Board reconsiders name of former Samsel School
BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

SAYREVILLE — To move forward, the Board of Education might try looking to the past.

Carol Kadi, president of the Sayreville Historical Society, suggested last week that school board members consider unearthing decades-old minutes from their archives, focusing on meetings when a decision was made to name a school on Ernston Road after the Samsel family.

As a result, board members said they would schedule discussion on the issue for their next regular meeting, which will be at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at Selover School on Lincoln Street.

Last month, Deerfield Road resident Shirley Dill publicly expressed her displeasure with the school’s name change to Sayreville Upper Elementary School in 2004 after a period of renovations. Dill also said she had been concerned with how the decision had been made, accusing board member Arthur Rittenhouse of falsely claiming to have contacted the last living Samsel family member about the decision. Rittenhouse denied he made that claim.

Three Samsel family members have been recognized as contributing to the Sayreville school system — Frank Sr., who was a board member, and his two daughters — Catherine, who was a teacher in Sayreville, and Marion, who served as secretary to Jesse Selover, the school district’s first superintendent.

Kadi said it appears the public, including the Board of Education, is unaware of which member of the Samsel family — if not all of them — was being honored when the school was named.

“The Samsel name meant something,” she said. “Before you changed the name of the school, you should have looked up why the name Samsel [was chosen].”

Board President Kevin Ciak, who was also president when the decision was made to change the name of the school, said it was a decision that had not been done rashly.

Ciak noted that, although longtime Sayreville residents might have continued to know the building as Samsel School, it had since the early 1990s been known as the Central Valley Academy, while being run by the county.

Though the Upper Elementary School (UES) is located on the property of the former Samsel School, only part of its structure is actually from the Samsel School era. The rest of the structure is new, built just prior to the opening of the UES last fall. Still, the board decided at that time to name the UES media center after the Samsel family, but some feel that is still not enough.

Kadi wanted it to be publicly known that the historical society was aware of the name change.

“The last thing we’d ever want the public to think is that we don’t care about history,” she said. “But the board has the right to name the school whatever they want.”

Still, Kadi said most of the society’s members, which include Rittenhouse and Dill, would “never be in favor of giving a generic name” to a building.

“That’s like going to a farm store and seeing a burlap sack with the word ‘potatoes,’ ” Kadi said.

Bob Foley, the parent involvement council spokesman, said he personally felt this issue should be taken a little more seriously by the board.

“This is a real issue, and it seems like we’re blowing it off,” he said. “This kind of smells like the arrogance that I felt was in the board a year ago.”

Foley said he didn’t think it would be too difficult to physically change the name of the school, should that decision ultimately be made.

“I know a couple of high school kids who could get up there and have that sign changed by tomorrow,” he said.

Ciak said the board would put the issue on the agenda for the next meeting, to allow ample time for everyone involved to consider the matter and for the board to look for the appropriate meeting minutes.

Ciak noted that the board, at the time of the UES naming, felt everything had been accounted for, but perhaps overlooked some issues.

“Perhaps we should have [contacted the Samsel family],” Ciak said. “We are only nine people. We don’t think of everything.

“At that time, we thought we were making the best decision,” he added.