Certified Election Results Show Victory for Elected School Board

The fifth time's the charm.

Proponents of an elected school board won out on Wednesday as certified election results of a municipal question asking whether the school board should be elected passed by 98 votes.

According to a report by NJ.com, 3,407 yes votes and 3,309 no votes were certified on Wednesday by county clerk Elaine Flynn.

Preliminary results following the election showed a narrow defeat of the question, which changed with the counting of provisional ballots.

The question of an elected school board has gone before voters five times in the last 20 years, Mayor James Cahill told New Brunswick Patch earlier this month. It failed the four previous times.

According to the NJ.com report, elected school board members will be slowly phased in as the terms of sitting appointed members expire. 

According to the school district website, the current board member terms expire as follows:

• Board vice president Patricia Sadowski - May 2013
• John Krenos - May 2013
• Benito Ortiz - May 2013
• Dale Caldwell - May 2014
• Emra Seawood - May 2014
• Franchesca Rodriguez - May 2015
• Board president Edward Spencer - May 2015

Two additional seats will also be added to the board to bring the total up to nine members, according to NJ.com.

Yolonda Baker, a New Brunswick mother, was the face of the most recent campaign to bring an elected board to New Brunswick.

An elected board will bring more accountability and more public attention to the district, she previously told New Brunswick Patch.

"When it's appointed, people are not paying attention," she said.

Cahill was quoted in the NJ.com report as stating that he would accept the change.

"I look forward to working with board members, school administrators, teachers, parents and residents in our continuing effort to make New Brunswick’s schools the best they can be," he said.