Election 2023: Peter Reddy, Holmdel Board of Education

HOLMDEL, NJ — Peter Reddy is one of four candidates seeking three full-term seats on the Holmdel Board of Education in the Nov. 7 election.

Reddy, of Rustic Lane, is the current Board of Education president, seeking re-election.

Two other current board members whose terms expire this year are not seeking re-election: Eileen Briamonte and Linda Zhang.

Alison LoPresti, Anthony Libecci and Reham Taha are also running, as a team, for the school board.

Reddy has served on the school board for nine years and cited many accomplishments for the district - in academics, school activities and capital projects.

"I am proud to serve the residents of Holmdel, and believe there is more work to be done. Being the senior member of this board by a few years, I know my experience, knowledge, history and leadership are absolutely needed on this board. Voting for me will only make Holmdel better," Reddy said.

In these profiles, candidates provide voters with background about themselves and their positions on the issues, as they see them.

Read more from Peter Reddy:

Background:

Candidates were asked to provide their professional or volunteer information, school board experience, campaign links, and personal background.

I've been married to Jennifer Hayes Reddy for the last 20 years, with two sons, Tyler, a high school junior, and Andrew, graduated from Holmdel High School in June and now a freshman at Penn State University Smeal Business School.

I have served on the Holmdel school board for the last nine years, three terms. At present I am most the experienced and tenured board member by a few years. I currently serve as Board President for the Holmdel school district, and I am seeking a three-year full term on the board.

During my three terms I have served in every leadership position possible from president to board vice president during the 2020 Initiative, a $40M project; as well as Finance chair (multiple times), Building Grounds Transportation Safety chair (multiple times), Personnel chair (multiple times), Negotiations chair (multiple times).

While a Holmdel resident for 10-plus years, I have coached 30-plus Holmdel travel and recreation teams in soccer, baseball and basketball. Additionally for seven-plus years I served as the finance chairperson for the annual St. Catherine picnic, raising on average $10,000 to $12,000 each year to fund the picnic. I have also served on the township Recreation Committee for six years.

I am from Massapequa, NY (Long Island). I received a BA degree from St John's University (Queens NY) in May 1994. I was awarded a three-year, 100 percent scholarship from the US Army via the ROTC program. Following graduation from St John's, I was commissioned a 2LT in the US Army. I served four-plus years active duty attaining the rank of Captain. I spent the majority of my active duty time with the 1st Infantry Division. Following my active duty service I spent the next four years in the Individual Ready Reserves.

After the service, I worked as an account manager for Johnson Controls Corp. (Fortune 100 company) in New Jersey, serving Fortune 500 accounts as well as numerous New Jersey school districts, hospitals and universities/colleges.

For the last 20 years, I have worked for Honeywell International as a senior account executive, managing and selling millions of dollars of energy-saving projects and infrastructure upgrades to New Jersey and New York school districts and Fortune 500 corporations. I am intimately familiar with how school districts run from a business perspective and from a board-member perspective.

Top issues:

Candidates were asked about the important issues in their district, and how the school board can address them.

During my nine years and three terms on the board, I am very proud to say we continually made progress and improved the district year after year. Some of those accomplishments include:

• $40 million dollar referendum (2020 Initiative), which included generational changes to all four schools - completed on time and under budget by $1.5 million dollars.
• New turf field for the high school via our capital budget with no increase in taxes.
• Lighting project at all four schools
• Implementation of all-day kindergarten.
• Established an SRO and Class III Officers in all four schools.
• Implemented high school and Satz school rotating schedule.
• New "Hive" coffee shop in the high school, first one of its kind in the state.
• Re-opened the district before the great majority of schools in New Jersey after the COVID pandemic.
• Multiple years of a flat budget, yet always adding new teachers, aides, sports (boys volleyball, fencing, Satz tennis, sixth-graders wrestling at Satz), all the while receiving no taxes from the Bell Works PILOT program.
• Offered college-level courses via local colleges (Rowan, The College of New Jersey), Brookdale).
• Reduced average class sizes to the low 20s in Village and Indian Hill schools
• Increased rankings by Niche (#16) & News & World Reports; 1200+ average SAT score; 319 graduates out of 326 high school graduates are now attending the top colleges in the country.
• Launched a new strategic plan; the last five-year outlook resulted in the 2020 Initiative.

Because of the school board's and administration's great success there are very few capital projects that need to be accomplished at this time.

The top two budget items that we faced this past year and will again in 2024 is increased transportation costs and rising healthcare costs. The board and administration will have to continually find areas we can trim to keep the budget below the 2 percent cap.

Thankfully, the district has a very healthy capital and maintenance reserve we can tap into to help offset some of these rising costs, understanding that we need to continue discussions with the township to find a way to share in the $5 million PILOT funds ($20 million received by the township in the last five-plus years) annually from Bell Works.

Educationally, the top two priorities we need to continue progress on is improving the high school guidance department and the high school math program. Both areas have been a focus this past year and both areas are improving. But we as a board need to ensure we do what is necessary to make both areas stronger.

Another area we will focus on in 2024 is to see about adjusting the schedules for the four district schools, flip-flopping start times.

Policy 5756:

Candidates were asked if they wanted to comment on state Policy 5756, which provides guidance regarding transgender students, including communication with parents. Some districts in the state are repealing or amending the policy. (Holmdel's school board is expected to confirm repeal of the policy at its regular meeting Oct. 25.)

For the nine years I have been on the board, I have never been political. All my decisions have two things in mind: the students and how it affects the residents/taxpayers of this town. I evaluate each issue on its own merits and have never been beholden to anyone.

Policy 5756 was submitted to us in 2019 as a "Mandatory" policy so the district accepted it as we had no choice. Once we learned this past year the policy was not "mandatory" we reviewed it and, as a board, decided to rescind it.

I am confident in the way the administration and school leaders have handled these situations before 2019 (pre-5756) and after we received 5756 and can confidently say our administration has done an excellent job working and communicating with affected students and will do the same going forward.

Anti-discrimination and anti-bullying laws still remain in force and will protect all students while the administration and board craft a policy that works for all students in the Holmdel School District.

Candidates for Holmdel Board of Education: (Full term; vote for three)

• Peter Reddy
• Alison LoPresti: Parental Rights & Education
• Anthony Libecci: Parental Rights & Education
• Reham Taha: Parental Rights & Education

Note: Candidates who have not received their request for profile information from Patch should check their spam folders or can contact Pat McDaniel at patricia.mcdaniel@patch.com for the email with candidate questions.