Experienced Education Leader Looks to Improve District Schools, One Classroom At A Time

After working in educational leadership for the New York City Board of Education for 25 years, Gail Libertucci is ready to break back into the education field and offer New Providence some of her expertise.

Libertucci, who retired in January, feels that she can contribute in many ways to the school district as a member of the Board of Education, ranging from financial to academic matters. She has experience with budgets, writing grants and working with corporate financial sponsors as well as experience with curriculum.

“I am an experienced educator who is an independent fresh thinker, who is fiscally responsible and cares very much about our children,” said Libertucci, a town resident for 10 years who has a child in fourth grade at . "I feel that I can contribute to the district with my expertise in education so that we can be educationally sound and fiscally responsible.”

If elected, Libertucci plans to focus more on sending money directly for supplies, and funding more educational and extracurricular activities, rather than spending too much on administrative costs.

“We’re spending too much money on administrative costs,” she said. “I’d like to make sure that money goes to our children, so that they can have cutting edge programs that will prepare them for the future.”

While Libertucci said she would vote in favor of the budget on April 27, she added that there still needs to be some changes, mainly with regard to the amount spent on administrative costs.

“I am for a zero percent budget, but I feel that there is still more work to be done,” she said. “I think that we need to look at how we spend our money, and we need to send more of our money directly on children.”

If the budget does not pass, the first area Libertucci said she would cut from is administrative costs before any area that would directly impact students.

“In order to have a fiscally responsible budget, we must look at the budget, line by line, to make sure that it is lean, but educationally sound,” Libertucci said. “We also need to partner with corporate sponsors so that we could get grants… and we need to call on volunteers to help us out on areas where there might be cuts."

Overall, Libertucci anticipates helping town residents if elected to the Board of Education.

“I am an experienced educator who looks forward to serving my fellow residents of New Providence,” she said. 

The school election is this Wednesday, April 27 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Polling locations include:

for Districts 1, 3, 4 and 5

for Districts 2, 6 and 7

for Districts 8 and 9

for Districts 10 and 11