Howard Gardner
Ballotpedia provides comprehensive election coverage of the 100 largest cities in America by population as well as mayoral, city council, and district attorney election coverage in state capitals outside of the 100 largest cities. This board member is outside of that coverage scope and does not receive scheduled updates.
Howard Gardner is the former Democratic at-large representative on the Bridgeport Public Schools Board of Education in Connecticut. First elected in 2013, Gardner lost a re-election campaign in the at-large general election on November 7, 2017. He ran as a Working Families Party candidate.
Biography
Gardner received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bridgeport. He also earned an M.S. in Computer Science from Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Gardner has worked as an IT consultant and has been associated with the Minority Business Association.[1]
Elections
2017
Six of nine seats on the Bridgeport Public Schools Board of Education in Connecticut were up for at-large election on November 7, 2017. One of the seats was up for special election due to a resignation on the board. In this race, Sybil Allen (D) defeated James Carbone (R) for a two-year term.[2] In the race for the four-year terms, incumbent John Weldon (R) won, along with former member Hernan Illingworth (D) and newcomers Jessica Martinez (D), Chris Taylor (R), and Joseph Sokolovic, who ran as both a Republican and Working Families Party candidate. Chaila Robinson (D), though she received the third-highest vote total, was not elected due to a state minority election law that prevents one political party from controlling more than two-thirds of the board's seats. In this election, Democrats were only able to elect three candidates, leaving the other seats open for other parties.[3][4] Incumbent Howard Gardner (Working Families Party) lost his seat. Shavonne Davis, who accompanied Gardner on the Working Families Party ticket, and Sara Lewis, a petitioning candidate, also lost.[5][6][7]
| Bridgeport Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year terms, 2017 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic |  Jessica Martinez |
20.81% | 3,483 | |
| Democratic | Hernan Illingworth |
19.97% | 3,342 | |
| Democratic | Chaila Robinson | 18.93% | 3,168 | |
| Republican/WFP | Joseph Sokolovic |
9.72% | 1,626 | |
| Republican | John Weldon Incumbent |
8.89% | 1,487 | |
| Republican | Chris Taylor |
6.83% | 1,143 | |
| Working Families Party | Howard Gardner Incumbent | 6.74% | 1,128 | |
| Working Families Party | Shavonne Davis | 5.07% | 848 | |
| Nonpartisan | Sara Lewis | 2.81% | 471 | |
| Write-in votes | 0.23% | 38 | ||
| Total Votes | 16,734 | |||
| Source: Connecticut Secretary of State, "Election Center: 2017 November Municipal Election," accessed November 8, 2017 These election results are unofficial and will be updated after official vote totals are made available. | ||||
2013
Gardner won election to the board against seven other candidates for five seats on the board on November 5, 2013.
Results
General election
| Bridgeport Public Schools, General Election, 4-year term, 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic | Dave Hennessey |
20.1% | 940 | |
| Democratic | Howard Gardner |
15.7% | 731 | |
| Republican | Joe Larcheveque |
15.1% | 706 | |
| Democratic | Andre Baker, Jr. |
15.3% | 714 | |
| Republican | Steve Best | 11.8% | 550 | |
| Republican | John Weldon | 10.3% | 482 | |
| Working Families | Eric Stewart-Alicea | 4.2% | 194 | |
| Working Families | Sauda Baraka Incumbent |
4% | 186 | |
| Working Families | Andre Baker, Jr. | 3.6% | 167 | |
| Total Votes | 4,670 | |||
| Source: Connecticut Secretary of State, "Municipal Elections - November 5, 2013," accessed December 16, 2013 | ||||
Primary
On September 10, 2013, a Democratic primary was held for three spots on the ballot in the Bridgeport Board of Education election. Andre Baker, Jr., Dave Hennessey and Gardner won these positions over Simon Castillo, Kathryn Bukovsky and Brandon Clark. The winners ran against the school reform policies of Mayor Bill Finch and received the endorsement of the Network for Public Education while the other three candidates were endorsed by the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee.[8][9]
| Bridgeport Board of Education, September 10, 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democrat | Andre Baker, Jr. |
21.6% | 3,409 | |
| Democrat | Dave Hennessey |
21% | 3,308 | |
| Democrat | Howard Gardner |
20.8% | 3,284 | |
| Democrat | Simon Castillo | 12.5% | 1,977 | |
| Democrat | Kathryn Bukovsky | 12.2% | 1,917 | |
| Democrat | Brandon Clark | 11.8% | 1,862 | |
| Total Votes | 15,757 | |||
| Source: Connecticut Post These results are unofficial. | ||||
Funding
Howard Gardner reported no contributions or expenditures to the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission.
Endorsements
Gardner was endorsed by the Connecticut Post prior to the September 10, 2013 Democratic primary.[10] He was endorsed by Citizens Working for a Better Bridgeport PAC during the general election campaign.[11]
Campaign themes
2013
In a letter to Only in Bridgeport, Gardner and his fellow Democratic candidates discussed their campaign themes for 2013:[12]
| “ |
"What can the B.E.S.T. team do? How can the B.E.S.T. team help to give all children the quality public school education they deserve? We were asked these questions repeatedly during our walks around the various neighborhoods in our city. We replied that we are candidates who will demonstrate a commitment to shared governance. We will actively seek input from parents, teachers, administrators, students, and the community. Our team will not handle this participation in a perfunctory way. We will not be beholden to the city administration, the teachers association, any particular interest group, or overly influential parents. We will ask questions and demand answers on any, and all, matters regarding the education deserved by all students. The B.E.S.T. team will support administrators, but challenge them when it is appropriate. The position of the teachers association is to be respected, but will not control the Board’s agenda. Active and vociferous parents must be heard, but not permitted to sway the Board’s objective of doing what’s best for all children in our district. What happens if the B.E.S.T. team is elected in November? Some of the problems in our schools have been occurring for an extended period of time. It will take an equally long time to rectify those particular issues. A long range plan, implemented by a balanced Board of Education concerned with long term progress of all of our students, will address those. There are some problems, however, that are a direct result of an unqualified leader using a “rubber stamp” Board of Education to do what’s politically expedient, not what’s in the best interests of our children. These immediate issues facing the Board of Education at its first meeting are many, but are not limited to the following. They are in no particular order. • Reduction of guidance counselors and subsequent extreme burden for our needy students; • Loss of vital paraprofessionals for our youngest students; • Elimination of Math and Reading coaches and tutors; • Lack of enough nursing/healthcare coverage; • Expansion of Early Childhood education; • Overcrowding in many schools; • Implementation of further testing, which takes away MORE valuable instruction time; • Continued hiring of inexperienced “teachers” (5 weeks of training) as opposed to teachers with 4 years of training, despite the fact that these inexperienced “teachers” cost more than $3,000 additional dollars per year to employ; • Inordinate hours by principals working on teacher evaluations, which inhibit them from being the instructional leaders of their schools. What are the B.E.S.T slate’s solutions? Dave, Howard and Andre will be dedicated to the basic premise that ALL of Bridgeport’s children deserve the same quality public school education that our parents and grandparents received. We will demand of our legislators that the State of Connecticut adopt and implement legislation that fully funds the Education Cost Sharing formula over the next 5 years. It’s currently under-funded by over than $763 million. We will ensure that civility is the norm on the Board of Education, and that all voices are heard and valued." [13] |
” |
Note: The above quote is from the candidate's website, which may include some typographical or spelling errors.
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Howard Gardner Bridgeport Public Schools school board. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Bridgeport Public Schools, Connecticut
- Bridgeport Public Schools elections (2017)
- Bridgeport Public Schools elections (2013)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Connecticut Post, "BOE candidates answer key questions," September 9, 2013
- ↑ CT Post, "Six Bridgeport school board seats open in the fall," July 16, 2017
- ↑ Connecticut General Assembly, "Minority Representation and Changes to Party Affiliation," February 24, 1998
- ↑ Connecticut Post, "New members elected to city’s board of education," November 7, 2017
- ↑ Marielle Bricker "Email communication with Bridgeport Town Clerk," August 21, 2017
- ↑ Connecticut Secretary of State, "Bridgeport Sample Ballot," accessed October 20, 2017
- ↑ Connecticut Secretary of State, "Election Center: 2017 November Municipal Election," accessed November 8, 2017
- ↑ Connecticut Post, "Challengers win school board primary," September 11, 2013
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedgardner - ↑ Connecticut Post, "Challengers offer best bet for school board," September 9, 2013
- ↑ Citizens Working for a Better Bridgeport, "Political Action Committee CW4BB Announces General Election Endorsements," October 3, 2013
- ↑ Only in Bridgeport, "Dem School Board Candidates Share Priorities," October 3, 2013
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
| Bridgeport Public Schools elections in 2017 | |
| Fairfield County, Connecticut | |
| Election date: | November 7, 2017 |
| Candidates: | At-large (4-year): Incumbent, Hernan Illingworth • Incumbent, John Weldon • Jessica Martinez • Chaila Robinson • Joseph Sokolovic • Chris Taylor • Sara Lewis • Shavonne Davis • Howard Gardner At-large (2-year): Sybil Allen • James Carbone |
| Important information: | What was at stake? |
| ||||||||||
