MIDDLETOWN – College Freshman Thomas Ballard has hopes for an interesting extracurricular activity: He wants to serve on the township Board of Education.
Ballard is just 18 and a freshman at the College of New Jersey, in Ewing Township, and hopes to win a three-year seat on the board of the county’s largest school district, one of eight candidates vying for the three available seats this year.
The other eight candidates are: Andy Nicholes, James Cody, Joan Minnuies, Christopher Aveta, Mark Bouthillette, Leonora Caminiti and Danielle Walsh.
Ballard, one of a quadruplet of boys, has lived in the township all his life and graduated from Middletown High School North, 63 Tindall Road, in June.
“I just think education right now is in a very dynamic state where things are changing a lot,” Ballard said about his bid to win elected office at such a young age. “So I think it would benefit a large school district like Middletown to have a young person who’s been through the system.”
While 18 can be a tender young age, it is permitted under state law to run and hold the elected position. According to Michael Yaple, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, state statute has certain stipulations. It requires potential candidates to be a registered voter, requiring citizenship and to be at least 18; to have lived in the municipality for at least a year prior to appointment or winning the election; the candidate has to be able to read and write; and has not been convicted of certain serious first- or second degree criminal offenses.
“I do think just because I’m a college student, I’m still capable of getting the job done,” Ballard maintained.
School board members are typically well educated (43 percent of New Jersey board members attend graduate school or have graduate degrees) and are fairly evenly divided between the sexes with 51 percent of members’ women.
According to the New Jersey School Boards Association, 46 percent are between the ages of 41 to 51. It is unusual but not unheard of for 18-year-olds to hold this elected position, noted Jeanette Rundquist, a communications officer for the New Jersey School Boards Association. In 2013 an 18-year-old was elected to the board in Milburn, in Essex County, while still in high school. Michael Collins, in 2008 was elected to the Holmdel board when he was 18 and a freshman at New York University.
Ballard is a History and Secondary Education major who hopes to one day become a teacher in his own right. While in high school, he was co-editor of the school newspaper and had regularly attended board meetings, believing “They can be very interesting sometimes.”
While at North he had made up his mind to run for the board and had let some of his teachers at the time know about it “and they were very supportive” as are his parents and friends, he said.
Ballard also hopes others his age will follow his lead and get more involved. “It’s important for young people to be engaged in what’s going on not just in national politics but local politics,” he said. “Because all politics are local when you come down to it.”
In terms of the other end of the age spectrum, Rundquist said, while the school boards association doesn’t track its members’ ages, there have been those who’ve served on boards well into their 90s and members in their 70s and 80s are not uncommon.
