The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
An incumbent and two returning Board of Education members were sworn in Jan. 3 at the board’s annual reorganization meeting.
Also at the meeting, Nancy LaCorte was re-elected by board members as their president, and Ardaman Singh won re-election as board vice-president.
Sworn in for new three-year terms were incumbent Lauri Merris and returning board members Ed Potosnak and Pat Stanley. Potosnak and Stanley were not successful in their 2017 re-election bids, but ran again last year and won.
Stanley said she was dedicating this term to her late sister, Rosemary Stanley McCann, a 5th Grade Social Studies teacher in Cranford.
“I just want to say that she loved her children and she loved to teach Social Studies, she loved to teach reading maps and all about the nations throughout the world,” Stanley said. “Indeed, she took it so far that she had a world map taking up the entire wall of her dining room.”
“She enjoyed making sure her kids had good manners, and one of her favorite things was to make sure they always had good comportment,” she said. Stanley said she would also be meeting with district officials to look into starting a scholarship in her sister’s name.
“I want to say thank you to the residents of Franklin for giving me a second opportunity to serve on the school board, it’s one of the great joys of my life and I look forward to the wonderful things that we’re going to be able to do to support our kids in the constant exploration of learning,” Merris said.
Potosnak, the former board president, thanked township residents who voted for him.
“I’m very appreciative,” he said. “I want to congratulate the board and the district on major accomplishments. This year marked the opening of Claremont Road School, which is just amazing and a big undertaking, and a number of other construction projects.”
“The toils that folks worked through to get across the finish line of a major project like Claremont on top of Elizabeth Avenue and other major projects across the referendum initiative is quite stellar, and I look forward to more progress,” Potosnak said.
