Trio of conservative school board candidates close out filing period

MANCHESTER, N.H. – In addition to the first and second groups of conservative candidates that arrived at City Hall to file for local office at roughly the same time, a third group of conservative Board of School Committee candidates officially got on the ballot in the waning minutes before the 2023 Manchester Municipal Election filing period closed.

In Ward 5, Cody Matiello signed up to take on incumbent Jason Bonilla. Mattiello said he is looking to run in the hopes of supporting his young children and others like them entering the Manchester School District in a few years who may need additional special education support.

“I want to make sure they get all the early venture intervention help now and make sure help is offered to kids growing up with learning difficulties,” he said. “Since their schooling is going to be the biggest part of my life for the next ten to fifteen years, I want to be a part of that.”

Matiello also said he’s concerned about what he’s hearing from his neighbors about falling enrollment numbers and parents looking for alternatives to public school, something he believes can be addressed by examining curriculum standards.

“We need to be making sure that kids are actually learning something, and school is not just babysitting kids for a few hours a day,” he said. “I want to make sure that kids are actually getting something from their teachers.”

In addition to signing up for Selectman, Brittany Ping also became the fourth candidate seeking one of the two Board of School Committee At-Large slots, joining Elizabeth Ann Moreau, Jim O’Connell and Peter Argeropoulos.

Ping has run for the Board of School Committee in Ward 11 in the past and wanted provide a voice for parents seeking more input into how the Manchester School District is run.

“I am really excited to represent parents out there who are frustrated with our district’s achievement gaps and represent taxpayer who are tired and frustrated with rising taxes and a lack of commonsense solutions.”

Ping also said that the impact of homelessness and drug addiction in families on children as well as examining bullying and the district’s use of the Amplify curriculum are also key issues.

And one minute before the end of the filing period, Mark Warden filed to run for Board of School Committee in Ward 8. Warden joins Jessica Spillers in the race to replace the outgoing Peter Perich.

For Warden, who also currently serves as a State Representative, the main impetus for putting his name on the ballot was focusing on improving the district’s financial efficiency.

“I want to be sure that somebody’s keeping an eye on the spending in the school system,” he said. “People are seeing two thirds or three quarters of their property tax bills go to schools and many of the schools are underperforming and expenses are getting higher and higher each year while enrollment continues to go down. Something’s got to give, something’s got to change and I think we need a fiscal conservative on the Board of School Committee.”

Warden also said he was concerned with the possibility of Critical Race Theory being taught in schools as well as providing more parental input into curriculum choices.

“I think parents should come first and considering what the school board is doing in regard to the curriculum and overhead, I think they need to put more focus on the customer, which in this case is the students and their families,” he said.

For all three candidates, there will be no primaries, with each candidate advancing to the General Election ballot in November.