School Board President Will Serve Second Year

Candace Braun

In the first School Board meeting since voters approved the Princeton Regional Schools' $67 million budget and $1.9 million second ballot question, Anne Burns was chosen by fellow Board members to serve a second year as president.

Michael Mostoller, who was recently re-elected to a second three-year term on the Board, was chosen as the new vice president, after Charlotte Bialek declined to continue with the post.

A 14-year Township resident, Ms. Burns served as vice president for two years before she was elected president. Along with her duties as president, Ms. Burns will also serve as the Board's liaison to PTO Council, and the Borough liaison.

A member of the Board since 2000, Ms. Burns is the mother of five children, and has two sons who attend John Witherspoon Middle School.

Ms. Bialek, who served as Board president from 2000 to 2004, will be this year's program committee chair, and the liaison to Princeton High School's PTO. She has two children, both of whom have attended Princeton schools.

"I think we all owe Charlotte a debt of gratitude for the work she has done," said Board member Alan Hegedus, noting that Ms. Bialek served in a leadership position during a difficult transition between a number of superintendents, as well as during the year voters were asked to approve the $82.3 million in construction on the district's five schools.

"You helped us bridge that gap and move out of the wasteland," he added.

Along with serving as the new vice president, Mr. Mostoller, a Borough resident, will once again serve as chair of the Board's facilities committee, and as a member of the personnel and program committees.

Mr. Mostoller is a professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and has a private architectural practice in Princeton. Two of his sons have gone through the Princeton schools, and a third son is currently a sophomore at Princeton High School.

Among the other assignments made by the Board were Alan Hegedus as finance committee chair, Jeffrey Spear as personnel committee chair, and Walter Bliss, as liaison to the minority education committee.

The Board also set its meeting schedule for the 2005-2006 school year, with all meetings to be held at 8 p.m. in John Witherspoon's cafeteria. The meetings for 2005 are as follows: May 24, June 14, August 23, September 27, October 25, November 22, and December 20. Meetings in 2006 will be on January 24, February 28, March 28, and on April 25, which will be the Board's next reorganizational meeting. Next year's elections will be held on April 18.

In other news, the Board accepted a donation of $3,500 from Johnson Park's PTO to purchase and install additional playground equipment at the school.

In addition, Agnes Golding, who previously worked as a teacher at Riverside Elementary, was hired as the new director of student services, effective July 1.