To the Editor:

Beth Behrend has our vote for Princeton School Board! Beth unites communities. Beth values every person. And Beth is passionate about children and education.

Beth has demonstrated her leadership skills in the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation where we have known her best. As a trustee on our Board, she has served during the launch of a comprehensive building renovation and has led efforts to develop a planned giving program to sustain us into the future. She has chaired our religious education committee while teaching Sunday classes to children for the past seven years. Beth also demonstrates the principle of valuing every single person. As a fellow teacher, I have watched her bring a difficult child into the circle to engage positively with others, benefitting the child and the group as a whole.

Beth models and teaches respect and care for our precious planet, another UU principle. She has shown this in her volunteer work with the Riverside gardens and the “Healthy Children, Healthy Planet” garden fair, and in her service on the Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association and the NJ League of Conservation Voters boards.

Beth brings her experience of a warm, community-service-centered town to everything she does here in Princeton. She is on the front lines of every project she tackles — planting the school gardens, teaching religious education classes, engaging her students in community service (be it stocking shelves at Arm and Arm or providing childcare for church events) and serving on several boards of trustees. She is never an armchair captain.

Beth lives out the UU principle calling us to promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. She demonstrates that peaceful, productive communities are based on respect for each other’s differences, good communication skills and creative, collaborative problem solving. When Beth walks into a room everyone is included.

Beth Behrend will bring to the Princeton School Board her sense of the value of every person and of our whole natural and human community, and her talent of harmonious community problem solving. Children, teachers, administrators, staff, and all of us who no longer have children in the schools will all benefit from Beth Behrend’s commitment to pubic education in Princeton.

We urge you to vote for Beth Behrend for Princeton School Board.

Rev. Carol S. Haag

Unitarian Universalist minister

Dr. Carl H. Haag

Ridgeview Circle