Six people have announced their candidacy for seats on the Colonial School Board. The six, who are running under the “Connecting Colonial: Nonpartisan Candidates for School Board in 2023” banner are current school board President Beth Patruno, incumbent board members Chris Epstein, Sharon Marino, and Rick Carpenter, and Jeremy Schwartz and Mark Marsico. While incumbents, this will be the first time Marino and Carpenter have stood for election as they were appointed to the board following resignations. Schartz and Marsico will also be first-time candidates.

Susan Moore, who also served on the board since 2001 and as its president for seven years, has decided to not run for re-election. Cathy Peduzzi, who has served on the board since 2015 has also decided to not seek re-election.

This will be the third consecutive election that has a slate of nonpartisan candidates who do not seek endorsement from any political party. In their campaign announcement, the Connecting Colonial candidates also stressed that they are committed to not taking money from political parties, special interests, or corporations.

In 2019, the nonpartisan/unendorsed slate ran against a slate endorsed by the Democratic Party and won all of the available seats. In 2021, the nonpartisan/unendorsed candidates ran unopposed. We have not yet seen any indication that either major party will put forward candidates in 2023.