South Brunswick Board Of Education Election 2023: Magesh Kamalakannan

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — A resident of South Brunswick for 17 years, Magesh Kamalakannan is seeking a seat on the South Brunswick Board of Education in the upcoming election.

In a Q&A with Patch, Kamalakannan speaks about the busing issue, his plans for helping the district navigate budget problems and more.

This year’s election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 7. Early voting has already begun. Click here for our voting guide.

Name: Magesh Kamalakannan

Town of residence: South Brunswick

Position sought: Board of Education Member

Family: I live in South Brunswick with my wife and 2 kids for the last 17 years. Daughter studied from 3rd grade in SB and graduated HS in 2017. Son who did his entire schooling in SB from his Sand Hills Preschool to his HS graduation in 2021.

Education: B.E.(Mechanical Engineering) & MBA (Finance)

Occupation: ITSM Professional / Manager

Previous or current elected appointed office: None

Campaign website: www.facebook.com/JoyceMageshVivek4BoE

Why are you seeking to run for a seat on the South Brunswick Board of Education?

I came to South Brunswick because it was a very good school district and offered a lot of opportunities to develop from Sports to clubs and other extracurricular activities. But in the last three to five years they have been greatly compromised. I remember those days when my son and other SB kids were practicing for their USTA or GMC tournaments before 2017 under the floodlights. Unfortunately, this is not possible in SB anymore. In 2017 the lights were switched off and after COVID-19 the courts are permanently locked after school hours. How can our country produce tennis champions at the national level if all schools did like our SB administration? Then we have the recent bussing crisis when 250 kids lost their bussing because of the state budget cut and the school tried to save a small amount of $250k and put children's lives at risk. It is an accident waiting to happen in the future because of their wrong decision.

Then we have the $15.5 million (over 5 years - 2.5 million capex and 2.6 million opex every year) which was signed in by the BOE without involving the SB community on a major project of this scale. Ideally, a townhall should have been done on this project and financial experts from the community should have been welcomed to review and analyze the project as the current incumbents running for reelection don’t have the expertise to do a financial evaluation thoroughly. They should have left it to the financial experts in the community through a committee and townhall meeting to update and get feedback from residents.

The school's and BOE members’ first priority should be the students and their interests should never be sacrificed.

That is the reason I decided to run for the BOE - to speak for the students.

What according to you is the biggest issue facing the school district right now?

The biggest issue facing the school district is managing its $166 million budget efficiently. For want of 250k, they have put the lives of 220+ kids at risk. They made a huge blunder by removing the bussing for the summer field development. I took a walk on the path suggested by the school administration and immediately realized that the path couldn’t be used as they were overhead HT power transmission lines. The residents called and later found out that PSEG has blocked the path with chains between the two developments for safety reasons and the school administration totally missed it as no safety study was done till then. And we know the budget cuts are coming from the state because of falling enrollment numbers even in 2019. What planning was done to secure that? It is only last month that our BOE announced about forming a committee.

Also as the Superintendent pointed out in the last BOE meeting - for mandated bussing the state has to give $509/student a year. We have roughly 5000 mandated bussing students. And they have been giving only $400/student a year. Why has the school not demanded this $500k that is due to us every year? When I asked whether any communication was sent by school or BOE to recover this money, there was no clear response. Even considering the last 5 years, it is 2.5 million gone down the drain unclaimed or 5 million over 10 years. The $15.5 million wellness center project is definitely not needed at this budget cut time when no school district has completed 3-5 years with that project to do a meaningful ROI analysis on that.

Learning to manage its budget efficiently and avoiding unnecessary huge projects is the key that the BOE has to focus right now.

SBSD is seeing regular cuts in state aid due to the funding formula. What plans do you have to ensure student services are not cut and there are no job losses for employees?

• Advocacy: This has been neglected a lot as we have seen only last month a committee idea has been discussed. And the committee as per details will have four meetings and it is done. A committee of passionate residents, BOE members and school administration should work with lawmakers till any defects in the S2 funding formula are corrected. During the recent SB Democratic convention, I had a chat with Sen. Zwicker and he agreed that the S2 formula needs revamping and that will be his first priority once reelected. I plan to continue my relationship and interactions that I built up in recent months with lawmakers and work with them for a resolution.
• Managing current budget efficiently: I will work with the school administration team to identify areas where costs can be cut without impacting the quality of education and safety of kids.
• Wellness Center: For major projects like this a detailed financial analysis will be done with a team who is qualified and the results reviewed with residents in a townhall kind of setup and then implemented only if it clearly produces some cost savings for the district. I understand most of the Board members are not financial experts but they should ideally get the help of financial experts in the community for analysis and once thoroughly convinced only should implement them.
• Increase Revenue streams: Should explore alternative sources of revenue like rental of school facilities, look at summer programs taught by HS Junior/Seniors on some key topics to freshmen and Sophomores and even to middle schoolers. This could be an online program and they could generate revenue and the students get valuable teaching experience and volunteer hours.
• Increase enrollment: It is common sense that if enrollment decreases the funding will come down. It is pure daydreaming if our BOE incumbents expect our funding to remain the same when enrollment numbers are coming down. The enrollment numbers have been coming down from 2019 and I assume even before. What has the BOE done to understand this reducing enrollment? Was any study conducted & published? we see neighboring school districts like Franklin Park has increasing enrollment numbers and they have $5.8 million more funding than before. Instead our school administration and BOE just keep playing the blame game - blame it on the state government. But the focus should be on getting our house in order before blaming someone.

How many budget meetings have you attended and have you put forth any solutions?

I attended the budget meeting in which the budget for school year 2023-24 was approved. I attended almost all of the BOE meetings this year and also actively encouraged other parents/residents to attend these meetings. Same in the previous years, but mostly remote due to COVID-19. Ideally, they should have a budget meeting (more like a townhall) before it is finalized to discuss the details with the residents/parents and have proper two-way communication instead of the current one-way, three-minute comment section which is not useful to put forth any solutions as they are not tracked and no feedback is given on them in future BOE sessions.

Transportation is a statewide issue. Do you feel transportation issues are being handled well by the district? If not, how do you propose improving it?

• No safety study was done before announcing the busing cut. I took a walk in Summerfield and found it to be a safety hazard.
• Not communicating the details to all the impacted parents. Many of them were not aware that their bussing was being cut.
• A safety study was done later under pressure from parents and through a petition. The safety study was done just before school started, so the traffic patterns in no way reflect what happens on a school day.
• A reasonable cost subscription courtesy busing like that offered in many districts was never on the table. Instead, an offer was given for an amount of $5000/per year. Recent news is this has been pushed to next year.
• Kids from SRH are expected to walk 45 min to HS crossing roads with 35+ miles speed limit.

It could have been handled better in the following ways:

• Safety study should have been done much earlier and clear communication to all impacted parents should have been sent earlier.
• Subscription busing should have been explored and offered to parents.
• Even with a subscription there could still be a shortfall of around $200k for which some other areas of the budget should have been cut rather than comprising on safety.

What other issues do you feel need to be tackled in the district?

• School ranking has been coming down as per school digger from 75 to 105. Based on US News it is at 74. When I came to this school district it was around 74 and after 17 years why there is no improvement even if we take the US News ranking for School districts? We have a superintendent who is in the top 25 highly paid list in NJ. So what value addition is he bringing to our school district? Why is he not able to improve the ranking? When Robbinsville has improved so much why not South Brunswick? Did any of the BOE or school administration study on how they did it? They are just 20 min away from us to go and learn what they did things differently and their ranking is much better than us. How do we expect our enrollment to go up in this situation?
• Mental health and bullying should be given priority. Recently one HS student lost her life as she was bullied both in school and in her part-time workplace. What action was taken? Did the school produce any report on that case? Why is it not public?
• I went to our school site and searched under anti-bullying information. There was no place for anonymous reporting.
• For any major projects like the Wellness Center a detailed financial analysis should have been done and then ventured for implementation.
• I have been hearing lots of complaints from parents that special needs children are not taken care of. This should be addressed immediately.
• There is no recording of issues and regular reporting regularly on the issue status in every BOE meeting. This should be a part and parcel of every BOE meeting.

What sets you apart from other candidates?

I have been living here for close to two decades and know a good deal about how our schools were five years ago and how they are now. To me, it has come down a lot and this impacts our school ranking and also our property values in the long run. I have expertise in finance and system implementation both of which are needed for a BOE position at a time like this. Unfortunately, the incumbents lack basic expertise in this area and this should be a major criterion that one should look into in the upcoming election. I have around three decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies and can bring valuable experience to the School Board. I would like to focus on the excellence of our school district; transparency and empowering our parents and residents so they also get involved in major issues.

What else would you like to share about yourself or your campaign?

• Speaking at BOE and with the Superintendent for issues impacting kids from the 2017 time frame.
• Organized with a team of parents the "March for our Lives" event in South Brunswick in 2018 to create awareness for school safety.
• Recently conducted March for Busses to mobilize all the impacted parents and highlight to the school administration the safety issues.
• Working with the school administration on getting back the tennis courts and tracks.
• Big supporter of SB small businesses.
• Advocate for better maintenance of parks, and facilities.
• Created an online SB directory for easy reference by residents.
• Trained caregiver of JRCC program to support people coping with physical or emotional distress or mental illness.
• Stood for BOE election in 2018 and lost by 380 votes.
• Running a FB group with 3k+ members for SB Residents to discuss issues affecting SB community and schools. Please Join us at Residents of South Brunswick, NJ

SBSD has great challenges in front of it. But with a creative mind these challenges can be converted into great opportunities.