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The following “Meet the Candidates” series continues to spotlight individual residents who seek a seat on the Asbury Park Board of Education.

There are three three-year terms and two one-year terms up for contest on the Nov. 5 ballot, making a majority of the seats on the nine member board available. A total of nine candidates are in the running for the five spots. Full-term candidates are Connie Sue Breech, Arva M. Council, incumbent Nicolle D. Harris, Corey Lowell, and incumbent Qzeena Taylor. One-year unexpired term candidates are write-in hopefuls Calvin Anderson [shown above] and Carol Jones, and incumbents Kenneth Saunders, Jr. and Felicia Simmons.

Today’s report features write-in candidate Calvin Anderson. Anderson is running on the “Team Vitamin C” ticket with Connie Sure Breech, Carol Jones and Corey Lowell.

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Calvin Anderson is one of two write-in candidates seeking election to the Asbury Park Board of Education [BOE] this November. His wife Angela is the current school board president.

Anderson is an 18-year Asbury Park resident and aPittsburgh, Pa., native. After he earned an associate degree from Point Park University, Anderson moved to Jacksonville, Fl., to work on aircraft carriers through a government contract. He was eventually transferred to Farmingdale where he manufactured military weaponry.

When the government contracts wore out, he applied for a job at New Jersey Natural Gas. He has been employed for the last 26 years with the company and currently works in their distribution department.

Four of the children he and his wife are raising attend schools in the Asbury Park school district at the middle school and high school level.  Two of the children are biological and three are adopted children from the neighborhood.

“I brought them in to my home because I’m passionate about helping the children in this community,” he said.

Anderson’s recent decision to run for one of the one-year unexpired terms on the November ballot comes because he sees the school system as a failing system and the school board as dysfunctional, he said.

“I’m frustrated that people aren’t showing up,” he said.

So far this year, six regular session school board meetings have been cancelled due to a lack of quorum.

“You can’t go to work and miss your job six times — you’ll be fired,” he said. My concern is that we have to be there for the kids. No one is showing up to do the work for the kids, and that concerns me.”

Anderson says he sees a pattern between the members of the board who are consistently present and those who are not present, he said.

“I believe it is more than coincidental that only [Board Vice President Geneva] Smallwood, [President Angela Ahbez-] Anderson and [board member Barbara] Lesinksi show up,” he said. “When they do it at the same time, you have to scratch your head. You have to wonder why the people aren’t doing their job. Ray Charles could see that.”

Specific goals he would like the school board to tackle if he is elected include more mental health support for children in the district who have Individual Education Plans [IEPs] and need help with the curriculum but may not have access to the full spectrum of services they need, the addition of a technical component to teach children in the upper grades a trade, and an increase of technology for educational use in the K-8 classrooms.

In more affluent areas like Rumson, elementary and middle school children are working on computers and utilizing technology. If Asbury Park can increase the number of students that area able to start using technology in the younger grades it would attribute to an increase in number of students in the district who graduate with a diploma while simultaneously decreasing the drop out rate, he said.

Teaching kids a trade may contribute to a decrease in the crime rates in the area, since high school seniors who have enough credits to graduate but do not pass the state-mandated tests are given a certificate as opposed to a diploma, according to Anderson.

“Every kid is not going to be a scientist, a singer or a doctor,” he said. “We need to teach kids how to make a living so they can become productive citizens, taxpayers and homeowners.”

“Most kids that didn’t graduate are stuck in Asbury Park, can’t find a job and are wandering around a one square-mile town and get involved in crime and drugs,” he said. “That’s a shame — and that is what is happening to our kids.”

For young adults who did not graduate with a full diploma or who may have dropped out, Anderson would like to see the addition of a night school in the district. Parents would also have access to the courses, to promote the idea of the importance of education in the home.

“I believe if we don’t reach the parents we’re not going to be able to reach the children,” he said. “We have to put every resource into [the students] to get this to work and we have to involve parents to make sure kids get the education they deserve.”

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