Board Honors D'Agostino Last Night

Former colleagues, officials, clergy members and other well-wishers attended the Belleville Board of Education tonight to honor Dr. Anthony D’Agostino, a longtime member of the board who also served as its president on four different occasions.

“You’re the best. A more deserving person there never was,” said former Mayor Angie Paserchia.

A brief ceremony was held to announce that district offices, located at 100 Passaic St., would be renamed in his honor. A portrait of D’Agostino was also unveiled, and will hang in district offices.  Current board member Patricia Pisano-Inaugurato organized the event.

D’Agostino, who worked in the Newark public school system as a teacher from 1957 to 1969 and was later named assistant executive superintendent, holds a master’s degree from Seton Hall University and a PhD from Rutgers, which he earned in 1980. He served on the Belleville Board of Education from 1979 to 1995, an exceptionally long tenure on the district’s  governing body.

Speakers recounted past school board battles, including a tumultuous period in the 1980s when the district decided to close two schools in the face of declining enrollment.  All of the speakers, however, praised D’Agistino for his leadership and guidance.

Speakers also spoke warmly of D’Agostino’s wife, Rose, who passed away last year. “You can’t talk about Anthony without talking about Rose,” said Richard Yanuzzi, who once served on the Board of Education with D’Agostino.

Councilman Steve Rovell said that he had an uncle who was generally disinterested in politics, but made sure to put up his D’Agostino lawn sign. Another councilman, Vincent Cozarelli, noted that he was in Belleville’s public schools system when D’Agostino was on the board.

“I thank you a million times for being here,” D’Agostino said to the audience, shortly before his portrait was unvelied.