Newcomers Set To Join Manchester School Board: Unofficial Results

Updated, 11:20 p.m.

MANCHESTER, NJ — The Manchester Township Board of Education is poised to have two new members, as newcomers received nearly double the vote totals of two incumbents, according to unofficial results.

The seats are three-year terms on the board, which has eight members including a representative of Lakehurst.

With 40 of 40 districts reporting, Brian Guzman leads with 8,737 votes. Justine Beltran, his running mate, was second with 7,942 votes. Gayle Mount, the board's current president, had 4,683 votes and incumbent board member Fay Weinstein had 3,157 votes.

The results remain unofficial until certified later in November.

Guzman is a police officer in the Lakewood Township Police Department and he and his wife have two children. Beltran is a nurse and she and her husband have three children.

Mount, a special education teacher in Brick, was first elected to the board in 2019. Weinstein was elected to the board in 2022 via a write-in vote to fill a seat that was being vacated. She was a school librarian before leaving education to raise her children.

The district has faced financial challenges due to state aid cuts under S2. It also will have the challenge of paying former superintendent John Berenato nearly $500,000 in back salary after the district was forced to rehire him in a ruling by the state commissioner of education, Kevin Dehmer. A state judge ruled Manchester had violated tenure laws when it fired Berenato in November 2023.