter.pdf

Scott -- since libel is in the air these days--as well as endless allegations nationwide of teachers sleeping with students--let me point out that the way you've said this--"having sleepovers with students"--can certainly be construed as libel. You know as well as anyone that she had the district's complete permission for the overnight stays at her house, every student had a parent sign a permission form and the district even provided a bus to take the kids there. What's lost in all this is that not one -- NOT ONE -- of Toback's charges against Paula held up. There was no proof of any of them and in the end Toback admitted as much in his long memo about the case that Claire posted last year. Hoboken had one of the best theater programs in the state, if not the country, and now we have a mediocre one. Minutillo's main legacy will be ruining one of the best things about the high school and the town--all because KF Board Chairman Rose Markel wanted to do a favor for her BFF Judy Burrell. Burrell was insanely jealous of all the honors and kudos Paula got and infected Markel and Minutillo with that hate. Of course Burrell hated Paula--Paula worked endless hours putting on incredible shows and Burrell skipped 78 days of class this year and who knows how many in past years. And Minutillo, along with McAllister, that traitor Sobolov and that loudmouth Leon Gold went along. Good luck, Tom, defending all of this.

Regarding Minutillo--it's easy to say she's quitting because she was going to lose in November. But it probably has more to with not being able to live with herself any longer. Unlike many people in town, I do think she was really was a reformer when she started KF and in her first term. Her heart was in the right place. But she and Michael Lenz made the fatal mistake of putting Rose Markel on the ticket and once KF had the majority, Markel took over. Sullivan and Gilliard soon quit KF and Markel thoroughly dominated the other KF members. Markel, as a b&r, had virtually no interest in reform and has rarely voted differently than the b&r bloc on the board. And when KF made another mistake and added another b&r to the mix, Sobolov, t was like sending in reinforcements for the anti-reform troops. Minutillo and the other newcomers were outmatched and any ideas for fixing the schools went out the window. She knows she's been a failure. She knows that all of the things she campaigned on--reducing the bloat in the union contracts, cutting taxes, raising test scores by hiring a good superintendent and good principals, adding more programs (instead of chopping programs), etc.--she failed to do. The schools got worse and taxes went up with KF in control. Her spirit is broken. Did she set out to fire two of our best teachers? did she set out to leave the waste untouched and let taxes rise? was she planning to sign massive pay hikes for the staff? no, but that's how it turned out.

No, of course I'm not saying that. Everyone has a right to run for and serve on the school board. And of course their knowledge from having always lived here can be valuable. My point is, people voting for KF expecting wholesale reforms--a real push for excellence in the schools, a real focus on cutting and redeploying the huge amount of wasted money in the budget--were always going to be disappointed because Rose and Irene were never going to favor that. Just look at their votes: Rose and Irene virtually never vote for reform when there's a straight-up reform/no reform vote, from what I can see. For Rose, signing on to the dramatic changes that the district needs would mean acknowledging that the schools her kids went through had serious problems. She's not going to admit that. She doesn't have the objectivity, the distance to make the tough decisions. And unfortunately for Hoboken, Rose has the strongest personality on the board--she dominates the board and Theresa and the rest of KF quickly learned not to take her on. So the reform agenda that Theresa ran on was dead and the schools steadily got worse under KF control.
As for Theresa, Vito seems to be a good hire but I'd doublecheck on whether she had much to do with that. And Davis was absolutely terrible. At the meetings I saw he was constantly making mistakes, getting numbers mixed up. He certainly didn't help with cutting waste. We could've done much better. But that wasn't Theresa either--Carter brought him in.

Oh My ! As a Parent, I do not appreciate Scott's sleepover statement. I believed Mr. Siegel to be a fair person. He really should ask KidsFirst Bd. Member Irene Sobolov about those Parent approved and Parent Attended Sleepovers . Ms. Ohaus was gracious enough to welcome Irene into her home also.

The OLD GUARD politicos are desperate to regain control of Hoboken's BOE.

That should never be allowed to happen.

Knowing that they themselves are too politicaly toxic to the electorate in Hoboken they have enlisted fronts who if elected will do their bidding.

The voters have seen those backed bt the same OLD GUARD politicos who claimed to be "independent" are anything but.