'Students Deserve Better,' BOE Candidate Michele Perrotti Says

Hopatcong-Sparta Patch continues its periodic series introducing the candidates for local office who will appear on the ballot of the Nov. 5 general election. In this installment, we hear from Board of Education hopeful Michele Perrotti in her campaign's own words. Municipal, school and county candidates interested in placing a statement or article in Patch regarding their candidacies may send materials to natalie.davis@patch.com.

Michele Perrotti graduated from County College of Morris with an associate's degree in liberal arts. As time permits, she attends Montclair State University to complete her bachelor's degree in psychology. A 
successful payroll and human resources consultant, she has worked for years on how to treat employees with respect and watch the company’s bottom line. Her career spanned the age of “thinking outside the 
box,” where she learned how to be a diplomatic problem solver, and is always trying to offer alternate solutions, and equitable compromise.

Being a consultant offers the stress of not always being gainfully employed, but has the benefit of allowing Michele time with her family: her son, Joseph “JR” Triano; Angelo Priestman, her life partner for over 20 years, including five years of marriage and their four sons, Andrew, Sebastian, Ryder and Jasper. JR and Andrew have successfully graduated from Hopatcong High school. JR is working his way through college, where he is studying mechanical engineering. Andrew is taking time to consider his options. 
Sebastian attends Hopatcong Middle School, and Ryder and Jasper are expected to enter kindergarten in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

As a young child, both of Michele’s parents were educators. Her father 
Michael taught elementary school and her mother Angela taught middle school. They later had career changes to become public accountants, but Michael maintained his connection to education by being the president 
of the Orange Board of Education for over 10 years. Growing up, their dinner conversations revolved around education and finances. Michele was preparing tax returns and making journal entries at the age of 12.

Michele has very strong ethics. When she sets out to do something, she does all of the research necessary to make sure that she is acting in a compliant, ethical and legal manner. For example, she read the manual published by the NJ Election Commission and made over a dozen calls to ensure that all of her literature was prepared to the letter of the law. You will notice that every piece of her campaign material, either in print or on the internet contains her campaign address. Only one other Board of 
Education candidate has done that from day one. Another did this after seeing Michele’s, but did not rectify the material already in circulation. This is a testament to how Michele likes to see the school district run, with ethics, integrity and transparency.

Michele has been a resident of Hopatcong for over 10 years, and someone who has always been active in the community. Just four years ago, she was den leader and assistant cub master for Cub Scout Pack 194, an active volunteer for the Hopatcong little league and the Warriors, and the President of Durban Avenue School HEPTO. Michele slowly disengaged from those positions, to dedicate her time to the Hopatcong Board of Education.

Michele is proud of the many things that she has accomplished on the board of education thus far:

• Held administrators accountable for wasteful spending
• At the forefront to stop all spending that was not directly related to student safety or education.
• Fostered public engagement at school board meetings
• Advocated for safer schools
• Resounding voice in an effort to bring back school electives to enrich student’s education.

Michele has set goals that she would like to see achieved to help move the school district forward. These are the goals that she has embraced and not wavered from. She has attended classes and done research on how to effectively institute these, and is working with the board and administrators to have some implemented now.

If elected, Michele plans to work hard to achieve the following:

• Curb school tax increases by monitoring spending
• Ensure that school security and student and staff safety are a high priority
• Embark on educational excellence by offering more electives to teach our kids real life skills. 
• Keep the public informed through various media outlets

Michele believes in Hopatcong, and intends to continue to raise her family here utilizing the school district for the educational needs of her children. She wants to see Hopatcong become a world class educational system, because she believes that “our children deserve better.”