Here is some of what to expect in the new year from the town of Tabernacle
The year 2017 held a lot for the town of Tabernacle. With its end here, township and school officials have set their sights on goals for 2018.
Tabernacle Township
According to Mayor Stephen Lee IV, township committee is looking forward to continuing to better the town and work on the consolidation of emergency services in 2018.
With the Department of Public Safety now in place, after a vote in late September, the township is making the transition into having emergency services centralized. Although the issue was hotly debated, mainly due to billing for EMS services, Lee feels things will work out smoothly.
“We have the opportunity where we have a strong organization with the rescue squad, which has been built with taxpayer money, and we have a fire company that has been built with taxpayer money. Now we have an opportunity to be able to put a structure in place to have a person and the leadership of both organizations to run emergency services,” he said.
The committee is looking for qualified people to fill multiple township positions for a term from Jan 1 to Dec 31. The positions needing to be filled are architect, environmental consultant, site plan engineer, township attorney, township auditor, township bond council, township engineer, township prosecutor, township public defender, township risk manager, land development board attorney, and land development board engineer.
A list of required qualifications and application instructions can be found on the township’s website at www.townshipoftabernacle-nj.gov.
Tabernacle schools
This was the second year for Superintendent Glenn Robbins in his position. Having spent time adjusting to his new role and getting to know the students in the district, he has outlined a few of his own goals for the rest of the 2017–2018 school year.
Robbins hopes to focus on ensuring continued improvement of student performance, measured through specific indicators of progress. Designating the indicators will include
things such as curriculum audits and providing teachers and staff with additional resources to update curriculum to give students a more innovative learning experience.
In his letter to the district, Robbins said, “I believe learning is a lifelong process and our children’s passion for knowledge is formulated in their early years of education. Our children’s ability to meet the challenges of a global workplace requires an effective educational environment to foster their growth.”
The district is also hoping to develop a three- to five-year end-state vision and fiscal plan to address the state’s changing education and fiscal requirements. The district plans to achieve this by conducting utilization studies of programs and demographic studies. Using the results, the district staff will be able to present a comprehensive plan to the board of education by June.
In addition to these goals, the district hopes to reach the public more this coming year. The website was recently overhauled to make it more user-friendly, and by April, the district hopes to have developed a new plan using multiple methods of communication to reach more members of the community and include them in more community education programs.
“We believe the way to achieve high standards is by ensuring our students are both challenged academically and supported emotionally in partnership with our families and community,” Robbins said.
In regard to the students, for the 2017–2018 school year, the district will be continuing efforts to fully develop a comprehensive balanced literacy program and curriculum in grades kindergarten through eight, with a focus on Writer’s Workshop, Word Study and Personal Choice Reading.
