There will be two contested races in the April 16 Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education election.
The election for one other available seat is uncontested.
Terms are available for the representatives from Colts Neck, Marlboro and Freehold Township.
Under the board’s paired voting program, residents of Marlboro and Colts Neck will vote for the Marlboro and Colts Neck representatives, and residents of Freehold Township and Freehold Borough will vote for the Freehold Township representative.
Residents of the district’s other sending communities — Englishtown, Manalapan, Farmingdale and Howell — will only vote on the board’s proposed 2002-03 budget in the April 16 election.
Running for the three-year term to represent Marlboro is incumbent Dr. Steven Mishkin and challenger Bonnie Sue Rosenwald.
Running for the seat to represent Colts Neck are Vincent Domidion, Christopher Placitella and Christine Serhus. Incumbent Arlene Radman will leave the school board after serving 12 years.
Incumbent Marlene Caruso is running unopposed to continue representing Freehold Township on the school board.
Caruso has been a township resident since 1965. She is a retired employee of the district, having served as the school nurse at Marlboro High School for 14 years and as the director of the Medical Sciences Learning Center at Freehold Borough High School for 11 years.
Caruso has been a member of the high school board since November 2000 and she also serves on the Freehold Township Board of Education.
In Marlboro, Mishkin, who is seeking his second three-year term, said he became involved in local high school issues when he opposed a policy eliminating class rank and grade weighting in 1997, but more importantly, he said he objected to the process by which it was accepted.
"It was clear to me that a fundamental change was necessary to make this board more effective," Mishkin said. "In 1999, I was elected to the board and supported the referendum to expand existing schools to accommodate the growing student enrollment."
Mishkin said that during his second year, he volunteered to chair a committee to revise the district’s outdated policy manual.
"In April 2001, an updated policy manual was accepted," he said. "The policies of the district are now posted on its Web site."
Mishkin said he has also participated on the personnel committee and the facility advisory committee.
"I have advocated greater participation by individual board members and more frequent workshops to allow discussion of issues before the public," said Mishkin.
Mishkin is the chairman of ophthalmology at CentraState Medical Center and the managing partner of Millennium Eye Care, both Freehold Township.
Rosenwald has been a regular attendee at board meetings for several years. In deciding to run for a seat on the board, she said, "The educational system is an integral part of our community and as such, I decided to get involved. At first my focus was K-8, but as my family grew, my attention turned to the high school district.
"With the advent of the controversial (class ranking and grading) issues almost five years ago, I found myself drawn to the board meetings and have attended virtually every meeting in the past five years," she said.
"I have become an active participant at meetings and have become a consistently vocal member of the community who questioned the ‘business as usual’ attitude of the board," Rosenwald said. "I have always asked the hard questions that our representative would not ask and did not ask.
"Our community needs an active, responsive representative who will stand up and do the right thing for our community," she said. "I am that person."
In Colts Neck, Domidion, 50, said he is a 35-year resident of the community who has previously served on the Colts Neck Board of Education and on the high school district board.
Domidion, an investor, said he has the time and flexibility to put his energy into his two civic interests, the environment and education.
On the environmental side, Domidion said he is the chairman of the Colts Neck Environmental Commission and vice chairman of the Monmouth County Water Resources Association. He was the initial chairman of the Manasquan Watershed Management Group.
He recently served on the FRHSD site selection and facilities advisory committee. He co-authored a minority report recommending against pursuing the construction of a new high school at this time.
Placitella, 46, a senior partner in the law firm of Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, has three children in the fourth, eighth and ninth grades. He has been a member of the Colts Neck Board of Education for seven years.
"In that capacity, I have served on the teacher-staff salary benefits negotiating team, as well as vice president of the board for part of the time," he said.
Placitella said that during his tenure on the Colts Neck board he has been involved with three building projects, a revamping of the district’s curriculum and the upgrading of the technological capabilities throughout the school system.
He has served on the board of the Colts Neck Sports Foundation and was the founder of and director for Holidays for the Homeless and Underprivileged.
"Most recently," said Placitella, "I am responsible for the attorney volunteer program throughout New Jersey that is assisting families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attack."
Serhus, the third candidate for the Colts Neck seat, did not respond to several telephone messages left by Greater Media Newspapers.