Saddle Brook Board of Education Appoints Replacement Trustee

After two hours of interviews with five potential trustee candidates, the Saddle Brook Board of Education selected Regina Barrale Monday to fill the board seat vacated last month by Christopher Winnie.

Barrale, a health and physical education teacher in East Rutherford, won over her new colleagues with her experience and passion for the job, Board of Education president Marilyn Nasello said.

"We're looking for someone who's going to help be the future here, go forward with continuity, and she clearly displayed that in her interview," said Nasello, who cited Barrale's experience as a teacher and her "obvious commitment," to the district as factors that persuaded her to support Barrale.

Barrale, who has two young children at Long Memorial School, applauded the job board members have done thus far and said she felt honored and privileged to be joining them.

She said she'd considered running for an open seat in November, but that her busy schedule prevented her from making the commitment.

"I'm going for my administrator's license to be a principal and I just started the second half of it and I didn't want to overwhelm my schedule," Barrale explained. "I'm the type of person that I put two feet in and at that point in September, I didn't know what I had in store for me. So now I know, I got my feet wet, I'm good."

Barrale, who is also a Saddle Brook youth sports coach, said she's excited to start working to achieve the district's goals and objectives of improving support services, and increasing parental involvement and standardized test scores.

She was selected from a pool of candidates that included Michael Accomando, Blase Billack, Angela Robinson and former board vice president Jerry Taylor. 

"Congratulations Regina, you'll be a good fit," Taylor said to Barrale after she was appointed."They're a great board. Enjoy yourself."

Barrale, who was sworn and took her seat at the dais Monday, will fill out Winne's term for the remainder of the year.

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