Brick Board Of Education Candidate: John O'Rourke

BRICK, NJ — There are six candidates vying for two seats on the Brick Township Board of Education — seats being vacated by incumbents Karyn Cusanelli and George White.

We are profiling each of the six candidates. Responses are in their own words, with edits for grammar, spelling and punctuation.

John O'Rourke, 77, has lived in Brick Township since 1971. He and his wife, Marjorie, have seven children; two of his grandchildren attend Brick Township schools.

He has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Seton Hall University, received in 1961, and a master's degree in education from Seton Hall received in 1972. He was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army ROTC and worked at a brokerage house on Wall Street for several months before entering the Army. He had a 41-year teaching career as a mathematics teacher at my alma mater, St. Aloysius High School in Jersey City, and later taught at Marist High School, Bayonne, Jackson Memorial High School, and Woodcliff Academy (Special Education School) in Wall Township. He coached cross country and track and field at the college, prep school, and high school levels. He also has served on the hospital and respect life ministries at St. Dominic's Parish in Brick.

"My wife Marjorie and I were educated in Catholic grammar and high schools and were fortunate to be able to put our seven children through parochial schools. However, now with two young grandchildren in the Brick School system, the quality of their education is one of my primary concerns," he said.

What do you feel is the most important quality you would bring to the Board of Education?

The most important quality that I will bring to the BOE is the rewarding experiences that I found working with students in the classroom and interacting with them on the athletic field.

If you are elected to the Brick Township Board of Education, will you have any conflicts that will force you to abstain from voting? If so, what are they?

I have no conflicts that would force me to abstain from voting as a board member.

Property taxes are a huge concern, but there is also significant concern about the state of the facilities, which have been neglected or shortchanged for decades. How would you balance the need to address critical issues with the concern over property taxes?

The district has spent in excess of $20 million in the last 5 to 6 years upgrading facilities. Since most of the schools were constructed more than 50 years ago, the board and administration should not only have a plan that will prioritize the immediate and long-term needs of the district, but realize that approximately 80 percent of the budget has been previously determined by collective bargaining, signed contracts, and state mandates. Any increase in spending should be offset with a plan to eliminate waste and unnecessary spending on PARCC testing and the new state standards which begin with the class of 2021.

There has been much discussion about teacher salaries at recent board meetings. What do you propose to balance the need to manage costs while maintaining experience?

In order to hire or retain a teacher with a certification that is critical (physical science) and where the personnel pool is scarce, a superintendent may recommend that a qualified candidate be placed on a high step on the salary scale. Longevity should not be the only factor in determining experience. Our students, parents, and taxpayers expect BOE members to make prudent decisions in regard to finances while providing the staff with the best tools possible to educate our students to be productive citizens.

What in your view is the most important thing that can be done to improve student achievement, and how would you prefer to see that measured?

Just as a physical therapist takes measurements of “range of motion” before and after treatment, teachers can measure progress by pretesting before beginning a unit and comparing the results on teacher-made tests and encouraging students to read and express their thoughts in cognitive sentences. Multiple-choice and true-false tests should be avoided. For this reason, the results of state testing may be misleading since they do not measure the progress that the classroom teacher observes on a daily basis.

Patch graphic; photo provided by John O'Rourke