Kids come first

My primary goal, along with my running mates Scott Bilker and Kelly Ford, if elected will be to insure that our children receive the quality education we all expected them to get. This is the reason why many of us have moved to Barnegat. It is a desirable town with an excellent school system. We want to keep it that way. We cannot and will not let the quality of education recede. Our educational standards must increase so our children will be competent when they leave our school system and enter college or the working world. We will insure that our schools provide guidance and direction to our children to help them with their venture into higher education.

We, along with hundreds of parents, have concerns about the safety of our children in our school system. The Safety Aide Greeters have recently been informed that they are going to lose their jobs at the end of this school year. These people are the first line of defense in the schools for our children. The cost savings in eliminating these positions is a matter of pennies compared to the budget as a whole. We need the greeters to be reinstated to their positions. To have the school security guard sit at the point of entry of the school will serve no purpose other than having an expensive "greeter" and really no security guard. The security guard should be free to roam the school and insure the security of our children. Remember, times are much different today than they were when we attended school. Years ago, security was not thought of and really was not necessary; however, recently due to changes in societal behavior, the safety and security of our children must be forethought.

We also have concerns about facility usage. It has come to our attention that youth athletic leagues, scouting organizations, senior citizen groups as well as other non-profit organizations that provide scholarships for graduating students from our school system are being charged some pretty steep fees to utilize the schools. For example, the Mirage players paid nothing to use Barnegat High School for their play two years ago, then they were charged a fee of $1,500 last year and this year they were told it will cost them an astronomical fee of $5,000! Now, what is going to happen to our scouting groups and youth athletic leagues? Will the fees charged by the Board of Education cause these organizations to dissolve? Will the registration fees charged by the youth organizations to offset facility use charges increase so much that parents cannot afford to register children? Will parents take their children to neighboring towns where registration fees may be more affordable? These are OUR schools and OUR youth athletic leagues. Scouting organizations and other non-profit organizations should be permitted to use school facilities without paying any fees as they have done in the past. We are already paying for these facilities with our taxes, why should we pay more?