What will Tuesday night's Sayreville Board of Education meeting bring?
SAYREVILLE -- For the first time since residents of Sayreville learned that six students received probation for their role in the hazing of their teammates in the high school football locker room, the Sayreville Board of Education will meet tonight.
It's hard to predict whether the meeting will feature heated debate or a moment of healing -- the last school board meeting featured some rumblings of protest about the cancelation of the football season, but a statement from the county prosecutor confirming that crimes occurred in the high school locker room may have put that to rest.
What seems less likely is an immediate return to normalcy, with some questions still unanswered.
In October 2014, the district canceled the rest of the football season, and eventually fired the head coach, after accusations that seven boys violently and sexually hazed four of their teammates in the locker room.
Tonight's meeting begins at 7:30 in the high school cafeteria.
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School begins Thursday, and the first football game will take place the week after.
Andrew Carey, the Middlesex County prosecutor, issued a lengthy news release Monday night shedding new light on the charges. Criminal cases against six of seven juveniles have been resolved. All received probation and community service after guilty pleas or Family Court trials. The charges ranged from simple assault to hazing. None were adjudicated delinquent on the most serious charges.
"The community of Sayreville needs to know that these serious crimes occurred, and now must work together to heal," Carey said in a news release Monday.
Some issues, however, remain unresolved.
Legal battles are likely to continue. Carey and one of the defense attorneys, Richard Klein, have sniped at one another. For example, around 3:30 today, Klein said in an emailed statement that Carey's news release was "peppered with some distortions of the facts."
One of those distortions, Klein said, was that the facts alleged by the prosecutor were proven in a court of law.
"This is simply not true as it applies to both of the juveniles that went to trial," Klein said.
It is possible that some of the adjudications against two players will be appealed.
It's also unclear whether any of the seven students will try to return to school. And the prosecutor mentioned in the four-page, 1,000-plus word news release that the high school's principal acted as a character witness in a Family Court trial, tartly adding that he did so "despite having no personal knowledge of the assaults and abuses that occurred in the high school locker room."
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.