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The February 26, 2008 Board of Education (BOE) meeting was a short one this week. Dr. Heery, Mr. Galvin, and 2 officers from the NJ State Police started off the Superintendent’s re-port with a certificate of recognition presented to Ms. Kristen Dirato for her production of a com-prehensive video which is used by the state troopers for training purposes. Ms. Dirato is the EHT station manager for channel 2.
Dr. Heery continued his report, mostly which consisted of up coming dates and events.
In each school in the district, a teacher is picked by his/her peers for Teacher of the Year. These teachers will be honored at the March 11, 2008 BOE meeting.
The Primary Schools at Slaybaugh and Davenport will be dedicated on April 5. Dr. Heery also announced that our new primary schools were featured on page 26 in February 2008 Edition of “Security-Life Safety Systems”
It was anticipated that the February 27 Budget meeting will be the last one this year. (It was and I’ll report on it later in this article.)
A joint meeting of the BOE and the Township Committee is being held on Tuesday, March 4 to review the separate question proposal that the citizens of our township will be asked to vote on.
The post Professional Day review received positive feedback as reported by Ms. Gruccio. There were dozens of workshops available to the teachers including many on Differentiating Instruction, web pages, and one on suicide prevention for grades 6-12.
Dr. McCartney followed-up on problem of the KidsKlub providing coverage on half days for the PM. Examples of days not covered in the PM is the first day of school, last few days of school, etc. He had surveyed the KidsKlub staff and found that there was a concern about adequate staffing coverage to do this. Dr. McCartney questioned the BOE if he should pursue this issue further or not. The suggestion on holding KidsKlub until 4 instead of 6 was made. It was decided by the BOE to keep looking into the matter and to review the program for 6th graders as it was not being fully utilized and loosing money.
In the Public portion of the BOE meeting, Ms. Kathy Waszen echoed the positive responses from the teachers concerning the professionalism, relativity, and excellence of the many different workshops held on the past In-service day. Student representative Yaser Khalid reported that he was one of the senior judges for the Middle Schools Science Fair. He felt the students had done a remarkable job and should go far in the next level. Another student rep, Rhett Williamson, said that he had heard Bus Radio and was impressed.
In Personnel, the following Paraprofessionals/Volunteers for the High School were approved:
· Katherine Lee, Assistant Girls Lacrosse coach
· Stephanie Grutzmacher, Assistant Girls Lacrosse coach
· Evan Yubas, Assistant Boys Lacrosse coach
· Andrew Kaplan, Assistant Boys Lacrosse coach
· John Pope, Assistant Girls Crew Coach
· John McElhenny, Assistant Girls Crew Coach
Noelle E. Caucci, Advance Science for Alder Ave. Middle School, was approved for this budgeted position. Ms. Caucci has been substituting in this position and the district has received confirmation of her certification effective 2/1/08.
Brianne Reed_Pahang, Grade 5 at Miller, revised her maternity/child rearing leave from 3/17 to 4/28/08.
Judith L. Haverstick, School Counselor at Slaybaugh Primary, will be out on Family leave from 2/21-5/12/08.
Ryan Platt, High School Spring Weight Room Advisor resigned as of 2/20/08.
Under Committee Reports, Mr. Castellano reported that the EHT Community Partners First Annual Winter Dance was sold out and raised around $20,000. Ms. Spiker recapped the Curriculum committee meeting. Mr. Jay Kearns, Chairperson for the Buildings and Grounds committee, reported the retention pond at Miller was pumped out to determine the level of clay and is being assessed to improve the performance of the retention pond. The punch list for the renovations at the Alder Ave Middle school was being finalized and that there was no word on when the High School additions/renovations would go out to bid
Part of the BOE meeting is the agenda which includes the Bills and Claims Report by Vendor. These documents are available to the public at each meeting for review.
· The monthly electric bill for the district was $210,689.14,
· Gas for vehicles was $104,422.74,
· Water was $2,676.30,
· Gas for the buildings was $27,824.85,
· Phone was $11,252.91 for basic service while the long distance charges were $4,084.62,
· Milk $6,129.01.
The grand total for the month was $2,253,851.47.
February 27th Budget meeting was the last and dealt with the Capital budget. Decisions were made on what could be cut and what was necessary. All cosmetic items were cut immediately such as repainting the exterior of Davenport and Slaybaugh. Repaving parking lots, parking lot lighting replacements, and window replacements, etc were also put on hold for the future while replacing the original boilers at Davenport and Slaybaugh, upgrading security systems, a new domestic hot water heater for Swift, were some of the items kept in the budget. The BOE prioritized the Capital Budget by keeping items that were a savings in energy costs, concerned the safety and welfare of the students and personnel, and being mindful of the taxpayer.
Candidate’s Night, a joint endeavor between the EHT Home and School Association and The EHT Education Association, is scheduled for Thursday, March 13 at 7 PM in the BOE room of the Adler Ave. Middle School. Members of the Public are encouraged to attend and will be given the opportunity to ask questions of the 5 candidates running for the School Board. If you can’t attend but have a question you would like to ask, email the question to me at SRfromEHT@Aol.com.
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