Toms River School Board Election 2023: Paola Pascarella

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Election Day 2023 is near, and Toms River voters will be choosing members of the Board of Education in addition to other candidates at the local, county and state levels.

There are three, three-year at-large terms on the Toms River Regional Board of Education and five candidates seeking the three seats.

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

Your Name: Paola Pascarella

Age (as of Election Day): 43

Campaign Website: No answer provided

Family: Married, husband Kim Pascarella, twin 8-year-old daughters, Josephine and Paulina, both attend third grade at North Dover Elementary

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? This includes any relatives who work in the government you're running for. My husband retired as a senior assistant prosecutor in Ocean County in 2019. Neither myself or anyone else in my family has worked for government other than my husband.

Education: I graduated from a 5-year secondary high school in Lima, Peru. All of my education since has been geared toward the field in which I work, veterinary medicine. I have completed many continuing education courses in this field. I also am an NJ state-certified animal control officer and NJ state-certified animal cruelty investigator.

Occupation: I am currently a veterinary tech at Northstar Animal Hospital, Robbinsville, NJ. I started there in about 2009, prior to that I worked at Red Bank Animal Hospital.

Previous or current elected or appointed office: This is my first attempt at elective office.

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am attempting to serve my community to bring a working mom's perspective to the board. I value education and want the best education for my daughters and every child that goes to the school system.

The Toms River Regional Schools are facing a financial crisis for the 2024-25 school year, with the potential for a more than $20 million cut in state aid. What do you think the school district should to do to address this issue?

The shortfall in the state aid is a real issue and is a very unfair system set up by the state of NJ. We are left to beg the state for our tax money paid by our residents to be returned to us, while our taxes paid to NJ get diverted to other parts of the state. If we can not convince the state to once again return our tax dollars we need to be creative in cutting expenses and raising revenue and try not to put the burden on the local property taxpayers. In the long run we need to try to change the formula used by NJ.

Parental notification has been a big issue across the state. What is your opinion on what schools should notify parents about? What programs would you like to see to get parents more engaged with their children’s schools and teachers?

Parents should be notified on every aspect of their child's education and well-being until the student reaches 18. The only exception I would make is if there is reason to believe the safety of the child would be in jeopardy.

What do you feel is the largest issue facing the Toms River Regional School District?

The biggest upcoming issue is our budget. Due to changing demographics many of our residents send their children to schools outside the district for various reasons. This causes our funding from the state to be reduced. It is not a fair system. Yes we do need to reduce our expenses and my first priority would be to do that without affecting current employees. But we must as a community convince NJ to have a fairer system that does not penalize districts like Toms River.