Washington Twp. school board candidates

Among the candidates for the Washington Township Board of Education are an incumbent with nearly two dozen years' experience, a schools superintendent, and a trucking company executive who promoted a 245-pound contestant in last year's Wing Bowl in Philadelphia.

Six candidates are running for three seats on the nine-member board, which for the first time in more than a decade is planning layoffs of teachers and other staff.

Washington Township is one of 28 Gloucester County districts, and about 550 statewide, that will elect board members and decide budgets Tuesday. The township's polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. in the high school, 529 Hurffville-Cross Keys Rd. Elsewhere, hours vary but extend at least from 5 to 9 p.m.

Board President Eileen Abbott, a member for 23 years, is seeking reelection and pushing for passage of the district's $137.5 million budget. The mother of a special-needs child, she got involved with the board to try to improve special education in the district. Now, she said, she wants to make sure the 8,700-student district continues to offer "a thorough and efficient" education despite budget cuts and 29 layoffs.

Incumbent Charles M. Earling Jr., a former teacher, assistant principal, and athletic director at the high school, attributes the layoffs to declining enrollment and difficult economic times. He said the budget was "as lean as we can get without affecting programs." Earling is Monroe Township's superintendent of schools.

Spicing up the contest are two political neophytes: Bob Kells, a retired 3M sales representative who advocates more layoffs and lower taxes, and Lee Robledo, who last year promoted Julio "El Zorro" Davila in the WIP-AM (610) annual eating orgy.

Robledo, a vice president of safety and loss control at National Freight Industries in Vineland, N.J., marched in the Wing Bowl parade with Davila, an employee.

Robledo said his business experience would be an asset to the board, which he called "a business with a big budget."

The father of two children in the district and a member of the town's sports advisory committee, Robledo said he supported the budget. "We should do whatever we can to get it passed," he said.

Kells said the budget could be trimmed.

"If private industry is taking a hit, government should, too. Enrollment is down, and there have to be some dramatic cuts," he said.

Paul Marino, a reinsurance broker who ran unsuccessfully for freeholder in 2007, agreed that there was "a little more room to cut."

He also wants more parent and teacher involvement.

Chet Nawoyski, who was appointed to a one-year unexpired term in 2006 and ran unsuccessfully for a seat last year, said he wanted to make sure "our money is spent efficiently and applied to the classrooms to benefit the children the most." Nawoyski is a national marketing manager for Acosta Sales and has two children in the district.