Upper Saddle River School District
Board of Education
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Ready to Lead USR Schools with Excellence.
Accountability · Excellence · Transparency
Our platform prioritizes responsible spending, rigorous academic standards, and clear communication. To ensure every student succeeds in high school and beyond, we're launching “Ask the Class,” a series of student panels exploring how our district can do even more.
First elected in 2020. She chairs the Negotiations Committee and serves on Finance and Personnel committees. These committees negotiate teacher, district administrator, and superintendent contracts; recommend action on the annual budget; and review and develop personnel and hiring policy.
VP of Technology at the Upper Saddle River Educational Foundation, part of the grants process across the district, and led the theater lighting and sound upgrades at Cavallini and Bogert.
Our commitment to Accountability, Excellence, and Transparency relates to Board governance and does not add to the budget.
Why we are running together
Our community deserves responsible spending, excellent schools that prepare our kids for the future, and clear, open communication from the Board. That's why our campaign is built on three core pillars: Accountability, Excellence, and Transparency.
Joy brings six years of proven Board experience and is the proud parent of two public school graduates. Hani brings a career of making large organizations run effectively, with a daughter in eighth grade and another at Highlands. We've collaborated for years on the Educational Foundation board to fundraise for our students, and we are fully committed to serving the parents, students, and the wider Upper Saddle River community.
Demonstrated dedication to the Upper Saddle River School District
Joy A. McElyea
Current Board member, running for re-electionJoy is in her sixth year of service on the Upper Saddle River Board of Education. She chairs the Negotiations Committee and serves on the Finance and Personnel Committees. Professionally, she is a bookkeeper for nonprofit organizations. Joy has been a Trustee on the Upper Saddle River Educational Foundation since 2015, previously serving as Treasurer and VP of Grants. She was on the USREF capital project committees for the Cavallini and Bogert library renovations and the district-wide STEM Lab development project.
Hani Batla
CandidateHani has served five years on the Upper Saddle River Educational Foundation Executive Board as VP of Technology, serving on the grant committee and leading the theater lighting and sound capital project at Cavallini and Bogert. By day, he's Chief Information and Technology Officer at Adorama and co-founder of Theonix, where he finds solutions to difficult problems, manages budgets, and handles vendor negotiations.
As our commitment to excellence, we will
Ask the Class.
We'll ask current students how they are doing after graduating from our district. Are there experiences they wish they had, or things they wish they would have known that could add to their success in life after middle school?
We'll ask about core academics, electives, clubs, and sports and report back with what we learn. We know our students do well after they graduate from Cavallini. In our pursuit of excellence, we want to hear their perspective on whether we can do more.
As parents, we know our kids have unique viewpoints that adults can learn from if they ask.
We look forward to our conversations later this month!
The plan
Accountability
The Board sets the district's policy and direction. The Superintendent runs the schools.
- Exercise diligence during the budget process.
- Partner with our Business Administrator to find savings through shared services and cooperative purchasing, ask questions, and explore alternatives.
- Work to publish a multi-year budget outlook, including the drivers the Board doesn't control.
Excellence
Ask the students. Support the teachers.
- An Ask the Class summary report, shared publicly and with the Board.
- Provide new teachers with the tools and the support to be effective in their own classrooms.
- Re-charter a standing AI and technology board committee scoped to learning.
Transparency
We want you to be informed.
- Explore and implement additional means of communicating the Board's work, for example a town newsletter, a Board newsletter, or additional space on the district website.
- A summary of public board meetings, including key factors considered on larger agenda items.
- An update to the wider Upper Saddle River community after budget presentations.
Strong Schools Benefit Our Entire Community
The success of our public schools has a positive and direct impact on the entire population of Upper Saddle River. All of our USR neighbors, whether without kids, or with kids that have aged out of our schools, with kids in private school, and with kids too young for school, are stakeholders in our district and have our commitment to accountability, excellence, and transparency.
Our race is at the end of the ballot.
In New Jersey, the school board contests sit in their own section at the end of the page. Two Board of Education contests have each district name printed to the side. One is for the Upper Saddle River School District, and one is for the Northern Highlands Regional High School District.
For Membership to the Local Board of Education, you'll find McElyea and Batla in Column A.
Four dates
- Tue Oct 13Last day to register to vote in New Jersey
- Early OctVote-by-mail ballots arrive in mailboxes
- Oct 24 to Nov 1In-person early voting at Bergen County sites
- Tue Nov 3Election Day, polls open 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Display our sign on your lawn.
Our signs are printed and will be here soon. Show your support of our campaign by displaying one in your yard. We'll deliver the sign and pick it up after Election Day.