By linda denicola
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — Three candidates — two incumbents and a newcomer — are running for three three-year terms on the Freehold Township K-8 Board of Education in the April 15 school election.
The candidates running unopposed are incumbents Dorothy Marlene Caruso and Rosina Hary and newcomer Kay Poklemba-Holtz.
Board member John Connell did not seek re-election after serving on the board for 21 years.
Poklemba-Holtz, of Birch Hill Road, has unique qualifications for the job. She and her husband, James, are both natives of the Freehold area and attended school in the district. Four of their five children are enrolled in the township school district, Caitlin, 13, an eighth-grader at the Eisenhower Middle School, and Kelsey 11, Matthew, 9, and Meghan, 7, who are all at the Applegate School. Daughter Emily is 4.
Poklemba-Holtz grew up in Freehold and except for the years she spent in college and graduate school, she has lived and worked the area. She has a master’s degree in physical therapy and works part-time at Marlboro Physical Therapy.
As a parent, she has been very involved in the PTO at the Applegate School. She has also been on a number of committees at both the Applegate and Eisenhower schools.
"I really have felt that the Freehold Township Board of Education has done a wonderful job and since I would not be running against anybody, I decided to run," she said.
A product of the Freehold Township school system, she said it was a great place to grow up.
"I felt I got a great education and would like to give something back to the school system, something besides being involved with the kids. I’m in the classroom a lot, but I want to be involved in the overall direction of where the school system is heading," she explained.
Poklemba-Holtz said that over the years she has met several members of the board and believes they will be good mentors for her.
"It’s a good opportunity at this time to learn the ropes and continue to make it a good school system," the candidate said.
She feels that the school district has already completed some excellent projects, like the building referendum and redistricting project.
"It’s a great administration and I would like to build upon what has been established. Perhaps our emphasis should be on the curriculum," she said.
Caruso, of Woodcrest Drive, has been on the Freehold Township school board, except for one year, since 1993. She lost a re-election bid in 1996 and won her seat back in 1997.
She retired from the Freehold Regional High School District in 1995 where she was director of its Medical Sciences Learning Center at Freehold Borough High School.
At the present time, Caruso is also a member of the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education. She serves as Freehold Township’s representative on that board and is the panel’s vice president.
Caruso said that although the two things she feels most strongly about have been, or will be, implemented, she enjoys her work on the board and wants to continue.
"I have been a proponent of all-day kindergarten and that’s coming to fruition when they build the new school. I also felt strongly about total busing and we have that now. They were two of my goals. Both of them cost money, but were approved," she said.
Caruso has three children who went through the school system and presently has three grandchildren in the school district. She said she would like to remain on the board because she works with wonderful people on the board and with great administrators and staff.
She has lived in the township for 38 years.
"It’s a great community, I like what I’m doing, I like working for the kids. The results are commendable. The district is providing a good, sound education for students," the veteran board member said.
Hary lives on Hunt Road and has been a board member for 13 years. She is seeking her fifth full term. The first time she ran it was for a one-year term.
Hary is a homemaker and a licensed food safety inspector.
She has three children who have gone through the township school system; one is a freshman in high school. When her children were younger, she spent many years serving on PTAs in the school district.
Hary said there are many reasons why she has chosen to run again, but the main one is to see a major project that she was involved in starting through to completion, the building of the new elementary school on Wemrock Road.
"I think the most important thing is the building program. "It’s very important that everything goes real well with that," the candidate said.
Although the board’s proposed budget was defeated last year by voters and had to be reviewed and reduced by the Township Committee, Hary said she believes the 2003-04 school year spending plan the board has proposed will pass this year.
"I believe that last year was only the second time the budget was defeated. I have every hope that it will pass this year. I think, especially given the fact that we have hundreds more students every year, we are doing quite well and we are doing our best to get the word out," she said.
Hary said she is pleased about how the district is performing.
"You can look at our test scores. We are doing so well. We’re even out-performing districts that are above our District Factor Group (DFG)," she said.
The DFG is a classification used by the state Department of Education to group schools of similar socioeconomic characteristics for the purposes of comparing how students perform on standardized tests and in other areas.
Hary said that performance by the district’s pupils is another reason why residents may support the budget.