The Evesham Township School Distract had their regularly scheduled meeting on 10/26/2018. The agenda can be found here. Ms Stone was not in attendance. The meeting began with a presentation by Superintendent Scavelli regarding the current enrollment statistics. Enrollment needs to be reported to the state every October 15th, so every October, a presentation on enrollment is made to the public.
The presentation can be found here. I wrote a piece last month regarding 2018-2019 enrollment showing similar statistics. The next demographic projection will be released in January.
Item 6, approval of minutes passed by a vote of 6-0-2, with Mr McGoey and Mr Mehigan abstaining, as neither was in attendance for the meeting for which the minutes were being approved.
Mr Scavelli then talked about the Strategic Planning Session that occurred on October 15th. Due to massive cuts in state funding, the district has scheduled 3 planning sessions looking for public input on the direction the school district will take, to find consensus in visions and goals. There were 55 attendees at the session. The next session is on October 29th at 7pm at Marlton Middle School and everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.
Mr Scavelli then announced the district's intention to pursue Sustainable Jersey for Schools certification, item 7.4 in the agenda. This is a commitment from all members of society to produce a healthier school climate. Mr McGoey asked whether getting certified binds us to do anything expensive. Mr Scavelli advised that it does not bind us to anything, and many of the items required to receive certification are already being done in the district. Ms Knoll expressed her appreciation that the district was pursuing this, as she went to training for this program back in April. Mr Bravo asked what the benefits of the program are (aside from a cleaner environment). Mr Scavelli and Ms Knoll advised that being certified enables the school district to receive grants from Sustainable New Jersey for other projects.
Item 7 passed by a vote of 8-0.
Item 8, Curriculum & Instruction passed 8-0.
Item 9, Finance & Operations passed 8-0, except for items 9.11 and 9.12, for which Mr McGoey abstained.
Item 10, Personnel passed 8-0, with the exception of 10.8, which was abstained upon by Ms Barbagiovanni, Mr Fisacaro and Mr McGoey due to relatives in the school district.
Item 11, Policy, passed by a vote of 8-0.
For Item 12, Committee Reports, Mr Mehigan asked for a summary of the assessment of curriculum and instruction. He had read through the report which was more than 100 pages, but there isn't a summary, so he is not able to determine whether Evesham is satisfied with the results, whether the results were good, bad, mediocre, etc. Ms McGulick said she would write up a summary of how the district performed.
Item 12 passed, but I do not seem to have written down how the vote went.
For new business, a motion was made to authorize the solicitor to appeal the Teddy Bear Academy ruling and 'take other appropriate action'. The motion passed 7-0-1, with Mr Mehigan abstaining. There were approximately 20 members of the public that came regarding the Teddy Bear Academy situation who broke out into applause at this point.
During public comment, Ila Vassallo congratulated the school district for its decision to become certified with Sustainable Jersey. She is a member of the Evesham Green Team and is hoping to work with the school district to aid in this process.
Christopher St John asked if there were any other measures that were being taken regarding Teddy Bear Academy, that he felt the battle should be in the legislature and not necessarily the court. Mr Donio, the School District solicitor advised that it was a multi-faceted fight and the appeal was just one part of that. He noted that the resolution passed regarding TBA authorized both the appeal and 'other appropriate action'. Mr Donio encouraged the supporters of TBA to continue their fight and to keep the pressure on. Mr Fisacaro echoed those sentiments, advising that community matters and the board working with the public is important. "When you are with us is... when we are our strongest, so thank you for everything you've done."
During Board Announcement, Ms Everhart congratulated DeMasi Middle School for their participation in the Steam Tank competition in Atlantic City that she recently attended. She also encouraged everyone to vote on November 6 and wished good luck to all the candidates.
Ms Ryan thanked everyone for participation in the Woodstream and Van Zant 50th anniversary celebration.
The next meeting of the School Board is November 15th. The next Stratgeic Planning session is October 29th. Election Day is November 6th. There are 3 positions on the 9 member board that are up for election. I did attend the 'Meet The Candidates' even this week and hope to have a blog written about it within the next few days.
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