Jeff Telep, 3 year seat

1)  Will you pledge to vote against the $7.5M administration building?  Please explain.

JT:.  Yes, I pledge to vote against the $7.5M Administration Building. Once it was proved that the Board was misled and that the building only needed minor repair, I did vote against it and will continue to vote against the Administration Building Project. I feel that the funds would be better used to upgrade and make repairs to our schools.

2)  Does Lodi have a nepotism problem?  If you answer “yes”, please provide one suggestion to combat it.

 

JT:  Yes, Lodi does have a nepotism problem. I feel that the best way we can work towards combatting this problem is by making the candidates and present board members sign a pledge that they will not hire any family members or promote any family members that are presently employed in the district.

3)  Should any board employee be earning a salary in excess of $200,000?  Please explain.

 

JT:  No, I feel that $200,000 is excessive, however, according to a recent article on NorthJersey.com (08/16), it appears that we might have to increase the salary of administrators in the future in order to stay competitive with the state standards. These administrators are getting to the point of being Free Agents unless the Laws change. Our administrators are earning such a high salary while there are teachers in our district that are earning some of the lowest salaries in New Jersey.

  

4)  Please list one area of academics that you would like the Board to focus more attention.  Why?

JT:  In my opinion, the Board needs to focus on Technology and expanding on this within our schools. With the fast paced world that we are living in, where technology is constantly changing and re-inventing itself, we need to make sure that our students are learning as well. This could be an elective in our middle school and high school for the students that would be interested in learning more into the technological advances.