The Kearny Board of Education is a hot topic on KearnyOnTheWeb's Discussion Board. In the run up to the filing of petitions for the April School Board Election, supporters of various factions posted to the topic entitled simply "BOE" in the Kearny section of our Discussion Board.

The topic started out innocently enough with the question "Does anyone have any idea who is going to be running for BOE?" but has since generated over 3400 visits and 7 pages of posts. KOTW has been busy monitoring and on occasion editing some of the posts.

Challengers George King, John Munro and Bob O'Malley are running against incumbents Bernadette McDonald, Joe Sgalia and Alan Doffant. The Kearny School Board of Education election will be held on April 20, 2010 between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. The election traditionally has low voter turnout.

A couple of issues have been discussed on our Discussion Board including the proposal to create a Middle School in Kearny.



Apparently the plan calls for moving children from different schools in town into a centralized middle school. Some parents are upset that the quality of their child's education will suffer if the plan is implemented. Other issues include the favoring of one private soccer group over another in the use of Board of Education fields. The hiring of board member family members and friends to various positions in the Kearny school system. The salary of various administrators.

The following post provides a sample of the quality of the Discussion on the thread:

What the heck is going on with Kearny Schools? Personally, me and my family will be voting for any new blood onto the BOE. GK is perfect for the Board, if it is true he is running we could surely use his integrity on the BOE. I wish I could decipher who the others are, but new is good, out with the old.

There needs to be a TOTAL reorganization of our school hierarchy, starting with the KHS Administration. At first I thought it was good Digesere was coming back, but it is quickly turning into a disaster. The reigns have to be pulled in and the unnecessary spending must stop. At one meeting BOE member LS stated she did not care about the legal fees, and the Board proceeded in a wreckless manner about an issue that could have been resolved much cheaper.

As asked previously, why are there so many VP's in the High School? Having an A.D. at a Vice Principal's pay is just utterly ridiculous. Not to metion the A.D. has TWO secretaries. It's not like Kearny has such a high profile athletic program, things have been really down for years. You would think that with 2 Gym Teachers in the KHS Administration the Athletic teams would be more successful. They have gotten WORSE. Under previous Administrators like Mr Deserafino, Mr Gillespie, Mr Valanzola and most especially Mr Aulisi Sports at KHS were truly GREAT. Man, do we miss Mr Borgess in the BOE. Dr Onembo was awesome too. These guys oversaw successful athletic teams, without seeking false adulation and constantly spinning how great Kearny currently is sports-wise. Sports that used to be staples of success are now just also-ran programs or worse. The Basketball team, boys I am referring to, is a joke. The constant drama surrounding baseball is comical. Football, well, nothing needs to be said here on how bad that has gotten, and Kearny hasn't seen a good team in 60 years.

Today, these "guys" are only concerned with collecting huge paychecks on the taxpayer's dime and playing politics. There is not one stand up administrator looking out for the best interests of the students. Just a bunch of kiss-ass politicians getting paid six digits for jobs that can be done 10 times better at half the cost.

What is with this PR, V.P. of Discipline? When was this initiated? Mr Kirk did a far better job, and did it for far LESS money. How did a Music Teacher rise to this level? One shutters to think. But this is truly a waste of taxpayer money. getting paid $150,000 to take attendence? to hand out detentions? And what is becoming of these kids. Kearny has the highest suspension rate in the entire State, 3 TIMES ABOVE THE STATE AVERAGE! (See city data... http://www.city-data.com/school/kearny-high-school-nj.html) Kearny always brags about "keeping the bad element out". This is a joke. It is just a racist comment. First of all, just look at what is coming off the buses and you can see that any residency checks are just futile. There are a lot of good kids in Kearny, and some kids that do wrong things. What we do is throw kids out of school instead of working hard and rehabilitaing them. It is easy to throw them to the curb. Much harder to do some work for all that pay and mold kids, get them into colleges instead of copping out and getting them into penitentiaries.

Has there ever been accountability for all the money lost out on from the federal funds to noise-proof the school? Why has there been construction scafolding up around the school for 10 years? The Field turf field in the stadium is already shot from over-use, and Cali won't be paying for another field this time, so god knows when that will be replaced, god-forbid we spend on the kids instead of principals having second and third vacation homes.

Current BOE Members. MOST OF THEM, like PC, JC, DS, BM in particular, are ONLY on the Board for SELF INTEREST. period. They do NO good on the Board. WE NEED CHANGE! So if GK, a good guy, and others run with NEW ideas and agendas, I implore you Kearny, get out and vote, and vote these people on, WE NEED TO CHANGE THIS UP.

KOTW welcomes all candidates to participate in an open discussion on our Discussion Board. Candidates can also submit their platforms and background information for publication. KOTW looks forward to a healthy debate on the issues effecting Kearny's Board of Education. The last date to register to vote for the Kearny School Board Election is March 30, 2010. Any previously registered voter can vote in the School Board Election even if they have not participated in prior school board elections.