Raymond Jackson suffered a bone fracture above his eye that will require surgery, his father said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A 16-year-old Red Bank athlete was badly beaten in a racially charged attack in Oceanport Saturday night, he told redbankgreen.
Police, however, say they have found no racial motivation in the alleged assault, which remains under investigation.
The Red Bank Charter School was one of 50 schools nationwide named as a ‘School of Character’ for 2022 by character.org.
Then-Councilman Hazim Yassin at a Red Bank Education Foundation fundraiser at the Red Bank Elks Club in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Former Red Bank Councilman Hazim Yassin has been charged with stealing more than $7,600 from the Red Bank Borough Education Foundation, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said Monday.
The budget includes funding for a counselor to help stressed students, Rumage said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Federal and state grants to offset pandemic-related expenses helped keep the Red Bank school district tax increase at two percent for the second year in a row, Superintendent Jared Rumage said Tuesday night.
National Honor Society members read to young students and gave each a care packages of books. (Click to enlarge.)
Members of the National Honor Society at Red Bank Regional High School recently completed a drive to provide Read Across America care packages to students at Red Bank borough preschools.
The project was “amazing,” said TJ Eyerman, a senior who serves as NHS president. But it also underscored the needs of the Rumson-based Bridge of Books Foundation, he said.
A teacher who worked for just three days at the Red Bank Charter School in 2020 has been indicted for alleged sexual assaults against four Long Branch elementary school children he taught over the preceding three years, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office said Tuesday evening.
The alleged assaults occurred in school and on class trips, according to an announcement by Acting Prosecutor Lori Linskey.
The school’s campus includes buildings on Oakland Street, above, and Monmouth Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank Charter School has won state authorization to operate for another five years, Head of School Kristen Martello announced Wednesday.
The widely expected extension was granted by the New Jersey Department of Education over the objection of borough school district’s board, which was joined by the town council in its request that the school be closed.
Phoenix Productions’ home at 56 Chestnut Street was painted over with a two-story mural last month. (Photo by Allan Bass. Click to enlarge.)
Press release from the Count Basie Center for the Arts
The Count Basie Center for the Arts and Red Bank-based Phoenix Productions intend to merge, allowing the community theatre company to officially become part of the organization which has hosted its productions for more than 30 years, the two nonprofits announced Tuesday.
The Red Bank Charter School was one of 67 schools nationwide named as a ‘School of Character’ for 2022 by character.org.
Students at Red Bank’s primary and middle schools will pivot to remote learning Friday, but not because of the storm that left nearly three inches of the snow by early morning.
Those in two other districts are free to play in the snow, however, as the storm added another variable to pandemic-scrambled district schedules.
The nonprofit theater company Phoenix Productions is getting a hard-to-miss new look for its Red Bank home.
The two-story, full-width mural on the facade of the performing arts center at 59 Chestnut Street was approved by the borough council in November. The building’s neighbor out back, the Monmouth Conservatory of Music, also sports a full-facade mural.
Early reviews are welcome in the comments. (Photo by Allan Bass. Click to enlarge.)
Domenic Kalorin, left, was elected board president, succeeding Fred Stone, right. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With “a huge chunk” of their staff out on pandemic-related absences, Red Bank’s public schools mustered once again to provide instruction Tuesday, Superintendent Jared Rumage said that night.
The council meeting was the final one scheduled for 2021. (Screenshot from Zoom. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council’s final regular meeting of 2021 included a new police contract, a plan to recombine workshop and regular sessions, a new used Tesla, and praise for a departing colleague.
Here’s an overview.
Relic Music owner Mike Nicosia with one of the Dunable guitars his shop carries. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Amid a booming market for six-stringed instruments, a boutique retailer of electric guitars has opened in downtown Red Bank.
Also in this edition of Retail Churn: a new combo toy and sports memorabilia shop, and a Ukrainian maker of custom tables and jewelry making its United States landfall, both on Broad Street.
Superintendent Jared Rumage at the borough middle school in May, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank schools Superintendent Jared Rumage called on the borough council Wednesday to aid the district in a bid to shut down the Red Bank Charter School, whose authority to operate is up for renewal.
In a direct challenge that echoed rhetoric from a bitter battle leading up to the school’s charter renewal in 2017, Rumage called for a “unified” borough educational system and the elimination of an institution that he said has fostered segregation for its entire 23-year existence.
“It’s a travesty that we have tolerated school segregation for so long in Red Bank,” Rumage told the council via Zoom during its workshop session.
Alyssa Geary, below, teaches at the Red Bank Middle School. (Click to enlarge.)
On August 25, the New Jersey Department of Education announced 21 educators as the 2021-2022 County Teachers of the Year during a virtual awards ceremony.
Among them: Red Bank Middle School teacher Alyssa Geary, who garnered the honor for Monmouth County.
Suubi Mondesir with Fortune Foundation co-chair Gilda Rogers last month. Below, Mondesir, second from right, on a 2016 tour of the Fortune house led by builder Roger Mumford. (Photos by Chris Ern, above, and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By CHRIS ERN
In the summer of 2016, Suubi Mondesir was a rising junior at Red Bank Regional High School when she participated in a tour of a crumbling Red Bank house.
At the time, preservationists envisioned the building on Drs. James Parker Boulevard as a cultural center in honor of its onetime owner, the civil rights journalist T. Thomas Fortune, and Mondesir was present as a participant in the Hugh N. Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop at Rutgers University.
Flash forward to 2021: The house has been fully restored as the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, and Suubi (pronounced SOO-vee) manages its media outreach efforts as an intern. But it’s not just a job. Her work at the center aligns with a personal passion for social justice, inspired by Fortune’s work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she told redbankgreen in an interview last month.
“What he did is what I am hoping to do as well: to inspire people with my writing, and to speak truth to power,” Mondesir said.
Hundreds of Red Bank residents turned out for the annual police-sponsored National Night Out Against Crime festival at Count Basie Park Tuesday night.
In addition to free food and games, this years’s edition featured the dramatic arrival of a New Jersey National Guard Black Hawk helicopter, which kids of all ages swarmed over.
The stop was the second of the night on the Greater Red Bank Green for the Lakehurst-based chopper, following an appearance at Little Silver’s National Night Out at Markham Fields.
Check out the photos below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Pilgrim Baptist Church of Red Bank recently held its Vacation Bible School & Bible Fitness Boot Camp for children/youth in grades K thru 12.
Red Bank Schools Superintendent Jared Rumage helps unload coats donated in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Press release from Red Bank-based Knights of Columbus council #525
In 2017 our Council kicked off the first ever ‘Coats for Kids’ program in the Red Bank area. In our fifth year of the program program we have provided hundreds of kids across the community who do not have the means to purchase a new or appropriate jacket for the harsh winter weather we experience.
Sunshine and cool breezes set the stage as 147 eighth-graders from Red Bank Charter School and Red Bank Middle School gathered for outdoor commencement ceremonies Wednesday evening.
The Red Bank Borough Public Schools are a proud participant of the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) Governor’s Educator of the Year Program. Each year, the NJDOE recognizes Teachers and Educational Services Professionals throughout the State as part of the Governor’s Educator of the Year Program.
Press release from the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce Educational Foundation
A scholarship for higher education is life changing, just ask Laura Burns, a school teacher in Hazlet, who wanted to continue graduate work to reach her goal in school administration. As a middle school language arts and social studies teacher, Laura (at right) dreamed of taking the next step but realized the financial hurdles to make it happen would be an obstacle. She applied to the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce (EMACC) Educational Foundation for its annual scholarship and the rest is history or her story.
Late getting that book or DVD back to the Red Bank Public Library? Not to worry. Fines for overdue materials are now a relic of the past.
Red Bank-area