School board reorganizes with one new member

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

EATONTOWN - Even if its nearly $18.2 million budget bit the dust last week, the local school board still celebrated other victories at its annual reorganization meeting.

As the coda to last month's elections, the Eatontown Board of Education saw incumbents Fredric Naimoli and George Marcouiller take new oaths of office for three-year terms.

Newly elected member Julie Robertson was also sworn in for her first term on the nine-member board.

With all members seated and Board Attorney Dennis Collins initially leading the proceedings, John Schiels was unanimously re-elected to a second one-year term as board president.

Mark Van Wagner, who chaired the board's ad hoc construction referendum committee last year, was voted in as board vice president.

Membership for the board's subcommittees for the 2006-07 academic year will be announced at a forthcoming meeting, Schiels said.

Meanwhile, the failed budget will soon be brought before the Borough Council, said Naimoli, who oversaw the finance committee that helped to craft the spending plan.

The council's own finance committee will then review the spending plan and make suggestions for trimming it, Naimoli said.

Eatontown's budget for its K-8 district went down by 159 votes, according to noncertified numbers presented at the April 24 meeting.

Altogether, 373 ballots were cast against the spending plan and 214 votes were cast in favor, district documents show.

The defeat of Eatontown's school budget is of particular interest because it comes just about a month after voters approved a construction bond referendum totaling almost $30 million to renovate and upgrade its four aging school buildings, Naimoli pointed out.

Taking into consideration the defeat of numerous school budgets statewide,

however, the failure of the Eatontown school budget could just be backlash by voters against yet another tax increase, he added.

However, Naimoli also believes the state government might have erred by scheduling the school election on April 18, coinciding with the Easter and Passover holidays and for many families, spring vacations.

"Having elections while school is closed might have been a mistake," Naimoli said. "Had we been in session, more parents might have been around."

In a separate matter, the board recognized four educators, one from each of its schools, as recipients of the 2006 Governor's Teacher Recognition awards.

The award recipients are: Joel Gahr, a Memorial School art teacher; Susan Szczepanek, librarian at Meadowbrook School; Annette Taylor, a kindergarten teacher at Woodmere School; and Jean Hoffmire, a physical education teacher at Vetter School.

The board also accepted with regret the retirement of 34-year district employee Rosemary Simpson, currently a kindergarten teacher at Vetter School, effective June 30.