by Davy James, Staff Writer
The Board of Education on Monday re-elected Martin Abschutz to serve as president and elected Matthew Speesler to serve as vice president.
Mr. Abschutz, who was sworn in for his third, three-year term on the board on Monday after winning re-election last week, was named president for the third straight year.
Dr. Speesler, who also was re-elected, replaces Robert Long as vice president. Mr. Long remains on the board. Dr. Speesler will be serving his fourth term on the board.
In addition, Arthur Robinson was sworn in for his first, three-year term. He was elected last week, replacing Naushad Islam, who had been appointed last year to an unexpired term.
”I’m extremely pleased to have the support of my fellow board members,” Dr. Speesler said. “It’s an honor to be selected to serve in a leadership role.”
Dr. Speesler said he’s looking forward to continuing his tenure with the board.
”I’m looking forward to working closely with Martin Abschutz, who I’ve known for some years now,” Dr. Speesler said. “There are a lot of challenges we’ll be faced with in the upcoming year and we need to do our best for the students of South Brunswick.”
Dr. Speesler said the main challenge the board will confront will be working with the town council to get the school budget in place, after voters defeated the proposed $135.9 million budget by a margin of 1,233 to 1,174.
”We need to work with the town council for a reasonable budget,” Dr. Speesler said. “The proposed budget was fair and realistic so we need to try and maintain much of what the budget contained.”
Dr. Speesler said that the board’s main goal would be making sure that South Brunswick’s students are not impacted negatively.
”I’m hoping the council sees that our budget was fair and they won’t force us to make to many cuts,” Dr. Speesler said. “The goal is to make sure there’s a minimal impact on the budget so that it doesn’t affect the students.”
Mr. Abschutz thanked the board at the meeting on Monday for having confidence in him to continue as board president for a third year.