Let residents decide new board member

With the resignation of Katie Goon as Marlboro's representative on the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education, one vacancy exists on the nine-member panel.

The board oversees the operation of the FRHSD, which is made up of eight sending municipalities, enrolls almost 12,000 students and operates six high schools in western Monmouth County.

Goon resigned from the board on Jan. 12 after serving less than one year of the threeyear term to which she was elected in April 2007. Goon defeated the incumbent Marlboro representative Bonnie Sue Rosenwald, to gain a seat on the board.

The new board member quickly found herself part of a governing body that was caught up in a scandal involving the awarding of pay raises and academic titles to administrators and teachers who had obtained advanced degrees from an online university that was later discredited.

According to comments Goon made on the night she resigned from the board, she also found herself caught up in an organization where politics and personal agendas take precedence over the best interests of students. She said that given those circumstances, she could not pursue the goals for the district that she had expressed as her priorities during her campaign.

Goon's public allegations are troubling, but they are nothing that has not been stated privately for years by some board members, faculty members and administrators in the FRHSD.

Now, however, the allegations are in the public domain. Where they go from here is anyone's guess.

The question arises as to who the board will appoint now to fill Goon's seat. The answer should be no one.

The board could appoint someone to serve until April, when the final two years of Goon's term will be on the ballot and any eligible Marlboro resident can run for the seat.

We believe the Marlboro seat on the FRHSD board should remain open until the April school election so that no individual has the ability to run as an "incumbent" after only serving as a board member for a few weeks.

The pursuit of the final two years of Goon's term should be contested on equal terms by all interested candidates on Election Day.