Teen looks to do right by students, taxpayers
High school senior excited to join E.B. Board of Education
BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer

ERIC SUCAR staff Michael Hughes, 18, will be sworn in to a three-year term on the East Brunswick Board of Education at its May 3 meeting.

Michael Hughes will make history next week when he is sworn in as the first member of the East Brunswick Board of Education who is also a current student in the district.

The 18-year-old senior at East Brunswick High School won a three-year term in the April 17 school election after actively campaigning in the community and even among classmates.

"I was out every day with fliers, knocking on doors and asking people what they were concerned with. I felt I did have to prove myself, being so young," he said.

Hughes said he also knows that many of his classmates who were eligible to vote supported him, as did many of the teens' parents.

In many cases, Hughes said, people who told him they had not voted in a school election in years went out and voted for him.

"It was a great feeling," he said of the victory.

The Scouts who recently attained the rank of Eagle are (l-r) Brian Somers, Thomas Soden, Alfred Retundo, Ryan Rosati and Andrew Healey.

Hughes, elected along with incumbents Holly Howard and Scott Luxenberg, garnered the third-highest number of votes in the four-way race. His tally of 2,629 topped newcomer Steven Blaustein, 39, by 344 votes, with 18 percent of eligible voters casting ballots in the election.

"We had a great turnout," Hughes said. "We got a lot of the youth to turn out."

Hughes, who lives with his mother, Gail, on Danbury Lane, is excited to be sworn in May 3 as part of a board for which he has only praise.

"They work really, really efficiently," he said.

Hughes noted that "not everything is perfect," as there are issues to be addressed. For example, he has heard isolated concerns raised by other students, and by members of the public who attend board meetings.

"Of course people always come up with complaints," he said. "I wrote them all down."

The most common complaints he heard during his campaign regarded the funding of public schools, a statewide issue that is not specific to East Brunswick.

Hughes, who attended several board meetings before the election, said the first thing he will do as a board member is learn where and how his experience can be used.

"Everyone on the board has an area of expertise, and I need to learn what they know," he said.

Having been a student in the East Brunswick school system, Hughes, who graduates in June, feels that his area of expertise is his familiarity with the schools inside and out. He knows from experience about student services and instruction in the schools, and how the buildings are holding up.

"I know firsthand how everything works or if anything could be changed or improved," he said.

His first order of business as a board member, he said, is to get up to speed on things like the school construction projects, especially the opening of the new facilities at the Central and Lawrence Brook schools, and the work at Hammarskjold Middle School.

Hughes was pleased to see the 2007-08 school budget approved - in a 2,587 to 2,549 vote - in part because it supplies funding for needed improvements, such as athletic fields at the high school.

Though he supported the budget's 37-cent tax rate increase, Hughes said he does sympathize with those people who cannot afford the annual school tax hikes.

"I completely understand where they're coming from," he said. "I try to tell them what the budget is and what's involved. Much of it is mandated [by the state and federal governments]. The amount we have to play around with really isn't much.

"I want to work on the Board of Education to make sure our education is an affordable one. We shouldn't have to have people moving out of town."

The board must strike a balance, since it is important to offer a quality educational program, which he noted is the reason why many people moved to East Brunswick in the first place.

Asked whether it is at all awkward around teachers and administrators, given the fact that he will now be governing them, Hughes said that is not the case.

"They talked to me during the campaign, and they were all really, really supportive of me the whole time," he said. "They realized I was doing it for the right reasons."

Those reasons, he said, are to make the schools the best they can be in the most affordable manner possible.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jo Ann Magistro expressed pride in the fact that Hughes has taken such an initiative.

"We stress the importance of community service with our students and it is nice to see that Michael has taken this to heart," Magistro said. "It will be a challenge for him to balance his freshman year at college and the requirements of the board, but I am sure Michael will do his best to meet that challenge. I look forward to working with him."

Hughes, who will attend Rutgers University in the fall, majoring in political science, is part of a very small group of teenagers who are elected to the board. In fact, a national study from 2002 found that just one half of one percent of school board members in the United States at that time were under the age of 30.

"You see it occasionally, but it is still fairly rare for a young person to get involved in the school board," said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. "Each year we hear of a handful of teenagers running for school board, and every now and then they are elected. It's entirely up to the voters."