Citizens get inside look at K-8 school district

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer

FREEHOLD – You don’t have to be a graduating eighth-grader to earn a diploma in the Freehold Borough K-8 School District.

Agroup of volunteers who attended the school district’s first Citizens Academy were each presented with a diploma in recognition of their “graduation” from a six-session course that taught them how the district operates.

The presentation took place at the April 7 meeting of the Board of Education.

Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth O’Connell noted that one of her goals for the district is to improve communication with the community. She said 17 people attended weekly two-hour instructional sessions in February and March and learned how the district operates.

The program shed light on topics such as state mandates, the school budget, curriculum, district initiatives, long-range plans, the functional capacity of schools, enrollment, the Freehold Borough Educational Foundation grants, professional development and the No Child Left Behind Act.

O’Connell said she was pleased and impressed with the commitment that each of the 17 volunteers agreed to make.

“It’s not easy to give up six evenings and attend a two-hour session each week. I give them a lot of credit,” she said.

The superintendent said she received a great deal of positive feedback from those who attended the program.

“They said they learned a great deal about many things they were not aware of,” O’Connell said.

Brian Sullivan, who took the course, said it was a great learning experience. He said he believes he was unique in the group because he is not a parent or a staff member.

“The only exposure I had to the school district previously was to see my tax bill,” he said. “The schools are the foundation of a community and I think they are the most important thing. Our kids are our future. I think it’s important for people, especially those like me who don’t have children, to know what’s going on in the school district.”

Borough Councilman George Schnurr also attended the program. He said that since taking his seat on the Borough Council, he has focused on making an assessment of every borough department in an effort to learn “what they do on an everyday basis and to get their view of what they need.”

Schnurr said learning more about the school district fit right into his plan.

“I was trying to find a way to look under the hood of the school system, so to speak. I had questions for every other borough department, but where the school district was concerned I didn’t really know what questions I needed to ask. So I jumped on the opportunity to learn how the schools operate from A to Z,” he said.

“I was surprised to learn what the special education services entail,” Schnurr said. “They (the board members) don’t really have a choice as to how they spend much of the budget funds. They have to follow so many regulations.”

He noted that the school district is highly regulated, much more so than the town’s governing body.

Schnurr said the district has a variety of after-school activities and programs for children to participate in during what he called the second half of the school day.

“I was really impressed by the level of commitment shown by all the administrative staff, the principals and the teachers,” Schnurr said. “It left me with a good feeling to know that the students of Freehold Borough are so well taken care of. The level of genuine concern and attention to detail was more than I expected.”

The graduates of the CitizensAcademy are Brian Sullivan, George Schnurr, Jackie Daesener, Autumn Nonnemacher, Kevin Tennant, Mike D’Antonio, Melissa Lawlor, Gene Dougherty, Ted Miller, Linda Lichardi, Yeni Cardenas, Jeanne Vigeant, Liz Clanc, Tammi Verni and Jillian Lazaro.

The instructors were Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth O’Connell, Business Administrator Veronica Wolf, Director of Curriculum Ronnie Dougherty, Freehold Intermediate School Principal Nelson Ribon and staff members Janet Morales, Pat Rizzo, Jermaine Moore and Tom Tramaglini.