The Hillsborough Board of Education reorganized with familiar faces.
Jane M. Staats, Elaine Jackson, and Allison Laning-Beder were sworn into their new three-year terms at a reorganization meeting on Jan. 6.
Staats, who previously served on the board from 2019 through 2021 and from 2023 through 2024, begins another term; Jackson begins a second term; and Laning-Beder begins her second term.
Paul Marini and Cynthia Nurse were nominated and re-elected as president and vice president, respectively.
The board committee chairs will remain the same with Board member Joel Davis as chair of the Operations/Finance Committee; Nurse as chair of the Human Resources/Communications Committee; Jackson as chair of the Education/Technology Committee; and Marini as chair of the Governance Committee.
“Thank you again everybody, glad to see everyone’s back to have a consistent board, it’s a great thing to move the board forward,” Marini said.
Schools Superintendent Mike Volpe agreed.
“It is nice to have consistency to have the board back,” he said.
Volpe noted one of the big things that he has spoken about during his last two years as superintendent is lack of fair funding.
“We are the only district in Somerset County that has been hit by the effects of S-2 (the school funding law) for several years equaling millions of dollars,” he said.
The state held a local public hearing on school funding reform on Jan. 8 at the Somerset County Government Office, which Volpe encouraged the public to attend at the meeting and on social media.
In a message after the meeting, Volpe sent “a huge thank you” to the “massive presence” supporting the Hillsborough schools.
“Whether you spoke or simply showed your support, your presence made a statement: Hillsborough is active, aware and demanding change,” he said. “They can’t ignore us now.
“While we don’t know yet what the outcome will be, one this is certain: they know we’re united in this fight for fair funding.”
