{"id":17564,"date":"2021-01-08T03:30:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T08:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=17564"},"modified":"2021-01-08T03:30:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T08:30:55","slug":"brick-school-board-swears-in-two-new-members-reorganizes-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2021\/01\/brick-school-board-swears-in-two-new-members-reorganizes-for-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick School Board Swears in Two New Members, Reorganizes for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Blandina and Melissa Parker. (Screenshot)<\/p><\/div>\n

After a strong voter turnout and an election that was won by a razor-thin margin, Brick Township\u2019s Board of Education swore in two new members for fresh, three-year terms.<\/p>\n

Melissa Parker received the most votes in November\u2019s school board election, attracting 13,543 supporters. Michael Blandina initially was reported to have come in third by just a few votes, and sought a recount. Superior Court Judge Craig Wellerson ordered the recount in late November, which ultimately resulted in Blandina\u2019s win against incumbent Jessica Clayton. Blandina received 12,977 votes compared to Clayton\u2019s 12,963.<\/p>\n

Both of the new board members, neither of whom were incumbents or previously served on the board, were sworn in at a meeting held Thursday night. The swearing-in took place in person at the district\u2019s central office, but most watched a live stream of the meeting via YouTube.<\/p>\n

Parker said she became politically active after the state cut millions of dollars in school funding from Brick Township. The cuts, which are the subject of ongoing litigation, slash about $21 million over seven years from the district. The same legislation that spurred the cuts, a result of a deal between Gov. Phil Murphy and Senate President Steve Sweeney, also mandate maximum tax increases to the state\u2019s 2 percent cap every year. Even with the tax increases, however, the funding will not reach its pre-legislation levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s surreal to think that on this day last year I was at a rally in Toms River representing the children of Brick,\u201d said Parker. \u201cMy mom once told me that no one will ever advocate for your kids the way you do. Everything I do is for my kids, and I hope I make them as proud as they make me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blandina, who has previously served as a Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority commissioner and Democratic party chair, pledged to work hard for taxpayers and parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself a Brick Township boy,\u201d he said. \u201cI grew up in this town, went through this school system, saw it grow, and saw what didn\u2019t grow over that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m willing and ready to go to work with this team up here and central administration,\u201d he continued. \u201cMy mother told me, \u2018do it right or don\u2019t do it at all.\u2019 That\u2019s how I live my life and that\u2019s what I intend to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a strong voter turnout and an election that was won by a razor-thin margin, Brick Township\u2019s Board of Education swore in two new members for fresh, three-year terms. Melissa Parker received the most votes in November\u2019s school board election, attracting 13,543 supporters. Michael Blandina initially was reported to have come in third by just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,24,3020,4255,4254],"class_list":["post-17564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-jessica-clayton","tag-melissa-parker","tag-michael-blandina"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/pjimage.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-4zi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}