High turnout in North End drives BOE results

Elana Jacob and Jessica Klein were elected to the New Rochelle Board of Education (BOE) on Tuesday, May 20, in an election sharply divided between the city’s north and south ends and driven by greatly increased turnout in the city’s northern reaches. 

Elana Jacob (L), Jessica Klein

The 2025-26 school budget was approved by 65.2% of voters, achieving the 60% majority required to exceed the state-mandated cap on school tax increases.  The library budget was also approved by a wide margin, and Corey Galloway was re-elected to the library Board of Trustees without opposition.

Jacob and Klein, both of whom are white, will replace Katie Castellano Minaya and Adina Berrios Brooks, both women of color, whose terms on the BOE expire next month. Although 44% of New Rochelle’s population is white, 73% of the city’s public school students are Black or Hispanic/Latino.

Voters were able to vote for up to two of the five candidates for the BOE who appeared on the ballot.  In the final results (see below), Jacob received 3,350 votes; Klein received 2,917; Keith Singletary received 2,505; Rosa Rivera-McCutchen received 2,281; and Myriam Decime received 552.

Based on preliminary data released on election night, turnout was relatively high for a school board election, with 5,762 people voting, compared to 3,766 in 2024, a 53% increase.  Turnout was higher at all voting sites, but the increase was greater in the north end, with a total of 1,398 additional voters (a 59% increase) at Davis, Ward, and Barnard elementary schools, Albert Leonard Middle School (ALMS), and New Rochelle High School (NRHS); compared to 598 additional voters (a 42% increase) at sites in the southern part of the city.

Votes at Ward and Davis in the city’s north end, which enroll 35% of the city’s elementary school students, accounted for 48% of the votes cast at elementary school voting stations.  Votes cast at ALMS in the north, which enrolls 46% of the city’s middle school students, accounted for 79% of the votes cast at the city’s middle schools. 

Voting outcomes also varied dramatically by geography.  Among voters at Ward, Davis, and ALMS in the north end, 76% of the votes went to Jacob and Klein, and 24% to Singletary, Rivera-McCutchen, and Decime.  At polling places south of Eastchester Road, 75% of the votes went to Singletary, Rivera-McCutchen, and Decime, and 25% to Jacob and Klein.  Although the proportion of votes for Singletary, Rivera-McCutchen, and Decime in the south end was as high as the proportion favoring Jacob and Klein in the north, the higher turnout in the north end swung the election for Jacob and Klein.

The campaign was marred by widespread attacks on Rivera-McCutchen by those who equate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism. The personal attacks against Rivera-McCutchen, largely based on her association with former Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who has vocally opposed Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza, were apparently widely believed, despite Rivera-McCutchen’s repeated statements in public forums and in an online open letter stressing her “ethic of humanity and care” and her eagerness for “open dialog.”  In contrast, the credible and disqualifying charge of plagiarism against Klein was barely noted.