By Barbara A. Preston December 8, 2020
The Montgomery School Board selected Antoine Yver, a father of ten children and the executive vice president and global head of oncology research for a major pharmaceutical company, to serve a one-year term on the board.
Yver also founded The Blue Bears Special Meals in Princeton Shopping Center in November 2019. Yver is board chairman of the non-profit, which offers meaningful employment opportunities for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including Down Syndrome.
"We so far survived the pandemic, operating at 60 percent capacity and four staff members with IDD, and counting," he says of The Blue Bears.
The Montgomery School Board selected Yver from a pool of six candidates, who were interviewed at the November 24 virtual board meeting. Yver has lived in the school district since 2000 — 15 years in Belle Mead and now in Rocky Hill.
Yver and his wife of 36-plus years have ten children. "Six blood-borne, now aged 34 to 27, and four adopted as infants, now aged 25 to 10 and who have Down syndrome," he says. "All ten kids went thru the Montgomery school system, with the younger two still attending at Lower Middle School and Village Elementary School, respectively."
Of the now grownup children, Yver says three are teachers or para-educators. He also has 10 grandchildren, six that live in Rocky Hill and will begin to attend the school system.
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"It goes without saying that we have accumulated a first hand experience with the Montgomery schools that compares with few, includes substantial experience in the special education track, and is projected to further grow as the next generation picks up," Yver says. "My interest is immediate and persistent, informed by experience, as a parent, and as active contributor."
Yver and the other six candidates answered a series of questions posed by board members. The board went into executive session, then returned to the public session and awarded the seat to Yver. The candidates were vying for seat recently vacated by Jin Patel, who resigned for personal reasons. Yver is a board certified pediatrician and oncohematologist (caring for kids with cancer academically in the early part of his career). He is now global head of cancer research and development at a major pharmaceutical company. "Having observed and witnessed struggles the township and the district seem to experience as they grow and transform," Yver says he believes he could use his skills and experience, "including but not limited to special education."
"On the education spectrum, one of our sons graduated from Montgomery High School and is now an ICU doctor at CHOP Children Hospital Philadelphia," he says, noting he values the rigorous educational framework needed for scientist mind and the passion and empathy of an accomplished multi-cultural leader and kid cancer doctor. "My objective is to actively contribute, from my unique and may be fresh perspective," he says, "to review and further strengthen and align the MTSD education policy, thru the obviously diverse lenses of the board and its own diversity, as well as the students, families and community, the administrators, the faculty and staff. I certainly can also directly contribute to overseeing a sound and fiscally responsible business administration of the district."
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