Brick Township School Board Election 2023: Alison Kennedy

BRICK, NJ — Election Day 2023 is near, and Brick Township voters will be choosing members for the Board of Education in addition to other candidates at the local, county and state levels.

There are two, three-year terms on the Brick Township Board of Education up for election, and four candidates for the two seats.

Patch sent a questionnaire to all of the candidates seeking their responses. Here are the replies from Alison Kennedy.

Your Name: Alison Kennedy

Age (as of Election Day): 47

Campaign Website: www.Facebook.com/KennedyforBrickBOE

Family: Husband, Dave; son, Jack, 15, sophomore at Brick Memorial HS STEM Academy; daughter, Charlotte, 14, 8th Grade at Veterans Memorial MS.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? This includes any relatives who work in the government you're running for. No

Education: Associate's degree in Business Administration

Occupation: Main office secretary at Brielle Elementary school since September 2022

Previous or current elected or appointed office: I currently sit on the Brick Board of Education, appointed in September 2022. Oath of Office October 2022

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am looking to continue working with the current board of education and being a voice for the parents. Even before I was appointed to the board in September of 2022, I was a member of the District steering committee as a parent representative. Prior to that, I was the PTA President at Veterans Memorial Elementary School and as president participated in many district PTA meetings with a prior superintendent. I have attended BOE meetings regularly for the past 10 years. As a parent of two children in the district, I am passionate about making the best educational experience for our children. With politics trying to make its way into our schools, I would like to continue to advocate for the parents and do my best to keep those politics away from our schools.

What do you see as the role of the Board of Education?

As explained on the NJ School Board Association website, “Board members are responsible for overseeing the district, not running the district. The superintendent and administrative team are responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the district. The board then evaluates the superintendent on how well they run the district.”

It is our responsibility as board members to advocate for the children and their parents, as well as protect the district from legal action through our policies. I am thrilled to be a member of the Brick BOE that signed our superintendent to a 5-year contract. The stability this offers our district is essential. With Dr. Farrell’s leadership, working together with the BOE, his administration, our incredible educators and our community, we will continue to create positive experiences for the children of Brick to thrive.

State funding has been cut consistently for the Brick Township Schools over the last 7 years. How would you address that?

This is something that I have been passionate about from the beginning. In 2017/2018 when the S2 bill came into effect, we rallied in Trenton, we made phone calls to Trenton, email campaigns… you name it, we tried it. I think that our district has done a fantastic job doing more with less. We are fortunate that Brick was awarded the preschool grants from the state so that we were able to save many jobs by reassigning teachers with the proper certification to the preschool and therefore they were covered under the grant.

We need to continue to work hard to get our funding reinstated. We need to continue to fight for local control. No one knows what Brick Schools needs more than Brick Schools. What we need is most definitely different than another district may need. Trenton should not be deciding what’s best for our children … Brick should.

I will continue to educate myself on funding and laws for the district. I’ve attended some wonderful school board trainings and I look forward to attending the NJ School Boards Conference the last week of October and immersing myself in learning from the experts in their field. I also plan to network with other board members, especially those in districts also affected by the S2 bill to find what has been working for them.

What do you believe is the most important issue for students and families in the Brick Township Schools?

There are a few important issues that I feel impact our students and staff.

1. School security. Our buildings need upgrades to keep the physical buildings better secured. We need video monitoring at all entrances and better equipment to scan the identification of people entering our buildings. These were all a part of the Security Referendum a few years ago. The referendum did not pass by less than 40 votes.
2. Trenton is making decisions for ALL districts in NJ from their offices in Trenton, when truly, the people who know what Brick students and community need are in BRICK! I’d like to continue to fight with Trenton to bring local decision-making back home to Brick.
3. Our loss of funding has a huge impact on our teachers, our students and our families. Because of the S2 funding loss, our class sizes grew, some of our special interest classes were closed, busing for middle school sports was cancelled, and some co-curricular activities were lost. We as a community need to demand that the formula used for S2 be thrown in the trash and a FAIR funding formula be developed where ALL students benefit. Brick is due millions that was unfairly taken from us!

I look forward to continuing to work to remedy each of these issues impacting our families.