It’s a busy election season for the Broward School Board race, and District 4 is no exception with six candidates vying for the seat.
District 4, which includes: Parkland, Coral Springs, Tamarac, North Lauderdale and parts of Margate has lost one candidate, Jaemi Levine, but has gained a new candidate named Abby Freedman.
It also has one candidate that has successfully received confirmation that they are the only one in the race that has qualified by petition for the August 14th primary, which means they successfully went out and got over 1,500 verified signatures of registered voters. The candidate that did this was Parkland resident Robert Mayersohn, who not only acheived the required amount, but acquired 1,693 petitions just to be sure.
“By asking voters for their permission to get on the ballot, the overwhelming response was sense of empowerment because they felt that their signature was their endorsement of support. We see this as an encouraging sign for our campaign,” said Mayersohn. “We’ve talked with thousands of community members, parents, teachers and administrators across the district and people are impressed with my experience and commitment to ensuring that our children get a great education.”
Abby Freedman
Abby Freedman is the newest candidate in the race but she’s been called by some as ‘the complete package’. She is several months behind the other candidates in campaigning and needs to play “catch-up” for the August primaries. Initially, Freedman was planning to to run for a county-wide seat, but because she is financing her campaign 100%, she thought it would be beneficial to concentrate on District 4.
Not only does Freedman have a Law degree from Stetson University College of Law, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from University of Florida, she is has been certified in elementary education in grades 1-6 from FAU.
Originally from New Jersey, Freedman and her husband live in Parkland with their three boys. Two of them are at Stoneman Douglas, and the youngest is at Heron Heights.
Freedman currently manages her husbands chiropractic office in Pembroke Pines. She has had a late start in the race and is getting up to speed with the rest as far as campaigning. Soon we should have an update about how her campaign is doing.
Shelly Solomon
Shelly Solomon is a member of a newly created Bully Diversion Community Partnership which reviews the best practices and opportunities to create a diversion curriculum and support system for youth and their families.
“I have been spending time in Tamarac, Margate, Coral Springs and Parkland engaging parents, students, grandparents, teachers, non-instructional support staff and local businesses listening to both concerns having to do with the budget, high stake testing, meeting class size reduction, possible layoffs, bullying, parent involvement and also suggestions to make District 4 schools even better next year.”
As a mother of 4 public school students, community member and a School Board Candidate for District 4, I have attended School Board Workshops on Anti-Bullying efforts, Charter Schools and spoke at this week’s School Board Organization Chart item. I really enjoy the opportunities that I have every day engaging, communicating, listening, learning and paying it forward for our kids.
Louis Kushner
Kushner is continuing to knock on doors and pass out campaign literature. He is enjoying meeting outstanding individuals in the community and will have event announcements issued soon.
“Our district has seen a trend of high scores and all of a sudden we experience a 66 percent decrease,” says Kushner, “As an educator, I am disheartened by the recent news of the vast percentage in decline of our FCAT Writing test results. However, we must take into account that we are under new grading guidelines. This is a system under construction and we must not fault the students who were required to respond to the prompt but rather identify the needs to improve the scales for grading our students and our schools. I am confident that our teachers have done their job in teaching the writing process effectively and will continue to do so.”
Kushner asks, “Please take the time to learn about each of the candidates. It is not always about who has the largest following, but rather, who understands children and who will fight for a broken system to be improved for all stakeholders. As I visit several school sites including the one I work at, I am reassured each time that we truly belong to one of the top districts and I look forward to serving you as School Board Member for District 4.”
Andrew Ladanowski
Ladanowski has been busy knocking door to door to meet with super voters. “I am the only candidate who is focusing on meeting the voter one on one. If you do not have the time to meet with voters when you are running. You probably do not have the time to meet with them when you are elected,” he says.
“I walk through neighborhoods very efficiently with my tablet that has dots on a map to show me where all the super voters are. I take notes on my visits and send out emails. I have personally handed out 2400 cards. I personally tell them the waste in the district. Most people do not realize how much money is wasted and are upset and want to see this fixed. I need to keep the pace up. My focus will be to meet each voter one on one by knocking on about 10,000 doors.”
Nick Steffens update was not available at press time.
Primaries for this race to determine which two candidates will head to the November race will be August 14th, 2012.