Meet Your Marple Newtown School Board Candidates

Eight candidates are vying for five, four-year term seats on the  in May 17's election. School board vice president Richard Sokorai and members Fred Dewey, Edward Partridge, Joseph Rufo and Dana Kauffman are up for re-election in this year's race, leaving five seats open. But only Sokorai and Dewey will be running again this year while Partridge, Rufo and Kauffman will not seek re-election.

Five out of the eight candidates give Patch a glimpse of their background and why they’re running in this year's race.

*Name: Fred Dewey

Background: I am 40 years old and have lived 28 years in the district including the last 10 years. I am single and did not attend school in the district nor does my child attend. I have an M.B.A. from Villanova and am a small business owner specializing in nonprofit video production.

Platform: My platform is simple. I want the Marple Newtown School District to
provide its students with the highest quality education and facilities without overburdening the taxpayers. I am proud of my record of maintaining low taxes in this difficult economic environment while refurbishing our high school.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Name: Genevieve Fox

Background: I have been married to Phillip Katulka for 22 years and our son, Christopher, currently attends . I earned a B.A. in Accounting from Drexel University, and I specialize in budgeting and identifying methods to streamline operations and increase profitability. As a consultant, I have developed and implemented more efficient budget and cash-flow systems for several large corporations. I am a strong advocate for greater support, more effective services, and better communication between families and schools for all students, but particularly for students with special needs.

Platform: In regards to the budget, I would like to build community support. By building relationships with the community at large and through corporate partnerships, the board can rally support and obtain sponsorships for existing and future non-essential programs, thereby providing greater funding resources to strengthen the budget for the essential programs, and relieve the tax burden for the
community. With corporate support, the district will be able to hire and keep the most talented and qualified teachers and educational staff resulting in a better education for all students. Corporations and the community at large will ultimately reap the benefits of a higher level of education resulting in better qualified and more productive future employees.

In regards to communication, there needs to be an increase in dialogue, quality, and transparency of the pipelines between school and home. This will enable parents and teachers to work together in true partnership, find better ways to lead the children to be successful, and help parents to be more involved in their children’s learning process.

In regards to programming and education for parents, I would like to organize a parent support program with monthly education and discussions to help families learn ways to deal with concerns such as peer pressure, defiance, bullying, Internet safety, drugs, alcohol, anorexia, bulimia, and teen pregnancy. Parents can network to share ideas, provide mutual support, and foster mentoring between families.

In regards to socialization groups for children, I would like to establish a children's socialization group for students with special needs to help them learn how to build personal and productive relationships for their adult futures. I recognize that any one of these children could someday be the next teacher, design a more efficient source of green energy, find a cure for a disease, or lead this world into the next decade. These children are the future. We need to support and educate them because the future of the world depends on them.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Name: Dr. Hector Lopez

Background: I am 43 years old and have lived in Broomall for the past four years. I am married to Zoila R. Pena and we have two children who are in the school district. Milaury is in the tenth grade at and Zoe attends fourth grade at . I am a physician and assistant professor of pathology, anatomy and cell biology at Thomas Jefferson University 

Platform: I have the following goals in serving on the Marple Newtown School Board, which include: ensuring that an integrated curriculum is a top priority; ensuring teaching excellence; improving the interaction between teachers, students, parents, and administrative personnel in the Marple Newtown School District; improving health and disease prevention education in the school district's curriculum; improving services to children with disabilities; ensuring adequate inclusion of ethics concepts at Marple Newtown High School; and enriching cultural diversity and humility.

My years of experience as an educator, my passion for the science of learning, and my ability to be a listener will allow me to be a team player to resolve the challenges that district may face. I am committed to excellence in teaching, our children's health issues, and an integrated curriculum.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

*Name: Richard Sokorai

Background: I am 41 years old, married and have two children, ages 8 and 4. One child attend Culbertson and the other is in pre-school. I have lived in Newtown Square since 2002. I am a trial lawyer at High Swartz, LLP.  I have been in the National Guard since 1989, first in the Cavalry and more recently as a Judge Advocate. I have been on the school board since 2006.  

Platform: I have worked hard for the school district over the last four years. Some accomplishments include: I was the lead negotiator for the most recent teacher association, support staff association and administrator association labor contracts.  I worked with the representatives from these groups to control the growth of compensation for these individuals with no interruption in education or services for our community. I fought to preserve the /central administration building. 

As a member of the Facilities Committee, we implemented a maintenance program, particularly a district-wide roof replacement program, to protect our community’s assets and assisted in the development of our high school building and renovation project, which ensures that our 60-year-old high school building will be able to adequately serve our students for the next 60 years.

During every budget cycle, I have worked to avoid overburdening our taxpayers while preserving the level of education our community has come to expect. When tax increases have been necessary, they have been put to good work with palpable results, such as the high school project, roofing projects and textbook replacements.

It has been a great experience serving the Marple and Newtown communities as a school director. I have enjoyed helping make this district better. I would like to continue that process for another term. My primary goal for the next term is to help develop a committee structure of administrators, teachers, parents and business people from our community to analyze the way our district does business with the goal of limiting the tax burden on our community and maximizing the use of the money that we do receive.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Name: Matthew Stepanic

Background: I am 41 years old and have lived in Springfield for the past three years. I have been married to Colleen McCubbin Stepanic for the past 17 years. We have a daughter, Olivia, who is currently an eighth-grader at . I am a branch manager for MT&T Bank in Drexel Hill.

Platform: I want to use my education and 20 plus years of work experience in manufacturing and finance to ensure that education is the top priority for the school board; to work ardently to improve the quality of education in the Marple Newtown School District; to improve the interaction between school district employees and the students and parents currently in the district; and to encourage district administration to treat students and parents as “customers," and achieve these goals without increasing the financial burden to district taxpayers.

I plan to achieve these goals without increasing the financial burden to district taxpayers through my ability to help reduce cost and waste by working collaboratively with the administration and teachers. I look forward to finding creative ways to improve the quality of education and service provided by the school district.

* Marked as incumbents.

Editor's Note: Candidate profiles for Jamie Mariano, Sherry-Lee McAuliffe and Robert Sack were not submitted for the primary elections.

To view Robert Sack's candidate profile, which wa submitted for the November election, click here.