Berenato, Byrnes, Lyons running unopposed for school board
Page 4 • Wednesday, October 9, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette
SCHOOL, from Page 1
The three candidates recently
spoke with The Gazette regarding
their accomplishments in their cur-
rent term and what they hope to
achieve in the next one.
Barbara Berenato
Barbara Berenato, 71, attended
both The College of New Jersey
(formerly Trenton State College)
and Rowan
University,
and was an
educator for
31 years in
the Winslow
To w n s h i p
School Dis-
trict.
She
served
as
mayor of
Hammon-
Barbara Berenato
ton for four
years and as a member of town
council for five years. She is a life-
long resident of Hammonton,
along with her husband Joseph,
two children and several grand-
children.
Berenato has been on the Board
of Education for 12 years, and is
seeking a fifth three-year term.
She initially ran for the board be-
cause she felt her experience
would be an asset to the district.
“I always wanted to be a school
board member, and when the op-
portunity was presented to me, I
just took it. I have a background...
I taught for 31 years, so I thought
that I could contribute to the cur-
riculum and to the aspect of edu-
cational process,” Berenato said.
Berenato states that the addi-
tional $1.5 million in funding re-
ceived from the state has helped
the board achieve more of its
goals.
“I chaired the finance commit-
tee. I’m proud that we did get extra
funding from the state, so it made
it a little bit easier for us to handle
the budget and do things that we
want to. We were under-funded for
so long that it’s nice to finally get
some money from the state and I
hope that that continues,” Bere-
nato said.
One of Berenato’s focuses in her
next term will be increasing safety
for district students, particularly
regarding traffic.
“We have an extensive safety
plan for all of the schools, because
we are concerned, of course, about
the safety of our students. We’re
talking about the drop-off, the
pick-up, the busses coming in and
out, and getting the students safely
to school. We’ve gone through a
traffic study and we’re adhering to
that, and we continue to work
along with the traffic study and
come up with ideas to alleviate
some of the congestion around the
schools, as far as children getting
to and from school,” Berenato
said.
Berenato feels that the role that
the board of education plays in
shaping the town is an important
one.
“I think the school board has a
very great responsibility to our
town to provide well-educated stu-
dents that can go out and live in
society and maintain their lives,
and I don’t take that responsibility
lightly,” Berenato said.
Linda Byrnes
Linda Byrnes, 64, is a 1972
graduate of Hammonton High
School and, after attending Glass-
boro State College (now Rowan
University), taught for 38 years in
the Hammonton school district.
She is a lifelong resident, along
with her husband, former board
president H. Stewart “Skip”
Byrnes, two children and grand-
children.
Byrnes has been a member of
the board of education for six
years, and is seeking her third
See CANDIDATES, Page 15
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