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AUTOMOBILES/TRUCKS

Cash Paid for Your Car. Looking to buy better than junk cars. Call 1-866-261-5277. We come to you.

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CRANBERRIES FOR SALE

Fresh cranberries sold at Edie’s Beauty Salon (524 Lakehurst Road). Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Call for availability. 609-744-5522.

FALL CLEANUPS

Fall cleanups, lawn cutting, and gutter cleaning. Shrub pruning and some tree work, along with hauling. Free estimates=reasonable rates. Call or Text Bob at 1-609-880-3789. FURNITURE REPAIR

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HAULING

ANYTHING, WE HAUL IT.

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Household appliances. Televisions, furniture, etc. for disposal or transport. Garage and yard cleanups along with lawn cutting and gutter cleaning. Free estimates. Call or Text Bob at 1-609-880-3789.

BOARD

(Continued from Page 4)

The “greatest challenge,” Phillips maintained, is “actually the state’s S-2 school funding bill passed in 2018.”

“This bill increased funding to many school districts across the state, and at the same time drastically cut school funding to others,” Phillips explained. “Southampton Township, unfortunately, was one of those school districts that were targeted and hit with a 7-year reduction. This budget cycle, we lost $750,000 in state funding, and by 2025, we will lose $1 million in school funding.”

That reduction, she added, coupled with the rising costs of fuel, healthcare, food, and the academic recovery following pandemic, “has made it challenging to maintain a fiscally responsible school budget but, not impossible.”

Phillips, also a retired elementary school teacher, along with her running mate, Hicks, who has served on the school board for the last ten years, spending six of those years as school board president, touted how the school board has been “very creative” and “very resourceful” as well as “worked very, very hard” to present a fiscally responsible school budget over the last couple of years.

The school board, she said, “prepared funding to purchase technology at no cost to the taxpayer,” worked with a local foundation to have it provide funding “for an amazing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, And Math) lab” and received “technology grants to purchase Chromebooks for every single student, and for smartboards in every single classroom, to eliminate the tremendous cost of textbooks.”

But Bodine said he and his running mate “question” just “how much of your tax dollars go toward these controversial topics,” such as gender identity and sexual preference or orientation.

“The reality is taxes go up every year,” he maintained. “And our kids are getting less than what we need from school. Some of our current school board members see us as extremists, instead of concerned parents.”

But, “Are we getting what we paid for?,” is a question that Applegate, a father of three and also a local attorney based in Vincentown, posed to the audience of mainly retirees in maintaining that the Southampton Township School District receives $12 million from property taxes annually, or what he says comes out to be about $12,000 per pupil.

Pre-pandemic, Applegate pointed out, only some 60 some percent of Southampton students tested proficient in English, while 65 percent tested proficient in Math.

“That is unacceptable to me!” declared Applegate, pointing out those figures are “the good numbers” or from 2019, taken before student learning was impacted by COVID.

Hicks, during the forum, had told potential voters that “Southampton is a high performing school district” and that he “wants to continue to build upon that performance.” Phillips said that “as a school board member and a teacher, I am committed to academic excellence, the health and wellness of students and staff, providing a safe and secure learning environment and creating a fiscally responsible school budget.”

“We say, ‘vote for me’ because we have a ‘commitment to academic excellence’ and so we can ‘preserve the high quality of education,’” Applegate asserted. “I hear that and say don’t piss on my boot and tell me it is raining. We are not there!”

Applegate maintained that the spring 2022 state assessment results had just been reported prior to the forum and that “every metric is lower” than in 2019, or pre-pandemic.

“We’re going backwards,” he declared. “I find it unacceptable and I am going to do something about it.”

While Phillips pointed out that the Southampton school board two years ago had entered into an agreement with the nearby Shamong and Woodland school districts for shared special-education programming, “which takes a huge chunk out of our budget and saved money,” and Hicks pointed out he voted for a controversial measure to privatize paraprofessionals working in Southampton Schools, which saved “$250,000 in health benefits,” Applegate maintained that he believed more can be done to work towards “cost efficiency.”

“We need to take a look at consolidation,” Applegate declared. “There is too much duplication of effort.”

In the wake of the school funding cuts, and potentially more on the way from the state, Applegate said the time is now for Southampton Schools to “lead the charge on consolidation,” pointing out there is new legislation offering incentives for consolidation.

“It is coming,” he warned. “We need a head at that table, to dictate terms. We need to be the consolidator, not the consolidated.”

In arguing that “shared services are not enough,” the local attorney pointed out that when was attending an elementary school in California, there was only “one administrator for the entire elementary school,” as compared to the number of administrators currently leading local schools.

And in pushing for a “Tabernacle, Shamong and Southampton consolidation,” Applegate pointed out three superintendent positions would be combined into one, “which would save $300,000 right there.”

Applegate added that he doesn’t subscribe to the argument that a larger school system will mean lower academic performance, pointing out that “Medford is larger than us” and “Moorestown is larger than us,” but yet the students attending those school districts “have better test scores.”

Meanwhile, Bodine maintained his position, along with Chadwick’s, is that “parents have rights” including that they “do not have to co-parent their children with the schools or government,” while Hicks said he believes “student performance, however, is a shared responsibility.”

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Hicks added. “Granted no board of education is perfect, but here in Southampton, we continue to strive for perfection. People move to Southampton because of our schools. Student achievement is multifaceted.”

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FOR SALE

Old model railroad magazines and Lionel trains for sale. Negotiable. 609-268-1514.

WWI Post Card Album. 100 postcards. $100 firm. Call 1-973-610-8619.

LAWYERS

Erwin Apell Attorney, Browns Mills. All legal matters - free hotline 24/7. Visa, Mastercard. Call 609-220-3059 or email Erwinapell@gmail.com . LOOKING FOR WORK

Looking for work – driving position. Fulltime. Retired. Computer illiterate, however. Clean driving record. Have driver’s license. Punctual. Any hours. Good reference sheet. Call or text 609-500-9221.

YARD SALE

INDOOR YARD SALE! BUDDTOWN UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 520 RIDGE ROAD, SOUTHAMPTON. NOVEMBER 11, 1 P.M. TO 6 P.M., AND NOVEMBER 12, 8 A.M. TO 1 P.M. Clothing, household goods, tools, etc. Homemade baked goods and soups. Eat-in or take home. 609-859-2956.