LAKEWOOD — With a stated goal of working together for the good of students, Board of Education members have chosen new leaders for the coming year.
Board members elected Meir Grunhut president and Norman Bellinger vice president during their reorganization meeting held at the end of last month.
Joining the board following their election on April 16 are new members Chet Galdo, Abraham Ostreicher and Leonard Thomas. All three were sworn in to begin three-year terms.
The remaining members of the board are Harvey Krantz, Sara Lichtenstein, Irene Miccio and Neal Price.
The overall message of the board since the election of the new members has been about moving forward in a positive manner.
In a press conference held by Galdo, Ostreicher and Thomas, each spoke of uniting the board and the community’s residents in order to make the best decisions for the children in the K-12 school district.
"My objective as a member of this board is to unify the township by uniting all of the diverse groups," Ostreicher said.
He said each of the new board members represents a different section of the community, which proves that residents are ready for unity through diversity.
The district has faced some tough times in the past year. The state and the township had to bail out the district when a $4 million budget deficit was uncovered. State monitors assigned to oversee the situation were recently pulled out of the district in a budget-cutting move initiated by Gov. James E. McGreevey.
On April 16, residents voted down the board’s proposed 2002-03 school budget, which left Ostreicher wondering what the voters were thinking.
"If it’s not the children they’re thinking about, what are they thinking about?" he asked.
The members of the Township Committee now have the job of reviewing the defeated school budget. In order to help them proceed with this process they have hired a budget specialist to review the school district’s spending plan.
— Cindy Tietjen