To the Editor:

Michele Tuck-Ponder has given extraordinary public service to Princeton, and we wholeheartedly endorse her candidacy for the Princeton School Board. She will bring to the Board the knowledge, leadership skills, and — most significantly — values of critical importance to the ultimate vitality of our schools and our community.

Michele is a public-school parent, a taxpayer, an attorney, and a former mayor. She understands that a school system cannot truly achieve excellence unless it promotes the achievement of all of its students. She also knows well that an unaffordable school system threatens the very diversity that enriches our schools.

Michele will work to support a school culture that embraces high expectations for all students while also preparing them to navigate a multicultural world. She will work equally hard to hold the line on budgets and to ensure that expenditures are cost-effective and serve our educational mission.

Michele’s government experience includes policy-related positions as aide to a United States senator, assistant counsel to the New Jersey governor, and mayor and member of Township Committee in the former Princeton Township. She was centrally involved in overseeing the feasibility study, design, and financing of the Princeton Municipal Complex and the negotiation and financing of infrastructure and siting for the Princeton Public Library. In the non-profit sector, Michele has served as an executive of Women’s Fund and the YWCA and a member of the boards of New Jersey After 3 and the Girl Scouts. She has repeatedly met the challenge of serving the public interest while conserving scarce resources. This background will serve well the School Board’s need to explore alternative sources of funding and carefully review the economics of our current commitments.

As enrollment grows, School Board members will be called upon to make strategic decisions about facilities, infrastructure, and the alignment of spending and mission. Michele will bring to these issues an ability to identify and ask the hard questions, well-known skills as a consensus-builder, and a deep commitment to a quality education for all students in our system.

Walter and Mary Bliss 

Beth and Jim Healey

Moore Street

Virginia Kerr 

Jefferson Road