Carol Lester

Carol Lester

Education

Bachelor's

Temple University

Personal

Profession

Singer-songwriter

Carol Lester was an at-large member of the Jersey City School Board in New Jersey. She was first elected to the chamber in 2010. Lester lost her re-election bid on November 5, 2013.

Biography

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Lester resides in Jersey City, New Jersey. Lester earned her B.S. degree in business Marketing from Temple University. She began her career as a marketer in Madison Avenue before she co-founded The Learning Community Charter School and served as its board president for six years. Lester now works as a singer-songwriter and operates an "ABC Sing With Me" music business catering to infants and toddlers.

Elections

2013

See also: Jersey City Public Schools elections (2013)

Lester challenged fellow incumbent Angel Valentin for an at-large seat with a one-year term in the general election on November 5, 2013. Lester was a member of the slate of candidates endorsed by Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and campaigned under the name "Candidates for Excellence," which included Micheline Amy, Jessica Daye and Ellen Simon running for the three-year term seats. Valentin was a member of the separate "Children First" slate of candidates, which included Gerald Lyons, Lorenzo Richardson and Gina Verdibello running for the three-year term seats.

Results

Jersey City Public Schools, At-large General Election, Unexpired term, 2013
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Angel Valentin Incumbent	54.1%	7,698
	Nonpartisan	Carol Lester Incumbent	45.7%	6,506
	Nonpartisan	Personal choice	0.2%	26
Total Votes				14,230
Source: Hudson County Clerk, "Official Election Results," November 14, 2013

Funding

Lester ran as part of the Friends of Amy, Daye, Simon and Lester, which reported $35,360.49 in contributions and $11,505.03 in expenditures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.

Endorsements

Lester received an endorsement for her campaign from Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. She also received endorsements from board members Vidya Gangadin, Sangeeta Ranade and Carol Harrison-Arnold along with Jersey City Council President Rolando Lavarro and Councilwomen Diane Coleman and Candice Osborne.

2010

Jersey City Public Schools, At-large General Election, 3-year term, 2010
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Sterling Waterman	21%	7,369
	Nonpartisan	Angel Valentin Incumbent	19.5%	6,851
	Nonpartisan	Carol Lester	11.5%	4,036
	Nonpartisan	Sebastian D'Amico	10.5%	3,680
	Nonpartisan	Gerald McCann	6.9%	2,410
	Nonpartisan	L. Terry Dehere	6.8%	2,380
	Nonpartisan	Hiral Patel	6.6%	2,306
	Nonpartisan	Anthony Sharperson	3.2%	1,118
	Nonpartisan	Evelyn Farmer	2.8%	986
	Nonpartisan	Kevin Armstrong	2.1%	735
	Nonpartisan	Arthur Zigman	2.1%	722
	Nonpartisan	Gerald Lyons	2%	720
	Nonpartisan	June A. Mulqueen	1.6%	561
	Nonpartisan	John R. Muniz	1.4%	485
	Nonpartisan	Aura Ordonez	1.3%	460
	Nonpartisan	Marimer Navarrete	0.8%	271
	Nonpartisan	Write-in votes	0.1%	34
Total Votes				35,124
Source: Hudson County, New Jersey, "School Board Election Results," accessed October 31, 2013

Campaign themes

As part of the "Candidates for Excellence," Lester shared the following campaign themes with Micheline Amy, Ellen Simon and Jessica Daye:

We believe the best way to improve public schools is by focusing community-wide efforts on public schools, by better engaging public school parents and attracting new families to public schools. We believe every child can learn and every child deserves access to a quality education. We support the administration’s efforts to increase the number of African-American and Latino students doing advanced work in elementary school and college-prep work in middle school and high school. We support the administration’s efforts to lower the drop-out numbers, which resulted last year in the lowest number of drop-outs in a decade. We support the district’s plan to follow up with children who do drop out to find a way for them to earn a high-school degree or GED. We support more alternative paths for children returning to school from the criminal justice system. We support a longer school day, with time for children to have recess. We support the goal, laid out in the mayor’s transition report, to build a playground at every elementary and grade school, so every child has a safe place to play. We believe a one-size-fits all curriculum doesn’t work. We believe in giving teachers flexibility. We believe in differentiated instruction. We want translation services, both at schools and at Board meetings, for families. We want clean schools. Our schools suffer from chronic absenteeism on the part of many janitors. We support the district’s efforts to solve this problem. We support the district’s initiatives to ensure every classroom always has certified teachers and substitutes. We support the district’s efforts to clean our children’s drinking water after a long history of lead contamination. We support the district’s efforts to ensure that all children start the day with a federally funded school breakfast. Last year, half the children in our district were in danger of starting the school day hungry. We were glad to see expanded breakfast programs last year and we expect to see more this year. We would like to see the district’s central office reorganized, with additional hires shifted to schools. We want Board meetings to start later, to accommodate working parents. We want them to be shorter and more efficient. We support collective bargaining.

Note: The above quote is from the candidate's website, which may include some typographical or spelling errors.

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "Carol + Lester + Jersey + City + Public + School"

Carol Lester News Feed

See also

• Jersey City Public Schools, New Jersey
• Jersey City Public Schools Elections (2013)

External links

Suggest a link

• District page
• Office website
• Campaign website