The board of education’s business and finance committees met on June 4 to discuss how to spend $3.1 million in stabilization aid from the state that was restored after a cut of $6.9 million from the district budget.
Board member Adam Greenbaum noted the following possible reinstatements:
- The ROTC program, with two positions and supplies
- The golf program at the high-school level
- The bowling club at high school and middle-school levels
- Reinstated positions in the Alternative High School Program rather than reassignments.
- Four new sections at the elementary-school level
- Update of the English and Language Arts curriculum
- Interactive panels for classrooms to use for instruction
- Diagnostic software dealing with assessments for elementary schools
None of the items discussed was formally adopted at the time of the committee meeting, but will be on the agenda for the June 11 board meeting.
“The biggest chunk of the restored funding is looking at the investment of the teaching staff salary guide,” Greenbaum said. “This is half of the restored funds. As we talked about in our last meeting, one of the big challenges we have in our district is recruitment and retention of staff.
“When we looked at other districts in our area and South Jersey,” he added, “what we saw is that we’re on the low end of that scale from steps one through 10, and where we’re headed next year and where other districts are headed. We’re on target to be one of the lowest-paying districts if we didn’t do something about it.”
Greenbaum explained that the staff salary guide issue was proposed by Superintendent Dr. Kwame Morton long before the district budget cuts. Greenbaum also highlighted the four new sections at the elementary schools on the west side that could help with a projected increase in population there, according to a recent demographic survey presented to the board.
“We’re already seeing a lot of that growth now and the need for additional sections,’ Greenbaum emphasized, “so this is something that’s critical to class size, reasonable and not having every class maxed out, and to have open staff to teach that and, very importantly, to reduce the number of forced enrollments (to other schools) of students outside of their home school to go to another school.”
