The BRICK Times Vol. 21 - No. 35
In This Week’s Edition
MICROMEDIA PUBLICATIONS
JERSEYSHOREONLINE.COM
Brick Man Left His Stamp On History
BREAKING NEWS @
jerseyshoreonline.com
Community News Pages 8-11
─Photos courtesy Gene Donatiello (Top) The mallard on the bottom right is Gant’s art. (Bottom) Percy and Melina Gant.
Dr. Izzy’s Sound News Page 14
Inside The Law Page 17
Classifieds Page 18
By Judy Smestad-Nunn BRICK - Little is k now n or recorded about one-time Brick
resident and World War I veteran Percy Gant (1894 -1963) who lived on Drum Point Road in what was then called
the Osbornville section of Brick. By all accounts, he supported himself and his family while working off the land as a commercial fisherman, clammer, fur trapper and hunter of snapping turtles, which he sold
in Philadelphia for fifty cents a pound. He also worked for Birdsall Brothers Builder as a carpenter, and worked as a cranberry farmer, when he owned and operated a five-acre cranberry bog in the (Stamp - See Page 4)
Changes Cause Argument Among County Leaders
By Bob Vosseller O C E A N C OU N TY – A new year, a n e w c o m m i s sio n e r and some new commit tee assig n ments were all part of the a n nu al reorga n i zation meeting of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners but not everything went
smoothly. With Commissioner Gerry P. Little retiring f rom the board last year, a vacancy opened up and Barbara Jo Crea won election in November to replace h i m on the all-Republican board. She was sworn in by longtime friend and
colleague 9 th District Assemblyman Brian Rumpf. Her term will expire in 2024. Commissioner Gary Quinn was also sworn in for his second term on the board. He was surrounded by family members as for mer 16 th District Assemblyman Jack M. Ciat-
tarelli administered t he oat h of of f ic e. Quinn served as director of the Board of Commissioners last yea r. Q u i n n’s ter m also ends at the end of 2024. Ciat tarelli lost a very close race for governor in November to incumbent Governor Phil Mur-
phy. He gained more vot e s t h a n ex p e c ted in Ocean County and other areas of the state. T he new di rector of commissioners is Jack P. Kelly who was unable to attend the session due to illness. His cur rent ter m of (County - See Page 5)
January 15, 2022
Student Mental Health Impacted By Pandemic
By Judy Smestad-Nunn BRICK - State and national trends are showing that student mental health issues are on the rise since the public health crisis has affected their social and emotional well-being. “Discipline has increased steadily due to lack of consistent, in-person socialization as a result of the pandemic,” said superintendent Dr. Thomas Farrell during a recent Board of Education meeting. “Many issues that have traditionally been in earlier years have now migrated up to later years.” That’s true, said Director of Planning, Research and Evaluation Susan McNamara in a recent phone interview. If a child was in sixth grade in March 2020, most of their seventh grade year was in a hybrid format before coming back to school full-time for eighth grade, so they missed the socialization piece for a whole year, she said. (During the 2020-2021 school year, during the hybrid mode, half the students came in one day and half the students came in the next day). “That’s also true of a fifth-grader or a fourth-grader - they all had a year where their educational journey was dysfunctional, to some extent,” she said. “We tried to keep a hybrid model going here, where they were coming in two days a week, in person - we felt that contact with their teachers was really, really important.” Students did not return to a full classroom again until September of 2021. “That’s a big difference for kids - just acclimating themselves back to a regular school day, acclimating themselves back to the regular rigor of a classroom and the socialization with the different personalities in the classroom,” McNamara said. “It would be expected, all of us, coming out of the pandemic - we had shifted our work schedules, and then were shifted back into full-time,” she said. “I think everybody had an adjustment period, including our kids, and with that comes the need to re-establish routines, re-establish norms for functioning in a (Mental - See Page 4)
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