October 24, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 25 Franklin Lakes K-8 School Board race (continued from page 4) Relations committees. She is the board’s representative at the Colonial Road School and the Franklin Avenue Middle School. She has served on numerous district-wide committees including administrator search committees and most recently the Efficiency Study Committee. She is an active member of the PTA at Woodside Avenue School and Franklin Lakes Middle School. Bennett is a founding board member of the NJ Coalition for World Class Math, a state-wide organization that provided research on state curriculum standards. She is a member of Families with Children from China and has worked with organizations that provide medical assistance to children in Asia. She is a member of the Franklin Lakes Newcomers Club, a RYSA Wildcats volunteer, and a member of the Valley Hospital Auxiliary. “I seek re-election for a second term on the board to continue the success of advocating for education reform in the classroom and within the district infrastructure,” Bennett said. “My record as a voice for accountability has been at the core of my effecting reform in Franklin Lakes. Our schools are the heart of our community and their reputation attracts new families to our town. I participated in making Franklin Lakes a leader in adopting reform measures ahead of state mandates such as employee health care contributions, cutting-edge curriculum, and introducing merit components into contracts. “I advocate for research-based curriculum which has been achieved in several core subjects ahead of our neighbors putting Franklin Lakes in the enviable position of having other districts seek our model. The financial benefit of this comes through the ripple effect of having Wyckoff and Oakland follow our lead and has garnered our district several resources and upgrades at no cost. We achieved a lot while keeping taxes at a 0.07% increase and returning an estimated $630,000 to taxpayers in 2012. I seek to continue as a voice for accountability on behalf of the children and taxpayers of Franklin Lakes.” Kim was raised in Franklin Lakes and has resided in the borough for over 30 years. She has two children in the district’s schools. She received a JD from Seton Hall University School of Law, an MBA from Boston College, and a BA in political science from New York University. Kim is an attorney with Cohn Lifland Pearlman Herrmann & Knopf, LLP in Saddle Brook. Prior to that, she was a law clerk for Superior Court Judge Harold C. Hollenbeck (retired) and the assistant vice president of Putnam Investments Management in Boston. Her volunteer/community service includes being a member of the Colonial Road Parent Teacher Association, a member of the board of trustees for the Asian Women’s Christian Association in Teaneck, and a congregant in the Korean Presbyterian Church of New Jersey in Oakland. “As a lifelong Franklin Lakes resident with a first grader at Colonial Road School and a child in the pre-K program at High Mountain School, I am dedicated to maintain the excellent reputation of the Franklin Lakes School District and, where possible, improving it. I will take steps to maximize the use of our district’s resources to ensure that our children continue to receive, and our educators continue to deliver, the top-notch education for which Franklin Lakes is so well known.” O’Reilly has resided in town for nine years and has four children, all of whom have attended the district’s public schools. She has worked at Standard & Poor’s, a division of The McGraw Hill Companies, for over 25 years, and she has volunteered at numerous NYC based charities, including PENCIL, whose mission is education based. “The single most important issue today facing local public schools is the balancing of resources within a challenging and continuously evolving legislative landscape,” O’Reilly said. “Two of the more recent and larger mandates from the state are the adoption and implementation of the Common Core Standards, as well as establishing a new teacher evaluation system to be rolled out for the 2013 school year. With limited additional funding available today, how we manage these two mandates is critical for the children of Franklin Lakes. “Teacher effectiveness is the most important factor to increase student achievement and our district must continue to attract and maintain talented teachers, and utilize them to accomplish our district’s goals. “If elected, I will seek ways to establish mechanisms for community involvement in setting the vision for the district and representing the true values of the community. As a board member, I will focus on student achievement, allocating resources to needs, and analyze, through data, our return on the investment of tax payer money.” Schwartz has lived in the borough for 14 years and has three children in the district’s schools. She received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Rutgers in 1988 and a master’s degree in finance from New York University in 1996. Prior to becoming a stay at home mother in 2002, she spent 13 years in the banking and finance industry and was a managing director with Deutsche Bank’s global private client and asset management group. She has been on the school board for four and a half years. She has been the board president for the past two years and was vice president and Finance Committee chair the prior year. She has served on all of the board’s committees and on several district-wide committees including multiple administrator search committees, the Homework Committee and the Efficiency Study Committee. She was on the board’s negotiating team for the two recent teacher contracts and the most recent administrator’s contract, and was the Franklin Lakes Education Foundation representative for the board for two years and the Woodside Ave. PTA liaison for one year. Schwartz is currently the co-president of the Franklin Lakes Newcomers & Neighbors Club, after serving as the club’s president for several years. She is also a member of the Woodside Avenue School PTA and the Franklin Lakes Branch of the Valley Hospital Auxiliary. “I have been on the Franklin Lakes Board of Education for the past four and a half years. My reasons for seeking reelection are simple: I believe in public education, I believe in our community, I believe we have been doing great things in our schools in the past few years, and I want to keep us moving forward,” Schwartz said. “I am an independent thinker, but also a person who prides myself on collaboration and teamwork to reach our common goals. I have invested my personal time in educating myself on the issues which our schools face, and in investigating alternatives and solutions. I believe I have represented all constituent groups at the table as I have advocated for strengthening our curriculum, increasing accountability, and strong fiscal responsibility. Last year’s budget was delivered with almost no tax increase (0.07%), unlike other districts we had no program cuts and in fact many program enhancements. “I believe we are operating efficiently and effectively, maintaining a very high level of academic excellence with the strong fiscal prudence that our taxpayers expect. My goal is to make Franklin Lakes a cutting-edge school district that is a magnet to draw residents to our town and support our property values, that provides a world class education to every student we serve, and that stays fiscally responsible and well within the two percent tax cap. I believe we can do that by working smarter not harder, and I believe are already on our way there: from great to world class.” Vassiliou has lived in the borough for a year and a half and he has three children. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Montclair State University and a master’s degree in molecular biology and a doctorate in molecular immunology from Rutgers. He is an associate professor of immunology in the school of natural sciences at Kean University. Vassiliou is vice president of the American Academy Alumni Association of New York Inc., an organization that provides scholarships to promising, but financially disadvantaged, students. “I am running for the school board because I believe that as an educator I can provide relevant expertise that will benefit the district’s students and ultimately the town as a whole,” Vassiliou said. He expressed surprise that the school board has no educator representation and he said, “If elected I will be able to provide an educational perspective which does not exist in the current board membership.” Veliky has lived in Franklin Lakes for over 10 years, and said the borough’s education system was one of the primary reasons she moved into town. She has four children, three of whom now attend the borough’s schools. She received bachelor’s degree in accounting and business management from Rutgers University and an MBA from the Pace University Lubin School of Business. She became a certified public accountant in 1997, with the majority of her employment as a manager in the tax accounting department of Prudential Insurance Company of America in Newark, where her responsibilities included budgeting, financial planning and analysis, forecasting, auditing, tax law analysis, supervising staff, and preparing and consolidating tax returns. After the birth of her third child, she began to devote her energies to raising her family and working to improve the Franklin Lakes Schools. Veliky is the treasurer for Franklin Lakes Boy Scout Troop 34 and for the Franklin Lakes District Girl Scouts, and is a leader for Brownie Troop 94134. She served as treasurer for Franklin Lakes Cub Scout Pack 134 from 2009-12, was president of the Woodside Avenue School PTA in 201112, and served as the treasurer for the Woodside Avenue School PTA from 2008-11. In addition, she served on the school district’s Efficiency Study Committee and many of the related sub-committees and district-wide focus groups. A parishioner of Saint Mary’s Church in Pompton Lakes and an active member of Franklin Lakes Newcomers Club, Veliky is an active member and volunteer of Woodside Avenue School PTA, the Franklin Avenue Middle School PTA, and the Bergen Academies PPO. She is a volunteer at Oasis and Eva’s Kitchen in Paterson, and for various other church-related functions. She also contributes to her children’s sports teams in the Franklin Lakes recreation programs.