By Cheryl Conway
As one of the youngest residents to be elected to serve on the Mt. Olive Township Board of Education, Nolan J. Stephens will bring an inside perspective regarding the issues and needs of the school district when he begins his three-year term next week.
Stephens, 19, is set to be sworn in at the Jan. 6, 2020, Mt. Olive Twp. BOE meeting, along with incumbents William Robinson and Anthony Giordano. Receiving 2,092 votes in the 2019 November Primary Election in his first race for office, Stephens will be replacing Brian Schaechter.
As a June 2019 graduate of Mt. Olive High School, Stephens knows first-hand today’s issues facing Mt. Olive students and the local school district and looks forward to making an impactful difference by sharing his ideas.
“I think a lot of the board members don’t know what’s going on inside the building,” says Stephens, a student at County College of Morris in Randolph. “I could be an inside view for them.”
While running for a school board is usually not a main priority for most high school graduates, Stephens made it one of his while attending college and working on his family farm.
“I’m 19 going on 40,” Stephens says of his view of himself. “I’m very mature for my age. I thought I could be a help. Ever since I was a little kid, I couldn’t wait to help the community; one of the places is the school district, a community all around us.”
He says, “When I started my senior year, I was interested in it.” He “wanted others to enjoy high school; I thought I would be a fresh face to the board.”
To run for the school board, candidates must be residents and be 18 years old or older.
Since the history of the Mt. Olive BOE, Stephens is the second among young board members to win a seat.
“There was another young board member whose name is Jairo "Jay" Jimenez who graduated from Mt. Olive High School, June 1992 and served his first term as a board member 1993-1996 and the second term 1996-1999,” says Kay Van Horn, secretary to the superintendent with the Mt. Olive School District.
Stephen’s decision to run for school board may also be in his blood. His grandfather, the late Chester M. Stephens, was superintendent of the Mt. Olive School District for 35 years and there is school named after him.
Says Van Horn, “Mr. Stephens' years of service as the Mt. Olive Township School District Superintendent were July 1, 1957 through January 19, 1992. Chester M. Stephens Mt. Olive Middle School was officially named on October 24, 1993. This plaque is now at CMS Elementary School which opened September 2001.”
Chester Stephens was involved “when the district was growing very fastly,” says Stephens, adding that his grandfather also worked as a teacher then principal in the district before superintendent.
“Mr. Stephens taught in the Hopatcong School District Middle School and High School English and then became a principal of the Flanders-Budd Lake School,” confirms Van Horn.
Goals In Mind
There are a “lot of issues that I want to address now that I’m on the board,” says Stephens.
Vaping is one of those issues.
“As a senior, you can see it around you,” he says, adding that it is a major problem. From being around it, Stephens says he has a “young perspective where this is and how to address it, maybe in different ways,” than the current board members.
Vaping “still is an issue,” he says, and “not as many know the affects,” adding that a 16-year-old recently underwent a double lung transplant as a result from vaping.
Another goal of Stephens is to grow the agricultural program in the school district and provide scholarships to students who plan to pursue agriculturally based programs.
“Agricultural-based programs are dying,” says Stephens. “Either they don’t know about farming or they never had a time to try it.”
While the district does offer some agriculture-based classes, Stephens suggests those that offer “more hands-on activities” as it pertains to agriculture such as growing own plants outdoors.
Stephens would also like to see more offerings in arts and says there is a “need to keep up with” technology. “Twenty years from now will be more and more engineering jobs,” reasons Stephens.
“Painting, music, art…need to keep up with that,” he says, suggesting to “upgrade classrooms and get more resources.”
Encouraging more interaction with students and the board is another goal of Stephens.
“Their voice and opinion do matter as much as ours do,” says Stephens about students. “either they are afraid to [speak out] or they just don’t care.”
When Stephens was a student at Mt. Olive High School, he says “I would go to the board meetings, would take notes. I would speak to my principal to give him more ideas of what was going on. I went because I wanted to know.
“There were times I’d want to speak up to the board,” says Stephens, but admitted that it was more comfortable to speak to board members individually rather than in public at the meetings.
Life-Long Resident
Homegrown is one way to describe Stephens not only because he is a life-long resident, but his ancestors date back to living in Mt. Olive for hundreds of years. The Stephens family dates back seven generations, as one of the founding families that established the town, and still operate a historic farm on Flanders-Drakestown Road in Budd Lake.
“Stephens Farm has existed since early colony times in the 1700s,” says Stephens. “I have worked on my family’s farm since I was young, but as I have gotten older, I do more and more.” Stephens still lives in the historic farmhouse he has lived his entire life. When he is not at CCM studying political science, he works on the farm planting hay, sweet corn, pepper, tomatoes and other crops.
He hopes to work in government in the future, but that can change.
“When you go to college, you get a broader view,” says Stephens, adding that he is “now getting a taste of everything as you grow.”
There is something about Mt. Olive that has simply grown on him.
“We know each other,” says Stephens. “We always look to upgrade ourselves and work harder in everything that we do.”
As far as the schools, he says, “We have very wonderful teachers and administration.”
When he was a student in the district, he says, “Everyone gave above and beyond. They took their own time to make a student acknowledged. Everyone was specially treated---motto no student is left behind.”
Looking forward, he is enthused for what comes next.
“I was excited, and I still am,” he says when he learned that he received enough votes to win a seat on the school board. He is “thrilled to get my chance to work with an astounding board that we have in the district. I am hoping to get the work done in my term.”
