The agenda items began with student recognition. First up was recognition for music students from Marlton Middle School, who had 5 students make the Olympic Conference Honors Band, 2 students in the South Jersey Junior High Honors band, and 2 students who made both bands. The students were recognized, along with their music teacher Mark White.
Next up was recognition for several teams:
- The DeMasi Middle School Girls Basketball team was honored for finishing with a 10-1 record and being co-champions of their division.
- The Marlton Middle School Boys Basketball Team was recognized for finishing with an undefeated 10-0 record and being champions of their division.
- 6 members of the Marlton Middle School Wrestling team were honored for placing in the South Jersey Middle School Wrestling League Tournament.
- Matt Kuhlow was South Jersey Middle School Wrestling Coach of the Year
A complete list of students honored can be found here, by clicking 'Regular Board Meeting', then 'View the Agenda' and finally '4.1 Student Recognitions'.
Next up was the '2018-2019 Preliminary Budget Presentation'. This was an identical presentation to the one given last week, which I previously documented in great detail. I won't review it all again, but there were several very important items mentioned that were not mentioned last week. Some came up during the presentation and some came up during the question and answer session that followed. As they relate to school security, I will mention them all here.
- The district has 800 security cameras that are being systematically replaced as they age. I wasn't previously aware of this, but when mentioned, I looked around the DeMasi Cafeteria that the meeting was being held in, and sure enough, there were indeed a bunch of cameras.
- Marlton Middle School is currently piloting a 'Visitor Management System'. There is money in the 2018-19 budget to roll the program out to all schools next year.
- Members of the board and Mr Scavelli had meetings with the new Township Manager Mike Barth and Chief of Police Chew this week regarding the SRO program. The school district will be increasing the money in the budget for the SRO program to $500,000. This will be enough to place a full time SRO in every school. The agreement between the police and the school district will take advantage of the newly created Class 3 Officer.
Both Mr Scavelli and Board President Joe Fisacaro thanked the township officials they worked with over the past week to get the SRO deal in place. Mr Scavelli also mentioned that he, School Board Administrator John Recchinti and a representative from the Evesham Township Police Department would be meeting with their architects soon to go to every school to look at reconstruction of the entrances with safety concerns in mind.
During public comment, a question was asked regarding the 'Misc Revenues' in the budget. The member of the public wanted to the see the costs for those revenues to determine what the actual profit is. Mr Scavelli advised that those numbers are periodically calculated but he did not have them this evening. Another member of the public asked questions regarding the school calendar, asking that there not be so many weeks with days off, if they can try to concentrate them together for next year. Several members of the public expressed gratitude regarding the changes in the SRO program, but wondered if there were any other measures that could be looked at.
All board agenda items were passed with no negative vote (but a few abstentions).
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