Acupuncture in Colts Neck, NJ

COLTS NECK, NJ — A Colts Neck singer has made her exit from American Idol.

During Monday night’s episode, Jacquie Lee, 28, left the show after she failed to make the Top 20 in the “Ohana Round,” where performers were judged by idols, family members and industry experts.

While Lee’s “Ohana Round” performance was not shown in the episode, and she’s yet to directly address her exit from the show, she did post a selfie late Monday night with the caption “At least my dress is pretty.”

Lee’s exit from the show follows the exit of fellow Monmouth County singer, Julia Sienna Santiago, of Freehold. Santiago was cut during the show’s Hollywood Week round.

“To say I am blessed is an absolute understatement,” Santiago said following Hollywood Week. “Beyond thankful for my family who have supported me since the beginning, every step of the way, and continue to push me.”

“I am walking away with so many new memories and friends,” she continued. “Grateful to have made it to the top 60 in that Golden Room. All glory to God.”

Though Lee and Santiago didn’t make the Top 20 of American Idol, Bergen County singer Jake Thistle did, getting a green light to the next round following his performance of “Sleep On Me.”

"All right, Jake, so you know you took a big chance," Judge Lionel Richie said. "...But as a songwriter to a songwriter, you did well."

While Lee didn’t make this season’s Top 20, it’s far from her first time competing in local and national singing competitions.

Prior to her appearance on American Idol, she starred on the fifth season of “The Voice” in 2013 under the mentorship of coach Christina Aguilera. Lee finished second to the winner Tessanne Chin.

And though she didn’t win the fifth season of “The Voice,” she did win the local title of Freehold Idol in Downtown Freehold in 2012.

During her American Idol performance in January, Judge Lionel Richie described Lee as someone with “a bring-the-house-down voice.”

“I’m already standing up,” Richie said. “It’s a yes for me.”

To keep up with this season of American Idol, you can watch new episodes when they air Mondays at 8/7c.

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Colts Neck’s own Jacquie Lee, a Top 30 finalist on American Idol this season, says she found songwriting to be a happy place while growing up in a Jersey-Italian household that always seemed to be listening to music.

Lee, who in 2013 made it to second place on The Voice, is back in the singing spotlight on this season of American Idol. Having wowed the judges with her rendition of Annie Lennox’s “I Put a Spell on You,” Lee made it through Hollywood Week in Nashville and is appearing in the Top 30 in tonight’s episode, filmed in Hawaii. She will competing alongside fellow Jersey native Jake Thistle, also in the Top 30.

“I decided to go on American Idol for my inner child,” Lee tells New Jersey Monthly. “I’m just excited to be able to be on this platform.”

Lee says her family’s love for music ignited her passion for making it, citing her father’s Nicolette Larson CDs and Jersey artists like Lauryn Hill. Once, seeing Hill perform for MTV Unplugged, Lee says something in her soul “caught on fire,” she recalls. “I thought, That is an artist that is so authentic and just says what she needs to say.”

When she was 15, Lee auditioned for season five of The Voice, where she sang Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black.” Her electrifying performance secured her a spot on Christina Aguilera’s team for the season, and she eventually placed runner-up to winner Tessanne Chin.

“Starting young has helped me find my voice and what I want to contribute into the world as an artist,” says Lee. “There were a lot of learning curves, and definitely moments that could have broken me, especially starting as a teenage girl.”

After The Voice, Lee was signed to a label while she was still in high school and began touring around the country. By the time all of her friends began going off to college, she was still following music. She struggled with industry pressures. “I was still searching for myself and who I was as an artist,” she recalls. “I felt like I was being pushed very fast in a certain direction, and…like I was getting boxed in before I knew who I was.” She came to realize that she wouldn’t pursue music if she couldn’t have “freedom of expression.”

After moving to Los Angeles and learning to navigate the industry as a young woman, Lee began to produce and mixmusic for herself rather than the pop circuit. She has since released four EPs, which draw influence from her favorite genres, including soul, jazz and indie rock.

“The beautiful part about being an artist is you get to shed so many layers of skin,” she says. “And it is really painful, but it’s also really cool, because you’re constantly growing and evolving into a better version of yourself.”

Lee’s newest endeavor? Uploading singing videos to YouTube, shot in one take as a way of capturing raw, real performances. The first video features an original song, “You’ve Got Time.”

“Just keep an eye on me,” Lee says. “You never know what’s coming around the corner for me.”

A proposal to rename a Monmouth County elementary school after President Donald Trump is drawing mixed reactions from residents.

The idea was raised during the March 4 meeting of the Colts Neck Board of Education by board member Robert Scales. The district has two similarly named schools: Conover Road Elementary School, which serves grades three through five, and Conover Road Primary School, which serves students from pre-K through second grade. The proposal would apply to the primary school.

“I think if we look at who our true ally is and kinda who we’re modeling things after, the birthday of America, and someone who is contributed a great deal of time to this great town of Colts Neck, it would be our President Donald J. Trump,” Scales said during the meeting.

No formal action was taken at the meeting, but Scales said he would like to form a committee to explore the logistics of the proposal.

The district previously hosted Linda McMahon last fall as part of a tour highlighting American history in schools.

“I mean, I think he really hasn’t done anything of monumental importance for a school to be named after him,” said Mohammad Chater.

“I think it’s great. It’s all positive. Trump has really done a lot for our country. I’m 100% for it,” said Sonja Gregoire.

Others questioned whether a school should be named after a current political figure.

“I don’t think that things should be named for a sitting president. I mean, it’s all right to memorialize them after a while, but it seems like Trump wants everything in his area named for him, and I would vote against it,” said Joe Reinbold.

A proposal floated during a recent school board meeting in Colts Neck could make a Monmouth County elementary school the first in the nation named after President Donald Trump.

During the March 4 meeting of the Colts Neck Board of Education, board member Robert Scales suggested forming an exploratory committee to examine renaming Conover Road Primary School the “Donald J. Trump Primary School.”

If the idea were eventually approved, the Pre-K through second-grade school could become the first public school in the United States named after Trump.

Scales framed the proposal as both a practical change and a symbolic gesture tied to the nation’s upcoming milestone anniversary.

“When you think about the nation, we have a birthday coming up. It’s 250 years,” Scales said during the meeting. “How can we celebrate that?”

“I’d like to form a committee to explore renaming the Conover Road Primary School to the Donald J. Trump Primary School.”

Scales told fellow board members the committee would study the logistics, cost and feasibility of renaming the building.

The district currently has two schools with nearly identical names — Conover Road Primary School and Conover Road Elementary School — which he argued can cause confusion for parents and residents.

The proposed renaming would apply to the primary school, which serves the district’s youngest students, while the elementary school serves grades three through five.

Scales also argued that the district should recognize leaders he believes have supported the community.

“Who truly is an ally of our district?” Scales asked during the meeting. “We don’t have a governor that is protecting us.”

In making his case, Scales noted that other presidents have had schools named in their honor — but said Trump has not.

“There are no schools in America named after Donald J. Trump, but there are 80 named after Barack Obama,” he told fellow board members.

Scales also suggested the timing could coincide with the country’s upcoming celebration marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

He added that Trump has “contributed a great deal of time to this great town,” though he did not detail specific examples during the meeting.

If the board ultimately decides to move forward, they would have to consider existing policies governing how school buildings are named or renamed. Those policies typically require a formal review process and community input before any decision is made.

Some members of the community have already pushed back on the idea.

On resident wrote on social media that Donald Trump does not embody the "virtues we hope to instill in our children," instead, he insisted Trump "represents division over unity, grievance, overgrowth, personal loyalty over public responsibility."

Another resident raised potential security concerns over naming a school after Trump that could potentially put student's safety at risk.

The board did not immediately vote on forming the exploratory committee during the meeting.