To the Editor:
The parents, teachers, students, and taxpayers of Bayonne deserve a new school board sooner than later. And the sooner the better.
The voters of our city voted overwhelming a few weeks ago to elect our school trustees and end the injustice of an appointed school board. Any attempt to delay the right of the people to vote for new board members is tantamount to denying the vote to the citizens of Bayonne and ignoring the will of the people.
Our school system needs change and it needs it fast. Any public official seeking to postpone the school board election from April to November will be guilty of bringing politics into the classroom.
After all, in a November election prospective school board trustees would be forced to run on the same ballot of candidates seeking partisan political office as Democrats and Republicans, and labeled as such.
Bayonne deserves a separate nonpartisan election for school board in April where those seeking to serve can run independently on their own merits, as current New Jersey law calls for and allows.
All good Americans consider democracy and the right to vote to be precious and sacrosanct. You cannot and should not put a price on democracy. We would be sending the wrong message to our city’s school students and undermining their education.
Parents and taxpayers, too, deserve a greater voice in the operation of our school system now, at the earliest date possible, which is April. That is what the people voted for on November 4.
Besides, the terms of three appointed school board members expire in the month of May. It makes perfect and timely sense to replace them with the newly elected school trustees chosen by the people in an April election. This is stipulated in the law.
The people of Bayonne just won the right to vote for a new school board this November. Don’t let the politicians steal back that constitutional right from us by postponing and delaying our right to cast our ballots. We have a right to determine how our educational tax dollars are spent and budgeted.
Bayonne needs to vote in April. The people approved it. The law allows it. Our students deserve it, and our taxpayers demand it.
MICHAEL ALONSO
Founder and Chairman
Bayonne School Board Choice