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Nora Hyland is seeking a seat on the Asbury Park council along with her running mates under the name “Uniting Asbury.”

All five council seats are up for grabs in the nonpartisan May 14 election. The current council’s terms end on June 30, with new four-year terms beginning July 1.

Hyland, 46, lives on Fourth Avenue with her husband and their three children, ages seven, six and three. Her school-aged children attend Avon Elementary School as tuition students. They attended preschool in Asbury Park. The family also owns another home in town.

Hyland, who is an activist in the Asbury Park school system, said she sends her children out of the city for school because she has not been happy with the city’s school administration.

Hyland, an associate professor of education at Rutgers University, often attends board of education [BOE] meetings to address administrators and board members on behalf of the Asbury Park Parent Listening Project, a division of the Statewide Education Organization Committee [SEOC].

“Most of my work in the community has been with the Asbury Park Parent Listening Project and being active in schools and the school board, pushing for change, because that’s where my area of expertise is,” Hyland said. “I’ve worked with parent groups and been to community events to try to empower parents. I think parents need to assert their voice in education.”

As a member of the Parent Listening Project, Hyland helped secure bus transportation for children travelling from the southwest part of the city to Bradley Elementary School after the Barack Obama School was shut down.

She has also advised parents of children with special needs in how to advocate for their child’s needs in their IEPs [Individualized Education Programs], she said.

Hyland holds a Ph. D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; a master’s degree in reading and special education from New York University; and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Fordham University. She grew up in Queens and also lived in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

She moved to Asbury Park in 2002 to be closer to her ailing mother after finishing her first job as a professor at the University of Delaware. Her brother and sister-in-law lived in Ocean Grove at the time, and introduced Hyland to the area. Hyland selected Asbury Park because “it’s cool, up-and-coming and really diverse,” she said.

Also, in her work, she deals with issues of equity in education, especially in terms of racial and economic justice, “so it was a good fit for me,” she said.

Hyland chose to run for council when members of her current ticket asked her if she’d like to join them. She had initially thought about running for the BOE, but “as a school board member, you can’t administrate from the board,” she said. “It’s difficult to really affect change. You have to trust your administrator and say yes or no.”

She and her running mates — Duanne Small, Jim Keady, Dan Harris and Remond Palmer — “share a lot of the same ideals and a lot of the same vision for the city,” Hyland said.

This vision includes uniting the community first and foremost, Hyland said.

“It’s about recognizing that our city is racially and economically segregated and we lack a common understanding,” she said. “We know broadly that true integration actually decreases educational and economic disparities. We also know that right now in our city we do have a hyper-segregated portion of our community, where there are concentrations of crime, violence and drugs.”

Hyland would like to see more resources moved to lower-income areas of the city, such as its southwestern quadrant.

“In our highest-poverty neighborhoods, it’s hard to find food,” she said. “Our preschools aren’t there. Neither is job training. It’s not really happening in that community. Those services are more likely to be located in lower-poverty communities. It creates a barrier for people.”

If elected, Hyland would like to create advisory boards made up of members of the community to aid the council.

“Five people don’t know everything,” she said. “We can also help individuals take leadership in their communities.”

Hyland would like to create a robust and organized parks and recreation department, she said. To do this, she’d promote collaboration with nonprofit groups.

She also feels it’s important to strengthen and enforce fair housing laws, and provide opportunities for moderate income housing.

Another important issue for Hyland is creating community safety and job programs, as she sees a link between jobs and safety. Initiatives like community patrols and lights-on nights “are great and necessary,” she said. “But they don’t get at the crux of the problem, which is really about economics.”

Hyland would like to see community policing and other efforts continue, but she’d also like to coordinate job training, organized by both the city and nonprofit groups. This should include partnering with the school district, she said.

Another important part of increasing employment opportunities for city residents is enforcing the ordinance that states 20 percent of employees in city construction projects must be Asbury Park residents, she said.

“In any community, a 10-percent increase in employment means a 4-percent wealth increase citywide for residents,” Hyland said. “The more people we have working, the more people will make money to spend at local businesses. It helps everybody.”

Hyland would also focus on broader economic development and responsible fiscal stewardship, she said.

“I’m concerned personally about the amount of debt our city is going into and the pace of redevelopment down at the waterfront,” she said. “We need to attract businesses but we need to be smart enough to stretch the deals to benefit both the city and businesses.”

Hyland believes the city should use its labor, its human capital and its land to become a destination for tourism and entertainment, possible including zones for museums, the arts and other attractions.

This is another area where advisory boards with city residents using their own expertise could help, Hyland said.

She’d also like to address scattered sites with dilapidated buildings in the community, she said, as well as ensure city services are being managed efficiently.

“We need to look for ways in the city that we’re wasting money and not being fiscally responsible,” Hyland said. “Businesses want to come to a city that’s well-managed and efficient.”

Hyland encourages people to contact her at hylandforcouncil@gmail.com to talk about their concerns and questions.

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