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Hayes chosen to lead the Board of Education
(by Genny Elias Warren/Correspondent - May 07, 2008)
At its reorganization meeting Thursday night, the Boonton Township Board of Education elected a new president and vice president.
John Hayes was elected as the new president of the board, which holds its meetings in the library media center at Rockaway Valley School. Robin Kalfus was elected vice president of the board.
John Murray II, business administrator/board secretary, told the board that in the recent election, the three members up for re-election won their bids. They are: Robin Kalfus, Marie Naeem and Valerie Harrs.
Murray also informed the board that the 2008-09 budget proposal had passed by a margin of 27 votes with 290 residents voting for the budget and 263 against it. Voter turnout, he reported, was 557 people, which represented about 18 percent of the total voting population for the township.
To accommodate the schedule of the new president, the board changed the night and time of its meetings for the next year. Beginning in June, the board will move its meetings to the second and fourth Wednesdays of month. The meetings will still be held in the school’s library media center. The May meeting will remain at Thursday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m.
The board heard a report from Murray regarding the renovations of the softball field. He said that a vendor has been brought in to reline and cut the field. It will take a couple of years to get the field back up to standards, he said, adding that the Tri-Town Little League, which uses the field for its games, has agreed to maintain the field.
During her report, Superintendent Roseann Humphrey reported that the seventh-grade and eighth-grade students were in the process of taking the ASK tests and that there were problems. She said, however, that the problems encountered were from the test itself, as the school had been sent the wrong answer sheets. Therefore, testing dates had to be extended. Next week, the fifth and sixth grade will be tested.
Humphrey also reminded the board that the week of May 5-9 is Teacher Appreciation Week. The board, she said, had purchased a special gift for the teachers.
Humphrey told the board that it needed to honor students and teams that had excelled during the year. Several that she mentioned were:
The girl’s basketball team, which won the Group One Championship of the Greater Morris County Junior School Coaches Association;
Two students from the forensics team that received trophies -- Lucy Chen in comedic dialogue and Andrew Taranda in improvisation; and two members of the advanced band who made Area Band - Abby Davidson for flute and Claire Buesser for clarinet.
In other news, the board: recognized board member Marta Pascarella for her leadership during the 2007-08 year; agreed to look into updating the 1999 books for its health curriculum; accepted the resignation of Carol Champagne, treasurer of school monies; approved reappointments and salaries for returning teachers, both tenured and untenured, the classroom aides, facilities personnel, office personnel and bus drivers; as well as appointed Kalfus and Naeem to the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC) committee for the 2008 District Performance Review.
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