Election Profile: Stephen Dobbins For Howell Board Of Education

HOWELL, NJ - Four seats are up for grabs on the Howell Township Board of Education, according to the Monmouth County Clerk's Office.

For the full-term race (with three seats open), board vice president Albert "Al" Miller, Dr. Denise M. Lowe, Ira Thor, and Stephen Dobbins will be campaigning for a seat. Thor, Lowe and Miller are current members seeking to maintain their spots, while Dobbins is a newcomer slated to challenge the incumbents. Current board member Laurence Gurman is also running unopposed for a two-year unexpired term.

Dobbins is a Howell High School graduate with degrees from Brookdale Community College and Rutgers University. He has been a Howell resident for 14 years and is the owner of Stormin’ Arts Productions, a social media marketing agency for small businesses.

Dobbins tells Patch that, if elected to the school board, he will seek to maintain the outstanding level of education for all Howell students, present and future:

“I do not have children, but I have had three sisters go through our schools along with myself going through our high school. My connection is in the future when I have children and they go through our schools,” Dobbins says. “I want them to know I had a helping hand during one of the most difficult times in our lives in maintaining outstanding education, well-thought out safety procedures and durable ability to ensure the best education possible.”

Read below to learn more about the Howell Township Board of Education candidate:

Are you running for board of education in New Jersey? Contact Nicole Rosenthal at nicole.rosenthal@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate's profile and submitting campaign announcements to Patch.

Why are you seeking a seat on the school board:

I am running because I believe I can help bring fresh ideas and experience to our board. Over the last almost seven months I have been in the trenches with our small businesses, predominantly gyms and restaurants, helping owners navigate through much unknown. I did this by always being as prepared as possible and knowing all technologies available to us. When a shutdown was necessary we seamlessly transitioned to an online platform without losing a beat. We learned to be flexible, constantly improved and adapted, were consistently communicative and in all I was given a treasure-trove of how to’s and what to do’s in the process. I want to bring this to our schools so that the next generation of students can use our Howell Schools as a launchpad for success no matter the obstacles like I have.

The single most pressing issue facing our school district is ________________, and this is what I intend to do about it:

Confidence. I will be a present, available and transparent leader for our community. I know we will overcome this virus. We have a good plan in place that will allow for temporary shutdowns to happen in the event of positive cases. For me the issue would be to maintain confidence. We need to be confident as a town, as one community, that we can successfully execute our plan for as long as we need to. Because our students need us. We need to be confident parents for them, confident teachers, confident staff workers and bus drivers, confident neighbors and business owners, we need to be a confident Howell for our students. As a Board member this will be a top priority for me. Next to safety and overall education, I will be active in every way I can be to make sure we stay confident in our plan, our schools and our town.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates?

I would say the biggest difference is our experience. I grew up in a very similar world to how our students are. I don’t remember a time without cellphones, I was in middle school when social media was born, I have built a business out of combining customer service and technology, and adapting to whatever new app or update or service that comes out is welcoming. I am today. And I am not intimidated of anything from today, but instead quickly see practical application and a desire to use and learn. I understand how at times technology can be frustrating and, quite honestly, how frighteningly difficult it can be. Which is why I believe I can be a fresh fit for our board and bring this new, more closely understood to our students' perspective to help make our board even better.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform:

My other two major issues are safety and education. I do not believe anything should compromise either. Our schools have an excellence level that we are all proud of. I want to help continue a culture of lifelong learning, of a deep love for reading and for our students to be ready for anything that comes their way by the time they get to high school. These formative years is where habits begin. As a member of our towns board I will promote these important attributes and needed skills, while being smart about our safety procedures. We cannot cut any corners. There is rarely much time that goes by that I do not think of one or two of my old teachers and some of the lessons they gave me that I still cherish today. I think of them and their health, and how I wouldn’t want anything that could have been avoided happening to them. I would put as much effort into making sure we kept our schools safe as I would any other issue.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you will be effective on the school board?

I would look to my not so distant past, March. I work closely with a local gym and when we shut down we had to quickly figure out what to do. I had to figure out the most effective ways of utilizing social media for updating/communication, direct outreach, and workouts while we daily learned what was safe plus help find a way to get live workouts over the internet and build a library on YouTube for those who couldn’t make our selective times. We did this literally within hours of the official call for a shut down, but anticipating this would be longer than a a couple weeks. We built month long challenges that gave a semblance of a schedule to keep up with healthy habits and a sense of mental normalcy. Then when we could, transitioned smoothly to outdoors as we simultaneously were running our new online platform. We not only stayed afloat, we have added new branches to the business, taking a tremendously negative situation into a great positive that benefits us today. I would be bringing this skill set to our school board. My adaptive ability to learn on the fly and be able to apply all technologies, all ideas to keep giving our students the best education they deserve. And also using these skills to helping teachers and parents be trained in what they might need in a hybrid setting. I would not only know how to work, but how to implement such tools as it is something I do daily.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

“Pursue perfection, just know that you will never obtain it. Instead, in your pursuit, you will gain the experience, the tools, the relationships, the habits, and all else you never would have if you had simply settled with being good or good enough.” – Professor John Bukovec

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am deeply passionate about community and believe that our schools are the heart and soul of our community. I actively work with small businesses to do as much as we can to give back. I am obsessively committed to whatever it is I am working on or asked to do. I like to learn as much as possible about as much as possible. I love our town and I truly hope, should I earn your vote, that you will be proud of the representative you elected.

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