Meet The Middletown School Board Candidates: Vincent Brand

MIDDLETOWN, NJ-- This is the sixth and final part of a six part series introducing the Middletown Board of Education School Board candidates, in their own words. The six candidates running are Leonora Caminiti, Donald "DJ" Hager, Frank Higgins, John Little Jr, Vincent Brand and Michael Donlon.

Meet Vincent "Vinnie" Brand

I'm running for re-election to the Board of Education in Middletown. I've been serving on the BOE for over 6 years and I'm very committed to continuing the work I've been part of during that time.

I have co-chaired the shared services committee that has rejuvenated the relationship between Township Committee and BOE. This has resulted in building beautiful new fields for our schools, improved purchasing power, opened up high school fields for community sports teams to rent and led initiatives on recycling and waste removal savings. In addition, we've helped build a strong, stable Central office, repaired and improved schools from new roofing to new curriculum, added sports like lacrosse, improved community relations and helped to hire the best teachers, coaches and staff in all of NJ. We've done this while trimming budget surpluses from over 8 million to 1 AND delivering budgets that are within 2 percent, many of them close to 1 percent increases. We've also built new pathways for high school students, improved our network capabilities and purchased new chrome books for our students. During my service the BOE has built a new website for improved community relations, repaired the High School North track and scheduled to repair South track, improved our theaters and our school security. We have also fought for improved transparency by finally getting our BOE to allow the public to be a part of our decision making in the form of the Committee of the whole. No more secret committees that are shielded from public scrutiny. These are your kids, your schools and your tax dollars and I believe strongly in the open meeting.

In the next few years we are facing many important issues. I have been at the forefront of fighting the JCP&L reliability project and advocated for our district to help fight this project. We've also taken on school security as we fight to protect our most valuable asset, our children. I want to continue to work for Middletown. I am very proud of the new environment surrounding our schools and I am asking for your support on election day.