By PATRICIA MCDANIEL
The Improve Learning Now! slate edged out the Support Asbury’s Children team in Tuesday’s Board of Education election, according to unofficial vote totals.
But with an admittedly contentious race now behind them, representatives of both teams said the school board must come together for the benefit of students when the winners are seated in January.
Six candidates among the two teams ran a hard-fought campaign for three, three-year terms.
The Improve Learning Now! team ran incumbent Jessie Ricks, former board member Dominic Latorraca and newcomer Stephanie Ackerman.
The Support Asbury’s Children team saw newer challengers: Shadab Maghsood, who was just appointed to the school board in January, and newcomers Danielle Brascomb and Mariella Soria-Flores.
Here are the unofficial election results provided by the Monmouth County Clerk of Elections, on its MonmouthCountyVotes website. The figures are current as of Tuesday night:
Stephanie Ackerman (Improve Learning Now!): 2,368
Dominic Latorraca (Improve Learning Now!): 2,203
Jessie Ricks (Improve Learning Now!): 2,268
Shadab Maghsood (Support Asbury’s Children): 1,759
Danielle Brascomb (Support Asbury’s Children): 1,864
Mariella Soria-Flores (Support Asbury’s Children): 1,811
Latorraca, who had served on the board from 2016 to 2022, thanked supporters: “We’re just grateful for the trust the Asbury community placed in us,” he said Tuesday night.
And he said his team wants to work together with “everyone” to achieve what his team’s campaign motto called for – improving learning. “That’s our critical issue,” he added.
Making strides in education was also the priority of the team that lost the election, said its spokesman, Board Vice President Giuseppe (Joe) Grillo.
He said the Support Asbury’s Children team made a respectable showing in the race, considering they were all new to the process.
“You have not heard the last from this team,” he said of Maghsood, Brascomb and Soria-Flores.
“It was a good, old fashioned win, but now the hard work starts,” Grillo said. “But we all need to come together for the kids. They are depending on us,” he added.
The nine-member board is currently down to eight members with the removal by the state of one board member, Anthony Remy, for his non-participation in certain required training. The board will consider applicants for the spot at an upcoming special meeting.
