By jane meggitt
Staff Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD — A new president was elected to office and three new members assumed their seats when the Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education reorganized last week.
Newcomers Robert Cheff, Howard Krieger and Frank Skube took the oath of office and board member Jeanette Bressi was chosen to fill the district’s top post.
Bressi, 39, has lived in the township for 10 years and has two children in elementary school.
A native of Philadelphia, she majored in government at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., where she worked as an intern for former Sen. Bob Dole.
For the past 13 years, she has worked in technology, focusing on international technology implementations.
A multi-lingual online university which she helped to design and implement was nominated for a display at the Smithsonian Institution.
Currently working in the pharmaceutical industry as a technology consultant, she said she intends to pursue a graduate degree in educational technology.
Bressi decided to run for the school board three years ago, after the "wonderful experience" of serving on the district’s Strategic Planning Committee, which consisted of 50 members of the Allentown/Upper Freehold community.
"The strategic plan created by this committee now serves as the community’s mandate to the Board of Education. I made a commitment to run for the Board of Education to ensure that the strategic plan was fully realized to the benefit of every child in the community."
Bressi said she feels the most critical issue facing the board is "how to effectively plan for and manage the district’s growth during a climate of frozen state educational spending."
Her goals as president include proper planning for the rapid growth in the district.
"From my perspective, it is inevitable that the current board will be making a decision over the next year to build a new school, something that has not occurred in the district for almost 40 years.
"The board will be working aggressively over the next few months to gather the necessary information to decide on building either an elementary or a middle school, as well as where the best location for that school will be in our community," she said.
Another goal Bressi has set for herself is to "serve as a voice for our children and help influence the outcome of debates on critical educational issues in Trenton. The New Jersey State Legislature is not honoring its responsibility to adequately fund education. Despite the district’s growth by several hundred students over the past few years, state aid has remained frozen."
Three years ago, state aid was $2,000 per student and now is approximately $1,500 per child, she said.
Bressi encourages community involvement within the school district, since "the strategic plan can never be fully brought to life without the committed partnership of school, family and community."
Asked about Millstone Township’s desire to have a greater voice on the UFRSD board, Bressi replied, "I believe the regionalization discussions between the Upper Freehold, Millstone and Roosevelt school districts are on hold for a while. Given the results of the demographic study, the community surveys and financial impact study, the Board of Education overwhelmingly supported maintaining the current send/receive relationship as the best alternative for the Upper Freehold/Allentown community.
"While I don’t think the Millstone Board of Education should be in a position to make any budgetary decisions which impact the Upper Freehold and Allentown taxpayers directly, I do feel they should have a fair representative voice on educational decisions impacting their students.
"The challenge then is defining the word ‘fair’ in the absence of any educational legislation which does so. Unfortunately, recent court decisions have not ruled in favor of expanding voting rights for sending school districts," she said.
While she was disappointed about the recent defeat of the school budget, she was not surprised.
Bressi had hoped more parents would have attended district Superintendent Robert Connelly’s presentations "so they could have seen how lean our budget truly was."
Turnout for voting was approximately 20 percent this year "for a decision impacting more than 70 percent of a homeowner’s property tax dollars."
She added, "If I thought there was any budget item that was not justified and necessary, I would never have agreed to send it before the voters."
Bressi encourages every parent "to get involved in some small way in our school community. We have an outstanding school district which will only continue to excel over the next few years. My family’s experiences in the district have been exceptionally positive. I couldn’t imagine sending my children anywhere else."