Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Scott Powell
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.
Scott Powell was the West Windsor representative on the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District school board in New Jersey. He was first elected on November 5, 2013. Powell lost a re-election bid in the general election on November 8, 2016.
Biography
Powell earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He later earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. Powell currently works as a product manager at Prudential Financial. He and his wife have two children currently attending district schools.[1]
Elections
2016
Three of the nine seats on the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District school board were up for by-district general election on November 8, 2016. Incumbent Yu Taylor Zhong defeated Shrenik Dagli, Russel Melville, and former board member Todd Hochman for the Plainsboro seat. In the race for the West Windsor seat, incumbent Louisa Ho and Carol Herts won the two seats up for election by defeating incumbent Scott Powell, Deborah Marinsky, Mirna White, and former board member Richard Kaye.[2]
Results
| West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, West Windsor District General Election, 3-year terms, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Louisa Ho Incumbent |
23.93% | 4,388 |
| Carol Herts |
23.49% | 4,306 |
| Deborah Marinsky | 22.96% | 4,210 |
| Richard Kaye | 19.70% | 3,611 |
| Scott Powell Incumbent | 6.97% | 1,278 |
| Mirna White | 2.95% | 541 |
| Total Votes | 18,334 | |
| Source: Mercer County, New Jersey, "Official Results," accessed December 1, 2016 Middlesex County, New Jersey, "Historical Election Results," accessed December 1, 2016 |
||
Funding
Powell reported no contributions or expenditures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission in the election.[3]
2013
Incumbent Alapakkam Manikandan lost re-election for the Plainsboro seat to challenger Yu Taylor Zhong. The race for two seats from West Windsor included incumbent Louisa Ho and challengers Powell, Rakesh Kak and Yingchao Zhang. Powell and Ho won those seats. Incumbent Hemant Marathe ran for Mayor of West Windsor after serving for nine years on the board.[4]
Results
| West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School School Board, West Windsor District, 3-year term, 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Nonpartisan | Scott Powell |
30.2% | 2,977 | |
| Nonpartisan | Louisa Ho Incumbent |
29% | 2,866 | |
| Nonpartisan | Rakesh Kak | 24.8% | 2,448 | |
| Nonpartisan | Yingchao Zhang | 15.8% | 1,560 | |
| Nonpartisan | Personal choice | 0.2% | 19 | |
| Total Votes | 9,870 | |||
| Source: Mercer County Clerk, "Election Results," November 13, 2013 | ||||
Funding
Powell reported no contributions or expenditures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.[5]
Campaign themes
2013
In an interview with the League of Women Voters of the Princeton Area, Powell explained his views on major issues facing the district:[6]
District growth
|
"As we prepare to absorb the growing student population in West Windsor, we should grow our facilities sparingly, because an increase in students today can reverse tomorrow as neighborhoods mature. For example, at the lower grade schools, where the children spend most of their instructional time in the same room, we need more classrooms. We can add portable classrooms to the grounds of these schools. At the middle schools, we can share the classroom space between teachers, to maximize the use of the facilities. Finally, the high schools should employ the flipped classroom principle (learn concepts at home, work problems in class) in math and science. This should allow each class to handle more students." |
Financial challenges
|
"From year-to-year any enterprise, including the school district, has three financial options: keep spending the same but reprioritize, raise revenue (taxes) or lower spending. Raising revenues (i.e. taxes) should be our last choice, we already pay pretty high property taxes. Accomplishing more with less (or the same) money requires us to look for new ways to achieve our goals. However, making intelligent decisions about spending requires several months, or years, learning about the financial operations of the district, and then making informed choices." |
School safety
|
"Our schools currently have appropriate safety measures in place. We practice fire drills and teach the students how to respond to intruders with evacuation drills. I believe the proposed dual door entryways may reduce the likelihood of intruders entering school grounds. This would only work if staff enforce strict entry criteria and prevent piggybacking. In an open society, the best defense is prevention. We need to educate the adults in our community to detect and treat people with malicious intent." |
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Scott Powell West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- New Jersey
- West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, New Jersey
- West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District elections (2013)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ West Windsor & Plainsboro News, "Candidates Forum: Scott Powell," September 27, 2013
- ↑ Mercerspace, "10 file in WW-P school board election," July 29, 2016
- ↑ New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "Public Information," accessed December 12, 2016
- ↑ NJ.com, "West Windsor-Plainsboro school board president to challenge mayor in November election," June 24, 2013
- ↑ New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, "Standard Search," accessed December 27, 2013
- ↑ League of Women of the Princeton Area, "West Windsor Candidates for WW-P School Board 2013," accessed October 23, 2013
| ||||||||||
