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HS football top performers: NJ.com's Week 1 Players of the Week

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Here are our 18 top performers from around the state in New Jersey high school football in Week 1.


Ozzy Osbourne bumbles down metal memory lane at soggy N.J. farewell concert: review

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The Prince of Darkness revisited his heavy metal staples one last time at PNC Bank Arts Center Monday night

Police sergeant charged in underage sex sting released from custody

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The state Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case, had argued for Conte's detention

A Howell police sergeant charged with trying to meet a teen girl for sex in Ocean County was released from jail following a court hearing Tuesday. The "girl" was actually an undercover detective.

Richard Conte, 47, was arrested and charged last week with attempted luring or enticing of a child as part of a larger, state-led investigation, and lodged in the Ocean County jail. And he was suspended from his job without pay.

conte.jpgConte 

On Tuesday, an Ocean County Superior Court judge released him on home detention and telephone monitoring, his lawyer, Barry J. Serebnick, said. The officer lives in Howell.

Serebnick said the court's public safety assessment indicated his client should be released, which the judge agreed with.

The state Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case, had argued for Conte's detention.

Serebnick said he's not seen very much of the alleged evidence the state says they have against Conte, but he'll respond when it's presented.

Conte was charged after a detective posed as a 15-year old girl on the website Doublelist, according to the criminal complaint against him.

Conte allegedly responded and sent a photo of himself with it, and investigators recognized the man in the photo as Conte, a Howell police officer.

In chats, Conte said the girl/detective should claim she/he was 18 years old and said they should start another chat on the app Kik, the complaint says.

Another detective eventually took over the chat and asked about meeting in person - on Sept. 5.

The next day, Conte - who called himself "Ray Crusader" and "The Noble Crusader" on the chat app - messaged the girl/detective to say he was 19 years old and had previously had sex with underage girls. He said he would come to meet the detectives and they set up a time.

Conte said he wanted to "get naked" at that meeting, the complaint says. 

Conte showed at the meeting in his personal car, but drove away and Toms River police went after him and arrested him in Seaside Heights. Officers found condoms in Conte's pocket, the complaint says.

Investigators later traced the computer's IP address from the Kik chats and found it was created at Conte's home address.

Conte has been a police officer since 1997 and currently makes about $139,900 annually.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

 

Can't-miss HS football games, Week 2: Very top teams go head-to-head

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Five games are scheduled for this weekend that present matchups between Top 20 teams

HS football Group and conference rankings through Week 1

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Check out all of this week's changes.

Hurricane Florence unlikely to affect N.J., but Jersey Shore town preps dunes anyway

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The expected shift in the Florence's track puts New Jersey even further out of the line of fire with little to no risk of even being hit with tropical force winds. Watch video

While the latest Hurricane Florence forecasts predict New Jersey will not be affected by the massive Category 4 storm, one Jersey Shore town isn't taking any chances.

Belmar Mayor Brian Magovern said they will be "as prepared as possible" as crews worked to build amass temporary sand dunes in piles along the popular Monmouth County town's beaches.

Emergency management crews also began removing trash cans from the Belmar beaches on Sunday, around the time Florence strengthened from a tropical storm into a "dangerous major hurricane."

The work on the sand dunes began on Monday with crews building mounds of sand on the south end of the beach from 9th avenue to 20th avenue, the mayor said, which is where the land is narrowest from the beaches to the boardwalk. 

"This is in preparation for the hurricane," Magovern told NJ Advance Media Wednesday. "We can only go by listening to the forecast and we will be as prepared as possible."

The mayor also ordered that beach lockers and ticket booths be removed from the boardwalks. Crews are set to build a storm fence up along the entire length of the beach. 

"We just hope that the hurricane doesn't hit here," Magovern said. 

Recent forecast models now have the powerful Category 4 hurricane turning to the southwest and moving along the South Carolina coast after it approaches the Carolinas on Thursday or Friday.

The expected shift in the Florence's track puts New Jersey even further out of the line of fire with little to no risk of even being hit with tropical force winds.

The National Weather Service noted the chance of widespread hazardous weather in the Garden State is low for the next week.

Alexis Johnson may be reached at ajohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @alexisjreports. Find nj.com on Facebook.

 

Who's the bigger fraud, Nike or Colin Kaepernick? This Jersey guy calls it a tie

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What about the rights of Nike workers in developing nations? Watch video

Jim Keady feels Colin Kaepernick's pain. Sort of.

He, too, was a guy who believed in something and it cost him everything, to paraphrase the slug line of Nike's new marketing campaign featuring Kaepernick.

"The irony isn't lost on me," said Keady, who understands that a marketing campaign is not to be confused with social activism. Especially when, while seeming to support Kaepernick, Nike is still supplying 32 NFL teams with uniforms and cleats.

Believe in nothing and it costs you nothing. 

Keady is a Jersey Shore guy and activist who, most recently, ran for Congress in the Democratic primary.

In some circles, he's best known as the guy Chris Christie told to "sit down and shut up" when Keady pointed out that for many homeowners the Hurricane Sandy recovery was the disaster after disaster.

In others, he's best known as a leading critic of Nike. He founded a nonprofit organization called Team Sweat and went to Nike factories in Asia to document horrific working conditions. His documentary "Nike Sweatshops: Behind the Swoosh" has been viewed 1.4 million times on YouTube. He speaks at big-sports college campuses, like Villanova, asking the students to question the same moral trade-offs he felt St. John's made.

Keady's Nike odyssey begins 20 years ago, when he was a graduate assistant coach for the St. John's University soccer team. He was doing master's degree work in pastoral theology and social justice and did a research paper on Nike's Third World labor practices.

When the school signed a $3.5 million contract with Nike, Keady felt it was odds with the Catholic teachings. He refused to wear Nike gear and resigned.

"I had a dream to go on with coaching and was on the path to coach at the Div. I level," he said. "That ended there."

He was also playing professionally at the time with the North Jersey Imperials, where he was the back-up to Tim Howard, America's World Cup goalie. 

"There were a lot of St. John's connections with the team, and I felt like an outcast," he said.

So, while his soccer career ended, a lifetime of activism began.      

Keady is one of many people who think if Nike was really sincere about social justice, they should open up factories in places like Newark and Camden.

If Nike did make their products in American cities, it could help reduce poverty which could reduce crime and maybe change, just maybe, the battlefield mentality of some police and reduce the brutality and death Kaepernick took a knee to protest. Maybe Kaepernick should have made that a condition of his Nike employment.  

And maybe then Nike could claim to be a company sincerely interested in social justice and enlightenment, instead of what it is: a predatory capitalist corporate pig of the worst order. The kind that pays huge celebrity endorsements that drives up prices, and withholds stock to create frenzy with their buying public. Now Kaepernick joins the payroll. 

And he wore gameday socks with police as pigs? He's got the wrong oink. 

"What Nike has done just taken a very solid progressive idea and minimalized it into just another materialistic consumer campaign," Keady said.

Scott Paul, the president of the American Alliance for Manufacturing, agreed.

"We're all for making moves toward social justice," Paul said. "But they make shoes where ever they can find the cheapest, most exploitable labor on earth. And they market it to a population that can least afford it.

"If Nike wants real change, have Colin Kaepernick do a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new factory they opened in Detroit or Chicago or Newark," he said.

This kind of criticism of Nike is nothing new and Keady was one of the leaders. The company has more than 700 factories in some of the poorest countries in the world. Some of those countries have laws against unionization, enforced by armed police. 

Forced labor, including children, and dangerous working conditions are a documented part of Nike's corporate legacy for three decades.

 Ironic, isn't it, that Kaepernick campaign is another leg of the company's "Equality Campaign" started a year ago. The slogan was "Worth should outshine color."

Guess that depends on what color. Certainly not yellow. Or brown. 

It's people of color that make Nike's stuff. And the company determines their worth by their financial desperation -- not their production. Those workers generated $36.5 billion in total revenue and $16 billion in profits for the company, which pays many of them below the poverty line of their home countries.

Ironic, too, is that Nike celebrates -- and markets -- athlete activists like Lebron James and New Jersey fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad but dismisses activists looking into its labor practices. The Workers' Rights Consortium (WRC) in Washington and the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) have both run into Nike's unwillingness to continuing to cooperate with monitoring of overseas working conditions, ending a 12-year practice in 2015.

"Nike should be treated as enemies, in the same manner we view armies and governments that perpetrate human rights violations," said 1996 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose Ramos-Horta in discussing working conditions in Indonesia. 

I wonder if activist Colin Kaepernick is good with all that.

 I wonder if he researched Nike, or they researched him. Because there is another Jersey angle to this story. 

Earlier this year, Kaepernick raised $20,000 to a self-described "intergenerational collective of radical black women" called Assanta's Daughters. Okay, so they're against police brutality and aligned with Black Lives Matter.

But they're named to honor Assata Shakur, better known here in Jersey as Joanne Chesimard, hiding in Cuba and wanted for the 1973 murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster, a man who believed in something -- and it cost him everything. 

READ MORE MARK Di Ionno:

The good, the bad and the naked of NYC tourist season

A shocking murder. A haunted house. All part of N.J. history

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkDiIonno. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Strip club employee puts on tactical gear and arms himself with AK-47, cops say. They arrested him nearby

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The suspect fled when police arrived, but surrendered a short time later. The arrest caused traffic on the nearby Victory Bridge

A Sayreville strip club employee was arrested Tuesday afternoon after he donned tactical gear, armed himself with a rifle and bolted from the club, Middlesex County authorities said Wednesday.

At about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sayreville police received calls that an employee at Visions Gentleman Club was inside the Route 35 club with a gun, police and the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

Police arrived in time to spot the man - later identified as Kevin Smith, 32, of Keyport - hop in a car and drive away. He was wearing a ballistic vest, military-style helmet and had an AK-47-style firearm.

Police caught up to him a short distance away and he surrendered. Smith had the firearm and a loaded magazine when cops arrested him, the statement said

The gentleman's club is located in Sayreville's Melrose neighborhood and traffic on Route 35 at the Victory Bridge was briefly detoured during the arrest.

"This incident quickly unfolded and the decision not to immediately confront this individual was the right choice," Sayreville Police John J. Zebrowski said in the statement

"The restraint utilized by the responding officers defused a potentially tragic confrontation," he said.

Investigators later found a second tactical vest and several loaded, large capacity magazines inside the manager's office at Visions and at Smith's home in Keyport, prosecutors say they seized a rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition. 

Smith, who police say uses the alias Kevin Papalia, was charged with multiple firearms felonies, and unlawful use of a body vest.  

The fact that the incident occurred on the 9/11 anniversary led Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey to say in the statement: "On 9/11, a day in America's history where, we show our support for our first responders, we are indebted to the police officers involved in this matter for their extraordinary efforts to preserve life and keep the community safe." 

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo.

Find NJ.com on Facebook.

 

Brother and sister's fraud scheme got them millions - and a BMW. Now they're headed to prison

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Vishallie Verasawmi bought a 2016 BMW with the money, feds said. She and her brother are headed to prison

A brother and sister were sentenced to prison Wednesday after being found guilty of orchestrating a $3.7 million fraud, federal prosecutors said.

Shevandra Verasawmi, 38, of Matawan was sentenced to 87 months in prison and Vishallie Verasawmi, 37, of Green Brook, received four years, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said in a news release.

The pair had been accused of sending fake invoices to a New Brunswick medical services company where Vishallie worked and had access to the accounts payable system.

The two defrauded the company, which was not identified in court documents, into paying the Verasawmis' shell companies for services that were never provided, Carpenito said. 

The siblings then shifted the money to their bank accounts and used the money on credit card purchases. Vishallie bought a 2016 BMW 750Li sedan with some of the money, Carpenito's office said.

They forfeited $1,066,830 in proceeds from the scheme, along with the BMW.

U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson sentenced the Verasawmis in Trenton federal court after a one-week trial. The jury deliberated for an hour.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Vintage photos of N.J. foods for every taste

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What's on the menu in New Jersey? Everything!

Last winter, while out for a drive, I took my wife to White Rose Hamburgers in Highland Park.

FullSizeRender_4.jpg 

More properly, to "The White Rose System." Which, according to nj.com's Pete Genovese, "opened in 1956 or 1958 - let's say sometime in the 50s, because even the guys who work there are not sure."

The White Rose is one of the countless food spots in New Jersey that prides itself on being different. It's NOT White Tower, and it's not White Castle. My brother made regular runs there from Rutgers for French fries in the early '70s, and it hasn't changed much since ... a good thing. The food is good and plentiful and the ambience is nothing fancy. We both absolutely enjoyed our take-out burgers.

MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey

New Jersey is home to hundreds of unique places just like the White Rose as well as pretty much every fast food chain that's come down the pike since highways got people traveling. If you had a taste for just about anything, you've never had to go far in the Garden State to get it.

Here's a gallery of vintage photos showing a variety of eateries in New Jersey. And here are links to some other galleries you'll enjoy.

Vintage photos of foods for every taste in N.J.

Vintage photos of eclectic eats in N.J.

Vintage photos of diners in N.J.

Greg Hatala may be reached at greghatalagalleries@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.

NJ.com boys soccer Top 20, Sept. 13: Wild Week 1 shakes up rankings

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See the first regular-season edition of the boys soccer Top 20.

N.J.'s girls soccer elite: Who's committed to a D1 college program?

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Which girls have already given their verbal commit to play girls soccer.

Man, 78, rescued after suffering chest pains on oil tanker near Sandy Hook

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Crew members on Evrotas radioed the coast guard on Sept. 12, 2018, saying a worker on the ship needed medical help.

A 78-year-old man suffering from chest pains aboard a Liberian crude-oil tanker was rescued early Thursday by members of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Crew members aboard the 699-foot "Evrotas" radioed the coast guard about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, saying a worker on the ship needed medical attention.

The ship was in the Ambrose Channel, off the coast of Sandy Hook, the only shipping channel in and out of the Port of New York and New Jersey.

"A conference call between the coast guard flight surgeon and the ship's doctor determined that a (rescue) was the best option," the coast guard stated in a news release.

Emergency Medical Technicians with the National Park Service arrived in a boat about 12:15 a.m. and transferred the man to first-responders at a Coast Guard Station in Sandy Hook, the coast guard said.

The man was flown by helicopter to Monmouth Medical Center, the coast guard said.

The man was in stable condition on Thursday.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

 

Early-season girls soccer stats leaders

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Which players have made an impact early in the season?

College student guilty for her role in murder of marijuana dealer

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Prosecutors say the woman and her boyfriend exchanged texts like "you need to clean the bullets," the night of the crime

The college student charged along with her boyfriend with the slaying of their marijuana dealer in February of 2017 has been found guilty, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said Thursday.

Raquel Garajau, of Tinton Falls, and boyfriend Joseph Villani, conspired to kill 29-year-old Trupal Patel, prosecutors say. Garajua talked Villani through the process and planned how to clean up the murder afterward. 

Prosecutors said Villani shot and killed Patel in his Ocean Township residence on Feb. 5, and dumped his body in Shark River Park. A park ranger found Patel with gunshot wounds to the head on Feb. 22. 

Trupal Patel.jpgTrupal Patel, 29, of Brick, was found dead in a Monmouth County park.

At the time of the murder, Garajau was a 20-year-old honors student at Brookdale Community College. Villani was 21.

Garajau was indicted in May 2017 and ordered to remain in jail until her trial.

During her trial, which started in July of this year and and included 35 witnesses, jurors saw cell phone records between Garajau and Villani from the night of the killing. 

Garajau sent text messages reading: 

"You need to clean the bullets."

"Take your time bleaching everything. The whole entire door and inside."

"Take that bag of stuff out cause I touched his phone.. We will throw that stuff in the ocean." 

"Babe you need to move that car it's too important. Like ASAP. People will start noticing he's not answering."    

While Villani moved the body, prosecutors said, Garajau told him to "Facetime me please when you are done," and "I love you."

An indictment showed text exchanges dating back to May 2016 where the pair talked about plans to kill Patel and sell his marijuana to others. Villani's best friend also told investigators he had spoken about robbing Patel in the past. 

The jury found Garajau guilty on counts of murder, tampering with a witness and with physical evidence, armed robbery, theft, conspiracy to commit theft of marijuana, armed robbery and weapons charges. 

She's scheduled to be sentenced in November and faces a minimum sentence of 30 years.

Villani is currently being detained at the Middlesex County Jail awaiting his trial.  

Garajau's attorney, Robert Honeker, did not immediatly return a request for comment. 

Paige Gross may be reached at pgross@njadvancemedia.comFollow her on Twitter @By_paigegross 


Rutgers wrestler charged with aggravated assault after fight in New Brunswick

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Brett Donner, a 21-year old Wall resident, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault following an alleged incident in New Brunswick. Watch video

Rutgers University wrestler has been charged with aggravated assault stemming a Sept. 4 fight in New Brunswick, according to a Rutgers University Police Department community alert. 

Brett Donner, a redshirt sophomore on the Rutgers wrestling team, was arrested on Sept. 11 following an investigation by Rutgers' police.

Donner, a 21-year old Wall Township resident, was charged with third-degree aggravated assault for allegedly attempting to cause significant bodily injury, according to court records obtained by NJ Advance Media.

The incident was reported to have occurred at about 1 a.m. on Easton Avenue near Courtland Street in New Brunswick, according to a RUPD crime notification on Sept. 4.

Rutgers wrestling coach Scott Goodale declined comment when reached late Thursday night.

A person with knowledge of the situation told NJ Advance Media that Donner has been suspended from the team until his legal situation is resolved.

"We are aware of the situation and [are] gathering facts,'' said Kevin Lorincz, Rutgers' senior associate athletic director for communications. "We will have no further comment as this is a pending legal matter.''

Where Nick Suriano, Rutgers stand in weight class deliberation as practice begins

Donner, who wrestles at the 165-pound weight class, redshirted as a freshman and then compiled a 7-9 record for the Scarlet Knights last season. In addition to placing fifth in two tournaments, Donner competed for Rutgers at the Midlands Championships last December.

He finished 97-6 in four seasons at Wall High School, and placed third at the NJISAA Tournament in 2014 (160 pounds) and in 2016 (170 pounds).

The Rutgers wrestling team is set to return three national qualifiers from a 2017-18 campaign that included an 8-7 record in dual matches and the program's best team-finish (11th)  at the NCAA Championships in 2018.

The Scarlet Knights open their season Nov. 3 with a dual against Fresno State.

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.

This N.J. Barnes & Noble will close at end of 2018

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Barnes & Noble will join Best Buy and a Ruby Tuesday in closing locations in Howell by the end of 2018.

The Barnes & Noble in Howell will close at the end of the year as the book chain has opted not to renew the store's lease, a realtor confirmed. 

The shuttering of Barnes & Noble will follow the shuttering of a nearby Best Buy and Ruby Tuesday along Route 9.

The Barnes & Noble is in Lanes Mill Marketplace, which is anchored by a Lowe's and a Target.

Retail collapse: The 57 biggest chains closing stores

"It's a desirable location in the middle of a strong retail market," said Chuck Lanyard, the president of The Goldstein Group, a commercial real estate agency seeking a new tenant for the 24,000 square foot space. 

Lanyard  who confirmed the closing, said he didn't have specific knowledge Barns & Noble's reasons for shutting down that store. He noted that the chain has two nearby locations in Freehold Township and Brick.

"Consumers still want brick-and-mortar but they don't need as much brick-and-mortar," he said.

Barnes & Noble didn't return multiple calls and emails seeking additional information. The company shrunk its brick-and-mortar locations nationwide from 798 in 2008 to 640 in 2016, according to fortune.com. The book seller has 22 locations in the Garden State.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

 

HS football Week 2: Bold predictions for action-packed slate

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Check out the NJ high school sports staff's bold predictions for Week 2 of the football season.

Thousands of high schoolers, one lunch period. Students 'race' for seats as district finds fixes.

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A 'block scheduling' plan creating longer classroom sessions in the state's largest school district also includes a single lunch period, when all students eat at the same time.

Freehold regional Sampson Messenger SS.jpgSuperintendent Charles Sampson, left, and Board of Education President Michael Messenger at a meeting of the Freehold Regional High School District on Wednesday night. 

Students, parents and school officials say lunchtime chaos for a district of 11,000 high schoolers resulting from a schedule change has eased after a few tweaks and some simple getting used to since last week's start of classes.

"Lunch was better at least for some of the juniors I'm friendly with," said a junior at Freehold Township High School of lunch on Thursday, two school days after the Freehold Regional High School District's first day under a new "block" scheduling system that includes a single lunch period when all students eat at the same time.

Lunch wasn't exactly leisurely, however, said the student, a Freehold Township teen who asked that her name not be used.

"We all sprinted to the lunchroom and were able to get seats," she said of Wednesday's 35-minute lunch period, which was lengthened by seven minutes under the new schedule.

"But everyday is still a race to get a seat in there which is slightly stressful. They have added on rooms to eat, such as the auditorium and three health rooms, but still lines are long and some people are waiting about 25 minutes for lunch, still. They definitely listened to our complaints and tried to fix our eating situation and continue to tell us they will be doing more to help."

After several years of discussion and planning, Freehold's regional district -- the state's largest -- became the Garden State's latest to switch to an increasingly common system known as "block scheduling," in which fewer classes are held each school day without shortening the overall length of the day, in order to lengthen the block of time when each class meets. Classes therefore meet less often, but when they do, the longer block allows for deeper discussion and other more thorough forms of learning.

The district is for students in grades 9-12 from Marlboro, Howell, Colts Neck, Englishtown, Freehold Borough and Township, Farmingdale and Manalapan.

At the same time the district switched to block scheduling, it also implemented a single lunch period, which Superintendent Charles Sampson said was largely in response to parents' complaints that their children were often scheduled to eat at a different time than their friends, isolating them and preventing them from socializing during the one period each day when they were otherwise free to do just that.

"The reason we went to this schedule was because of the academic benefits,"  Sampson said. "And one reason (for the single lunch period) was complaints that kids weren't in lunch with their friends."

Sampson said he and officials of the district's seven high schools and from its food service had come up with plans for a single lunch period that demanded more space, more seating and more staff.

But the unfamiliarity of the new lunch schedule, the larger volume of students eating, the need for spaces apart from cafeterias, and the general uncertainty that first day of the school year, created confusion among students, congestion in hallways and on lunch lines, and an apparent shortage of tables and chairs that prompted some students to sit on the floor to eat.    

On top of the crowding and confusion, the discomfort many students felt was compounded by soaring temperatures and wilting humidity on that first Thursday of school.

Students and parents then took to social media to vent their frustration, and the bad news traveled fast.

"One of the misunderstandings was parents were saying 'My child is eating on the floor,'" Sampson said of the complaints. "No child had to sit on the floor. Students made that choice to eat on the floor."

So Sampson said steps were taken to alleviate the crowding and congestion, including providing additional seating in alternative spaces including auditoriums and rooms for large-group instruction. Administrators also staggered lunch bells to let waves of classes out minutes apart, reducing hallway congestion. And even lunch line configurations were altered to speed the serving of food.

Following a long weekend for the Rosh Hashana holiday, by Wednesday's lunch period the problems seemed to have eased, said Sampson and several board of education members at a meeting Wednesday night.

"The folks I talked to today, it was so much better than Friday," said Peter Buono, who represents Howell and is the board's vice president. 

The tone of social media posts had also changed

"I heard lunch at (Howell High School) was pretty smooth today," said one post on the Howell Happenings Facebook page.

The school board held a special meeting on Wednesday night to approve a special election on Oct. 2 for a referendum on a $39 million bond ordinance for a long list of capital maintenance projects including roof repairs and boiler replacements.

Sampson prepared a briefing on the lunch issue for the meeting, but by then concerns may have faded. Exactly one member of the public attended, and he left without speaking before the meeting ended. 

Freehold regional school meeting.jpgExactly one member of the public showed up at a Freehold Regional High School District meeting Wednesday night, when the district's lunchtime crowding was discussed. 

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Football, Week 2: No. 1 falls hard to No. 2, kicking heroics & more hot takes

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Week 2 in NJ football produces a landslide of memorable moments across the state

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