Two Incumbents and First-Time Candidate Win School Board Seats

Ocean City voters returned two incumbents to the local Board of Education and picked one newcomer.

Jim Bauer won his seventh three-year term on the board, and Tom Oves was re-elected for his second. Jacqueline McAlister finished second in voting to win her first term. Incumbent Pete Madden failed in his bid for a second term.

Voters picked from four candidates to fill three full three-year terms on the board. Unofficial election-night results are as follows:

: 3,326 
Jacqueline A. McAlister: 2,412
H. James Bauer: 2,198
Peter V. Madden: 2,092

Tiffany Prettyman ran unopposed to complete the final two years of Antwan McClellan's unexpired term. She received 3,249 votes. McClellan stepped down from the board when he was elected to City Council.

"It's very exciting, and it's an honor," McAlister said of serving on the board.

McAlister is a teacher in the Egg Harbor Township district.

"As a public school teacher, I've dedicated my professional life to the world of education," she said in a candidate profile. "As a mother of young children and a citizen of Ocean City, I would like share my knowledge and experience in a capacity for which I'm qualified."

Bauer is the current vice president of the board and a member of the curriculum committee. Oves is the facilities subcommittee chair.

Prettyman served on the Ocean City Board of Education for three years until 2010 and was appointed again when McClellan stepped down. She is a social studies teacher at Mainland Regional High School and parent of two Ocean City schoolchildren.

The school board includes nine members from Ocean City, who are elected in staggered years, and three members from Upper Township, who are appointed to one-year terms.

Oves led the polls in the 2009 school election with 905 votes in a six-candidate race. He was followed by Madden (673 votes) and Bauer (660 votes).

The Ocean City Board of Education voted unanimously in January to approve a resolution that moved the date of the annual school elections from April to November. The measure also eliminated public voting on school budgets that fall under the state's 2 percent cap on tax levy increases.

Gov. Chris Christie had signed a bill earlier in January that gave school districts the ability to move the election to the same day as the general election in November.

The law’s supporters said moving the vote to November could increase voter turnout as the city selects its school board members — just 10.71 percent of the city's registered voters turned out for Ocean City's uncontested elections in April 2011 (when the winning candidates had about 700 votes apiece). That appears to be the case.

The school elections remain nonpartisan.