Residents in Freehold Borough, Freehold Township and Manalapan elected members of their local school boards in the 2022 general election.
As of Nov. 15, the election results posted online by the Monmouth County Clerk’s Office were unofficial. The results will remain unofficial until they have been certified.
Freehold Borough – Incumbent board members Brent Costleigh and Kimberly Wright ran unopposed for three-year terms on the Freehold Borough K-8 School District Board of Education.
As of Nov. 15, Wright had received 1,311 votes and Costleigh had received 1,002 votes to retain their seats on the board.
No resident filed a nominating petition to run for a third available three-year term that was on the Nov. 8 ballot. The election results showed 263 write-in votes were cast and the winner of that term could be decided by the write-in votes.
Freehold Township – Incumbent board member Elena O’Sullivan and newcomers Renata Brand and Jeffrey Williams were elected to three-year terms on the Freehold Township K-8 School District Board of Education.
According to the Monmouth County Clerk’s Office, as of Nov. 15, Williams had received 5,548 votes, Brand had received 5,212 votes and O’Sullivan had received 5,170 votes to win election.
The other candidates in the race, incumbent board members Jennifer Patten (3,397 votes), incumbent board member Michael Matthews (3,339 votes) and Faith Edwards (2,326 votes) fell short in their bids to win election.
Manalapan – Four residents of Manalapan sought three three-year terms on the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education in the 2022 general election.
As of Nov. 15, incumbent board members Christine Parisi, with 7,788 votes, and David Kane, with 7,556 votes, had been elected to new three-year terms, according to results posted online by the Monmouth County Clerk’s Office.
A close race for the third available term shaped up between incumbent board member Ryan Green, with 4,299 votes, and Stacey Einziger, with 4,268 votes. The results of the election will not become official until they are certified.
No resident filed a nominating petition to seek a one-year term on the board and no names appeared on the ballot for that position. The election results showed 701 write-in votes were cast in that race and the winner of that term could be decided by the write-in votes.
The Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education has eight representatives from Manalapan and one representative from Englishtown. The Englishtown seat was not on the ballot this year.
According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, “The school board has a dual role: To represent the concerns of the citizens, taxpayers and parents to the school administrators, and to represent the needs of the students and school district to the citizens, taxpayers and parents of the community.
“The school board does not operate the district on a day-to-day basis; that is the job of the superintendent, who is the district’s chief executive. Rather, the school board sets the policies, goals and objectives for the district – and it holds the superintendent responsible for implementing the policies and achieving the goals,” according to the NJSBA.
School board members serve as volunteers without compensation.