Barnegat High School Students Question BOE Candidates

Barnegat High School’s junior and senior classes filled the school’s auditorium Wednesday for the kind of civics lesson that only election season can bring: a meet-and-greet with Board of Education candidates.

The school typically holds debates just for the kids ahead of Board or Township Committee elections, said history teacher Lesley Thomson, who hosted the event.

“It’s a way to give them an education in how the system works,” said board President Lisa Becker.

This time around the debate was, by necessity, one-sided. Challenger candidates , and declined the invitation; incumbents and and interim board member , who is running to keep his appointed seat, were alone on the stage.

But the students, many of whom are of legal voting age, had plenty of questions anyway. Student council members had gathered the queries of their classmates ahead of time, and took turns reading them from neatly printed note cards.

“If the budget fails and you guys win, how will you balance the budget?” asked Sidney Hernandez, 18, which launched a quick primer in how the school budget is adopted: Board draws up the budget, board submits budget to voters; if it’s overturned, the Township Committee makes the decision on what to cut.

The incumbents made no bones about encouraging the students to vote – and get their parents to vote – in favor of their budget on election day. Communities are increasingly taking out their tax frustrations on local school budgets, said Becker, to the detriment of the students served by those schools.

“It’s the only budget that people can vote on,” she said. “When they get angry about taxes and the only budget they can vote on is the school budget, they tend to vote no.”

Becker and her running mates took pains to explain that the budget they’ve delivered to voters is frugal and has no increase from the previous school year – “Our budget is flat to the penny,” said Pilovsky. Still, they said, the Board doesn’t control residents’ tax rates.

When the topic turned from taxes to questions of what the candidates have done and plan to do for the district, Becker pointed to several improvements impacting students, including restoring funding to athletics and clubs and introducing new technology to all six district schools. “We’ve seen a lot of in-class changes because of things we’ve initiated,” she said.

Quiroz, 19 and a recent graduate of the high school, praised Pilovsky and Becker for the work they’ve done in the three years since they were first elected.

“For years, things that mattered to the students have been pushed aside and pushed under the rug,” he said, but that changed with the arrival of a new slate of Board members in 2008. “They started working on the issues that matter to you."

When a student asked a question about Quiroz’s age, a point of contention so far in the race, he addressed the issue in the most direct terms yet heard in the campaign.

“I’m absolutely offended by the opposing team’s comments” that his youth makes him a poor candidate, Quiroz said. “The honest truth is that my opponents do not think I can serve on a school board because I am 19-and-a-half years old.”

Rival candidate Rob Oden was quoted in a news report as saying that a 19-year-old shouldn’t be above teachers and the administration, he said.

“There is the problem,” said Quiroz. “No board member should be above the teachers and the administrators. We must work with the teachers, we must work with the administrators and…with the students of Barnegat.

“I’m passionate about this,” he said, to applause from the students. “You should be equally offended. On April 27, between the hours of 3 and 9 p.m., you can tell them they’re wrong by voting.”

Becker and Pilovsky reiterated their support for their running mate, saying it was important to have young adult representation within a body that existed to serve students.

When the Board interviewed fill-in candidates after Kevin Scully stepped down for health reasons, said Becker, Quiroz impressed them. 

“There was not one person who didn’t turn and say that’s representation we don’t’ have,” she said. “You need student representation. We believe that. Who else has been through your school?”

The candidates’ parting words for students included encouragement to speak up to the Board with their concerns, to get involved and to vote if they could and advocate for themselves if they couldn’t.

“The fact is,” said Quiroz, “people don’t expect young adults to understand the issues, and if they do understand they don’t expect them to care. And if they do care they don’t expect them to act. I care and I choose to act,” he said.

As the rest of their classmates filed out of the auditorium, the student council members who grilled the candidates – all of whom are 18 and plan to vote – said they enjoyed the face-to-face meeting.

“I got something out of it,” said Hernandez. “They beat around the bush a little bit, but for the most part, the questions were very well-answered.”

“This is a good way to get a better understanding of what they can do for us,” said Lauren Benzinger.

Another student, 15-year-old Michael Ford, said he was impressed with the candidates’ ability to capture the attention of an auditorium full of high schoolers and get them interested in the voting process.

“Most of my friends don’t have an understanding of politics,” he said. “It’s important to learn more about how it affects them.”

Editor's note: Like many news outlets, Patch is not enabling commenting on election-related stories in the leadup to voting day to avoid anonymous last-minute attacks. But that doesn't mean we don't want to hear from you. If you've got questions you'd like to put to the candidates, a comment about the election or a tip about the campaign, e-mail graelyn.brashear@patch.com, and please include your name and a phone number where we can reach you.