Candidate Submitted Bio
Originally from Austin, TX, Mark has lived in Wilton with his wife Danielle and their two children for eight years; he is active in Wilton’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and the Wilton Soccer Association. Mark previously served on the board of The Epiphany School located in New York City. Mark’s daughter currently attends Wilton High School and his son attends Middlebrook, where Danielle teaches coding. Mark leads insurance operations and strategy for a cybersecurity insurance company. He holds a B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. Mark believes the Board serves the town most effectively when it focuses on ensuring our schools deliver the best possible outcomes for every student.
Video Interview
Candidate Submitted Op-Ed
My family moved from Brooklyn to Wilton eight years ago. Wilton’s great schools, its community feeling, and its good value drove our decision. Since moving here, my children have attended all town schools and my wife, who taught in NYC for 15 years, has worked in three of them. Three years ago, the administration asked her to take a full time position at Middlebrook, where she currently teaches coding.
We face tough decisions in the coming years related to school funding, emerging technologies, and curriculum changes. We need a Board of Education that brings the town together.
Because I’m unaffiliated with any political party, I can focus on the town’s interests and collaborate with all town officials. I’m the only candidate whose background combines engineering, data analytics, financial management, and both corporate and non-profit governance.
If elected, I will strive for less partisanship, real transparency, and a voice for Wilton in the public interest.
Less Partisanship helps us work together. I’m politically unaffiliated and since I’m not beholden to any party machine or platform, I can productively collaborate with all residents and town officials.
Real Transparency matters because even well intended people can drift off course. As directions flow from the boardroom to the classroom and data flows back, information can easily be lost or distorted. The solution is more transparency.
More transparency could have helped by engaging the town on recent actions like:
- The decision to cut funds for clubs and student activities despite an overall budget increase versus last year
- The decision to reduce mathematics-focused instruction time at Middlebrook
- Developing a new elementary reading curriculum that’s not compliant with state standards, thus increasing the time and expense to address reading challenges.
Wilton deserves a voice at the board table. In February, some board members debated whether they should seek more parent input on the Middlebrook schedule. Those members who said “no” believed parents weren’t “well equipped” to participate in the conversation. Learning that my input didn’t matter to those board members convinced me to run because everyone deserves to be heard and no board member is better equipped than a parent to speak about their children’s needs.
Instead, the Board should seek to equip residents to engage in important conversations. I will invite the town into Board deliberations and implement regular listening sessions and more consistent Board communication.
We won’t always agree, and it’s impossible to please everyone, but you deserve a voice and a willing ear.
I will act in the public interest. I have two children in Wilton schools and my wife teaches at Middlebrook. The insights my wife and children provide about what works and doesn’t in the classroom are invaluable.
As a parent, I want the best for my children. As a taxpayer, I’m willing to contribute my share, but the 56% of Wilton households without school-aged children should also have a say and I’m committed to representing the entire town.
My opponents think you aren’t “well equipped” to decide whether I can represent you effectively while being married to a teacher. They continue a pattern of stoking fear and falsehoods.
Please allow me to equip you with facts: examining every public Board of Education meeting and document in the last two years (covering 420 agenda items!), only about 5% had potential conflicts due to my wife’s employment; actual conflicts were far rarer and very manageable.
I believe in sound government and objective decision making. Real transparency means the public can hold the Board accountable. Beyond that, if elected, I commit to recuse from:
- Personnel approvals involving my wife or her direct supervisor
- Teacher contract negotiations (due only once in the next four years)
- Any votes that would differentially impact my wife (per CT law)
I will also seek committee assignments outside Teaching and Learning (since I run operations for a cybersecurity insurance company, I’m particularly suited for the Business Operations committee).
We can do better together. My wife’s and children’s presence in school aligns interests.
I want safe schools with clean air. I want a fiscally responsible way to address more than $100 million of school building deficiencies, and an education that sets all Wilton students up for success. I want the Board to increase transparency and set partisan politics aside to move faster on emerging issues, like providing guidance to teachers on generative AI in the classroom.
If you also want those things, I hope you’ll allow me to serve you on the Board of Education.
Please vote for me if you value less partisanship, real transparency, and a voice for Wilton acting in the public interest.
Video Clips
How did you come to be an unaffiliated candidate on the Republican ticket?
What qualifies you to be on the Board of Education?
Has the current BOE overstepped its functions or been too involved in day-to-day roles usually in the administrations purview? Would you have done things differently? Or are there things they shouldn’t have done?
With your financial experience, will you dig into the financials and the school budget? Is that something that’s needed? Some people talk about needing more money for the schools, but is there a bigger picture in relation to the town?
The process that took place last year, where did communication break down? What would you have done differently? Would you have been more vocal when the initial budget was presented to the Board of Education by the superintendent? What happened between the Board of Education and the Board of Finance? To have all of a sudden a request to cut $1.4 million out of the budget proposal?
What are your thoughts about BOE communication with the public? (surveys)
What are other ways to get feedback and public input, at meetings, at the public hearing? What’s going to increase connection with the public?
Whether the Board of Education has provided appropriate documents for the public…
Politics on the board — how are you going to reduce political tension?
Talking about achievement gaps post-COVID, the most recent Board of Ed meeting reviewed achievement scores that have gone up and the district and hitting some higher benchmarks with its accelerated learning plan. What’s your take on how the district has been doing?
When state mandates achievement benchmarks and schools are being asked to do more in many areas; and the public, BOF and BOE saying do more to compare with other districts, there’s only so much a district can do in 24 hours a day. What can the district do and how the Board of Ed fit into that in terms of translating that to the public?
You discussed what the board is responsible for, and what it’s not responsible, and what’s the purview of the superintendent. But when the superintendent explains his decisions — on the one hand, you’ve said those decisions are up to the administration, but maybe it’s not, and we need to be doing better — how do you evaluate that? Do you think the superintendent is achieving the mandate the board currently has set for him?
With Wilton’s tough financial choices, and with a Board of Ed budget centering on locked-in contract amounts, can we look at increasing class sizes and reduce FTEs to find savings?
During last year’s budget process, people on both sides walked away feeling they were not heard. There was a tremendous amount of conflict at the Annual Town Meeting, town officials felt threatened… reflect on last year’s budget process.
Talk about budget guidance in this year’s budget process.
What are your thoughts on the district’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion? What about open choice?
What are your thoughts about parental involvement in the schools, in the classroom, in curriculum decisions and on decisions about books used in the classroom?
In conversations that the district has had of resources being put toward social emotional learning and mental health versus stricter academic learning, what are your thoughts about what the district has done? What would you hope to see happen going forward if you’re on the board?
Let’s talk about the issue of conflict of interest — how it’s factored into the campaign and can you substantiate why there wouldn’t be a conflict of interest for you?
What are your thoughts on instructional coaching? What do you think about the program that’s been implemented? What about the administration’s continued adherence and support of that program? If your administration is telling you something is working, should you accept that on face value? And does everything get examined from a quantifiable (data-driven) view point, especially with education and ‘the art of teaching’?
What’s your argument to voters as to why they should vote for you?