FREEHOLD – The Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education hosted its annual reorganization meeting, where the winners of the recent school board elections took their oath of office. Howell, along with Farmingdale and Englishtown, had their representative take their oath at the January 8 meeting.
Diana Cappiello ran uncontested for the role of Englishtown’s representative and thus earned the spot in a landslide. Kathie Lavin had the same situation as she ran uncontested to be Farmingdale’s representative on the board of education.
The biggest surprise of the Board of Education elections happened in Howell, as challenger Zach Metzger defeated incumbent Joan Butcher-Farkas 10,715 votes to 5,161. The most surprising part about Metzger is that he is 18 years old and is still in high school. He had to spend most of his campaign encouraging voters to look past his young age and to vote for his ideas and policies. He is the youngest person ever to be elected to the Board of Education. He credits his good friend and campaign manager, Matthew Kouveliotes, for his campaign’s strong digital presence before the election. He won the election less than one month after his 18th birthday.
All three newly elected members of the board of education took their oath at the last meeting. After each representative was sworn in, the board of education went into an executive meeting.
Another reorganization element of the meeting included board member Jamie Bruno from Manalapan being named vice president of the board, in place of Peter Bruno from Howell, who has returned to being a normal board member.
The board of education also tackled a few other matters during its reorganization meeting. They announced their official calendar for the 2026-2027 school year. A few notes on the calendar include that the district will be having a professional development day on Veterans Day and that the NJGPA will be taking place during March of that year. They also announced that they will be hosting prep courses for the test after school and that virtual SAT prep courses will be offered to all students.
Another matter that they announced during the reorganization meeting was that they are in the midst of hosting their eighth-grade orientations for those students who will be joining the district next year. Howell already had its eighth-grade orientation on the 7th, Manalapan had its orientation on the 8th, Marlboro on the 12th, and Freehold on the 14th, Colts Neck on the 15th, and Freehold High School on the 22nd.
A few other matters were discussed during the meeting, including the contracts that they were giving out to flag football coaches, some renovations of the high schools and the scholarship basketball game that will take place between Manalapan and Freehold Township in February. The contracts given out to the flag football supervisors are listed as a stipend, and the program will be pay-to-play next season.
The renovations portion includes an application for a state grant of $195,000 to help renovate the tennis courts at Freehold Borough High School, and the improvement of all the roofs across the district.
The next board of education meeting will be hosted by Manalapan High School on February 19 at 7 p.m.
