By JACQUELINE DURETT
Correspondent
SOUTH AMBOY — It is a crowded race for seats on the South Amboy Board of Education (BOE) — voters will be able to select three of five candidates for three, three-year positions as well as one candidate for a one-year position.
Stanley Jankowski resigned in December of 2015, and the board approved Samantha Seaman as his replacement through the 2016 calendar year. Her position is the one that is up for a one-year unexpired term. However, Seaman is running for a three-year term, and incumbent Kevin Riley is running for that one-year term.
For the three-year terms, voters can choose three of the five candidates: Incumbents Seaman, Tyler Simko, Jessica Colacci and newcomers Ann Marie “Amy” McLaughlin and Raymond Perez.
Simko said he is running for re-election because of his dedication to the students.
“The educational system has been a source of tremendous opportunity for me, and my first term has been devoted to ensuring that our students get to enjoy the benefits of a small community without having their future options limited,” he said. “It would be an honor to continue this work during a second term.”
He said his comparatively young age also enables him to offer a different perspective than his opponents and fellow board members. He graduated just a year before his initial win put him on the board, so, he said, he is “familiar with the realities of being a modern student.”
He said he does not want the board getting lost in high-level policy discussions and losing sight of the students.
“I will never let this happen to South Amboy,” he said. “We must never forget that we all share the same goal for our school district: an engaging educational experience that serves as a foundation for our students’ future success.”
He said he looks forward to the arrival of the district’s new Superintendent Jorge Diaz, who begins Jan. 1.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for positive change, and I will use this to ensure that South Amboy schools remain on the right path for our students,” he said.
Simko, who has attended and taught at Princeton University, said his educational and professional background in relation to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education is an asset to the board.
“Being on both sides of the classroom and working professionally in these fields has given me a holistic understanding of these disciplines that can continue to be valuable in forming policy on the South Amboy BOE. These are the fastest-growing opportunities in the world, and my policies can help to prepare our students for careers in these dynamic and lucrative fields,” he said.
However, Simko said South Amboy faces similar challenges to other districts its size.
“Our primary challenge is providing an effective and enriching education for our students under tight budgetary constraints,” he said. “We face additional obstacles as a small district compared to many of our peer institutions, as we must ensure that every dollar is spent wisely.”
He said he spent much of his first term addressing how to be “educationally innovative on a tight budget.”
“Our district hired an incredibly dedicated and knowledgeable business administrator during my first term, and if re-elected I will continue to work with him to overcome these challenges,” he said.
He also said the board must look beyond what he called “singular, inflexible measures of educational success.”
“It is imperative to resist the temptation to allow these measures to become the focus of our educational system,” he said. “Standardized test scores are one mandated type of measure, but we should continue to strive to be a district focused on various definitions of educational success and not focus solely on improving one measure. Instead, we must never lose sight of the greater goal, and [we must] allow these scores to serve as useful landmarks along the way.”
Simko said he has taken part in training programs and discussions around educational spending with other school districts and institutions such as NASA.
“Educational resources are changing, and as a small district we need to be ahead of the curve in leveraging them,” he said.
Newcomer McLaughlin said she joined the race because she has three children in the district and wants to see more opportunities for district students, especially those in the upper grades.
“I want the students to end high school with confidence that they are college-ready, and I want the parents to see that our small district can provide the same types of opportunities that a bigger district can. We just need to find the ways and think outside the box to bring in new ideas and get the students more involved in school activities,” she said.
She said South Amboy’s small size works for and against it as a school district.
“We are small enough that we should be able to provide individual attention to each student and make sure that no one ever gets ‘lost’ in the system. Parents should feel that their child is getting the best possible education and attention that a small district can provide,” she said.
However, she said, South Amboy also has fewer activities and opportunities for students.
She said she wants parents to become more involved with the schools; increased communication among parents, teachers and the administration; and for the board to find new ways to improve learning.
“We need the teachers to be listened to and heard when it comes to new ideas, ideas that work and ideas that do not work,” she said, adding that it is important that teachers feel heard and have their needs met “so that when my children are in their classroom, they feel the positive energy of a teacher who loves teaching.”
McLaughlin said she also wants to work on smaller issues that can be frustrating for parents, such as the drop-off and pick-up at the elementary school.
“This has been a problem since my oldest was in pre-K, and with the new residential developments proposed in town, this is only going to get worse,” she said.
She acknowledges that if she is elected, she will face a learning curve.
“But I plan to learn quickly and bring fresh new ideas to help our children succeed and be happy while learning,” she said.
McLaughlin is running with Perez, who has two children in the school system.
“My primary focus in running for the BOE is the children of our district,” Perez said. “I feel that our children should be the primary focus of all board decisions. I want to help build the district’s progress through continuous improvement.”
Perez, a longtime school and youth athletic association volunteer and an active member of the Parent Teacher Organization, said he wants to strengthen communication between parents and the board.
“I have seen firsthand the challenges that our small district faces, and I am dedicated to finding ways to make improvements that will have a lasting impact,” he said, adding that he wants to find ways to get parents more involved and provide more support to teachers.
He also said he wants to create more diverse learning environments.
“Our district lacks child-centric learning environments,” he said. “We need to allow teachers more freedom to implement innovative ways to teach our children. That diversity would extend to after-school programs and clubs. Our children need more activities to get involved in. Children need more choices of activities that truly interest them and will keep them actively involved. The more involved the children are, the less likely they are to get involved in drugs, alcohol and violence.”
He, like McLaughlin, also pointed to secondary education options, such as trade programs.
“We have to understand that not all of our students are going to be able to go to a four-year college. It is important that we as a district provide other options for these students. We also need to implement programs that assist our children in learning necessary life skills after high school, such as finances, banking skills and work ethics,” he said.
Solving these problems will take better communication among students, teachers and parents, he said, adding he would like to get support from local businesses and career academies for post-secondary educational support.
Seaman declined to participate in the election preview, and incumbents Riley and Colacci could not be reached by press time.