5 To Run For BOE - Interviews

MULLICA TOWNSHIP — Five candidates will compete for three seats on the Mullica Township Board of Education, after the incumbents whose seats are up declined to run for re-election.

Most said they were motivated to run, to some degree, by the events of the past year that created feelings of mistrust of the board and administration.

 

Photo provided by candidate

Incumbents Lori Kelley, Melinda Matos and Terence Watson did not register to run again. All three were in the 8-1 majority that voted to certify the tenure charges against Mascio.

Harring-Marro recently announced she is leaving the district for a principal’s job at the Atco Elementary School in Waterford Township, Camden County.

Hiring of a temporary superintendent and other issues are expected to be discussed at today’s special Board of Education meeting at 6 p.m. in the schools’ library.

Below are brief interviews with the five candidates who filed petitions with the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office to run by the cutoff date of July 28.

Renee A. Goolden, 44, is a home health care nurse who has lived in the district for 13 years. She is a licensed practical nurse studying to become a registered nurse, and has been active in the Parent Teacher Association in Mullica since her children started school, she said.

“If you keep your mouth shut, nothing is going to change,” Goolden said. If elected, her first priority would be giving students more of a voice.

“They have a student council, but don’t use them for anything,” she said. “Kids’ opinions matter.”

She said she is also unhappy with administrative changes recently made by Superintendent Brenda Harring-Marro, including laying off Elementary School Principal Jeaninne Middleton and making Middle School Principal Matthew J. Mazzoni principal of both schools.

Goolden and her husband, Geoffrey, have two seventh-grade twin daughters.

Erika Lower, 40, is a physical therapist and rehab director at Royal Suites in Galloway Township. She was born and raised in Mullica and has lived there almost her whole life, she said.

Lower and her husband, Dan, have two children in the Mullica system, a son going into fifth-grade and a daughter going into seventh.

“A lot of healing needs to happen,” she said of the district moving beyond the recent controversy. “I’m in a healing profession.”

Lower said her first priority will be to help find a qualified superintendent. She said she has been part of a search committee before, helping her church find a new pastor. She supports the board’s decision to hire an interim superintendent while conducting a search.

She also is interested in helping develop a STEM program for science, technology, engineering and math, but said she is willing to do whatever is needed.

“Board members are there to serve,” Lower said, “not to have our own agenda.”

Walter J. Lyons, 48, is a letter carrier in Hammonton who has four children ages 10-18, two of whom are still in Mullica schools. He and his wife, Lisa, have lived in Mullica since 1995, he said. He declined to be photographed or to supply a photo.

Lyons served on the school board before from 2010 to 2013, and said his priority if elected would be to help the board communicate better with the public, and be more open in discussing issues in public meetings. He said he was a lone voice calling for more openness during his last time on the board, but three new board members will help make the changes needed.

“The board shouldn’t do everything behind closed doors,” he said. “It should have discussions here in public so people would see how things are decided.”

Lyons said he would like the board to hire former Elementary School Principal Jeaninne Middleton as superintendent, since she has the credentials and has been a superintendent previously.

Sue Muessig, 64, is a retired educator who worked for 28 years in the Newark Public Schools and then was an educational consultant with the Children’s Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia.

She grew up in Vineland, and she and her husband, Roger, raised their children in northern New Jersey. She has lived in the Sweetwater section of Mullica Township for 11 years.

“I made the decision (to run) well before all the controversy,” she said. “I felt I have a lot to offer.”

Her first priority, if elected, would be to help the board become an effective team, she said, working together for the best interests of the community, especially the children. She would focus on making sure sufficient funds go into classroom instruction, teacher training and curriculum development.

Nick Roehnert, 31, works for Thomas Heist Insurance in Ocean City. He and his wife, Athena, don’t have children yet, but he said they are planning to start a family.

“I’d like to make the school better for them when they get there,” said Roehnert, who grew up moving around a lot because his parents were in the U.S. Air Force, he said.

He has degrees in education and English from Richard Stockton College, and worked for a time as a substitute teacher in the Mullica School District.

“I didn’t like seeing what was going on with the whole situation between the board, the administration and the teachers,” he said of the fallout of the Mascio case. “I want to try and mend that tear. I’d like to be involved with the process of finding a new superintendent whose goals match the community’s a little more.

IF YOU GO:

The Mullica Township Board of Education has scheduled two special meetings to discuss personnel matters and other issues. They are at 6 p.m. Aug. 14 and 6 p.m. Aug. 19, both in the library of the Mullica Township Schools at 500 Elwood Road in the Elwood section of the township.

Contact Michelle Brunetti Post:

609-272-7219

MPost@pressofac.com

@MichelleBPost on Twitter
Entire article at
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/education/five-candidates-pursue-three-seats-on-mullica-board-of-education/article_b2cb0f16-2335-11e4-b462-001a4bcf887a.html 

 

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