By MADDY VITALE
Sea Isle City resident and retired schoolteacher Sue Williamson was the successful write-in candidate in November for the school board.
And on Thursday, Williamson took her seat on the Ocean City Board of Education to represent her hometown. Sea Isle is a sending district to Ocean City and gets a seat on the Ocean City school board.
While the position is a non-voting one, Williamson said she felt it was important for someone to be there on behalf of Sea Isle.
Dan Tumolo was the Sea Isle representative for years, but opted not to seek reelection to the Sea Isle City Board of Education due to health reasons.
For months, the Sea Isle seat on the Ocean City school board sat empty.
“No one represented Sea Isle for so long,” Williamson said. “I reached out to Dan and I said, ‘I don’t like to see an empty seat. I’m thinking about doing a write-in campaign.’ Dan said to go for it.”
She garnered enough votes to win a seat on the Sea Isle City Board of Education in the Nov. 7 election. She was sworn in during a ceremony in January.
“I volunteered to go to the Ocean City meetings. But I was away for the February meetings, so I said I would start in March in Ocean City,” she said, pointing out that since she is a non-voting member of the board, she did not miss any important votes.
Williamson said she is looking forward to her role on both the Sea Isle and Ocean City school boards.
She noted that she has the experience in education. She had a 26-year teaching career. She retired in 2019 as an elementary school teacher in the Rose Tree Media School District in Media, Pa.
She has held a number of senior-level positions, including president, with the teachers’ union in the Rose Tree Media School District. She said she would often attend Board of Education meetings in Media and has insight and experience into how school boards work.
Although there is no school in Sea Isle — the elementary school closed in 2012 due to declining student enrollment — the Board of Education still has the responsibility of putting together the school budget each year.
Sea Isle maintains an annual school budget of about $2.6 million to pay for the cost of sending Sea Isle’s students to other districts, primarily Ocean City.
Tuition and transportation costs make up the bulk of the school budget. Sea Isle’s school budget has also supported a number of education and community initiatives in the Ocean City school district, including mental health counseling, drug prevention, a creativity innovation project and an SAT testing reimbursement program for students.
In addition to Sea Isle City, Upper Township, Longport and Corbin City are also sending districts to Ocean City.
