BY MARK ROSMAN
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — Pupils and staff members at the C. Richard Applegate School will welcome a new administrator to the building next week.
Susan Greenwald Gilbert was appointed as the school’s interim principal by the Board of Education at its Feb. 22 meeting. Gilbert will serve from March 7 through June 30 at a salary of $34,000, according to information provided by the board.
Gilbert is currently an adjunct professor in early childhood education at Montclair State University. Prior to her position there, she held principal and vice principal positions in Marlboro and Howell and supervisory positions in Highlands and Lacey. She started her career as a teacher in Manasquan and then Lacey.
Gilbert holds a master’s degree in education administration, supervision and curriculum planning, and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, according to information provided by the board.
Applegate School Principal Barbara Longo will be out on medical leave during that time, according to district administrators.
In other personnel action, the board accepted the retirement of Marshall W. Errickson School teacher Linda Marinos, whose final day with the district will be June 30.
The board approved the hiring of three individuals for the remainder of the 2004-05 school year: Theresa M. Gallaher, a speech language specialist; Mary Ellen Davis, a long-term substitute teacher, assigned to the Barkalow Middle School; and Alison Koster, a long-term substitute teacher assigned to the Applegate and Errickson schools.
At a previous meeting the board accepted the retirement of Beverly Stern, effective June 30. Stern is presently the nurse at the Freehold Township Early Learning Center in addition to being the head nurse in the district since 1996. She has worked in Freehold Township for almost three decades.
Stern said she is proud of the advances that health care has made in the district.
“We have a book of procedures that all of our school nurses follow,” she said. “I took the best of what every nurse did and incorporated it into that book, which has the force of school board policy. I’ve shared that book with many other districts.”
Stern said the work of a school nurse includes trying to prevent illness among students as well as treating children when they become sick or injured in school.
She said she loves working in the district’s new building for 3- to 5-year-olds and will miss the sense of community among staff and students that has developed in the short time that the early learning center has been open.
District administrators confirmed that the board will introduce its tentative budget for the 2005-06 school year on March 8. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for the board’s March 22 meeting.
In the current school year, the K-8 district is operating with a $53.2 million budget that was approved by voters in the April 2004 election. The tax rate rose from $1.427 to $1.545 per $100 of assessed valuation to support the district’s 2004-05 budget. The owner of a home assessed at the township average of $200,000 presently pays about $3,090 in K-8 school taxes.
In other news, the district announced that it is conducting an ongoing community-wide effort to find and help children who are in need of special education programs.
In order to qualify for the preschool disabled program within the district, a child must be 3 to 5 years old and not enrolled in kindergarten in September 2005. A child turning 3 during the 2005-06 school year would be eligible. The child must also have a suspected or diagnosed disability in either communication, motor, cognitive, emotional, visual or hearing skills.
Evaluations to determine eligibility for the special education program are conducted by the Freehold Township School District at no cost to parents of Freehold Township children. For further information about this program call the Department of Educational Services at (732) 431-9355.