District 'Ready to Roll' in New School Year

The district has released some information about the beginning of the school year, with technology upgrades, and costs for lunches.

“The focus this coming year will be on increasing student achievement, eliminating bullying and the new ,” Superintendent of Schools Michael Schilder said at Tuesday’s board of education meeting.

According to the release, the projected enrollment in the district, as of Aug. 23, is 8,705. This is a decrease from the 8,826 that were enrolled as of Oct. 15, 2011 for the 2011-2012 school year.

As far as curriculum and instruction, according to the release, the kindergarten through 12th grade health program curriculum has been revised, as has the math and language arts curricula to be aligned to the NJ Core Content Standards.

At the , a new course in probability and statistics has been added, and the amount of time for Spanish instruction in the sixth grade has doubled.

In addition, schedules have been adjusted to allow for fourth grade choir performances.

“We hired 70 teachers over the summer due to retirements, resignations and new positions to decrease class size,” Schilder said.

As far as technology, according to the release, all computer labs and libraries have been upgraded to Windows 7 and MS Office 2010, while PowerSchool has also been updated to its newest version, running on 20 servers.

At and intermediate schools, the district has installed building-wide secure Wi-Fi wireless, and 60 Smart Boards have been installed in kindergarten through fourth grade classrooms, plus LCD projectors in grades five through 12.

In terms of building projects, the release said, the roofs were replaced at and primary schools, while additional parking places were constructed at and Hamilton primary schools. Solar canopies were also installed at the middle school and high school, all funded through a county grant.

Finally, a , installed to create more walkers and eliminate buses, all funded through a township grant.

As for school lunches, costs at the primary and intermediate schools will be $2.40, the cost at the middle school will be $2.55 and the cost at the high school will be $2.70.

“We are ready to roll, and confident that we are going to have a good school year,” Schilder said.