By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHTSTOWN — The East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education approved a motion to change its next meeting to March 5 from March 12.
The move was made in order for a tentative budget to be submitted to Mercer County by a March 5 deadline.
”Obviously for budgeting, we are a little bit abbreviated this year simply because we have the two percent cap in place, (and) there won’t be an election and a budget vote (this April),” Mr. Forsthoffer said. “Things that I have sent you in the past have talked about personnel issues we have and some potential programmatic additions.”
A second public hearing of the budget will likely be held on March 26.
The board reorganization meeting, previously scheduled for the end of April, was eliminated on Monday.
As previously reported in the Herald, the Board of Education moved its school elections to November from April.
Additionally, the Board of Education unanimously approved a motion to align the Hightstown High School science curriculum to the State Science Task Force, which mandates collapsed standards.
It has been an ongoing process for the past two years to revise the curriculum.
"In 2009, the state went and took the National Standards and went from ten standards, (and) collapsed them into four standards,” said Sandy Small, supervisor of curriculum, technology and grants.
"They’re not really taking anything out but putting an emphasis on different parts of the curriculum. So what we did was, when redid our packet, we really saw that there were some things that we had to spend some more time on, some things less time on,” Ms. Small said.
She continued, “It was a matter of changing the state standard numbers, the core curriculum standards from 2008 to 2009.”
"Does it affect how many science courses we offer?” asked Board Member Suzann Fallon.
"Absolutely not,” answered Ms. Small. “All they did was collapse the standards. They did not take anything out. It’s simply a matter of where they are putting them and where they are putting the emphasis.”
The board also approved a resolution to participate in the Race to the Top grant award project. The district would receive $29,642.
Half of the money would go to the state government to move its mission forward.
The grant helps schools fund purchasing the New Jersey Smart’s computer system as well as an evaluation system.
"For us, we will be tweaking our evaluation system,” Mr. Forsthoffer said.
Noteworthy, concerns were raised regarding where voters will cast their ballots in the upcoming election.
The location has now been moved to Hightstown High School annex gym. Last year, Hightstown residents voted at St. Anthony’s of Padua.
Before that, residents cast their votes within a hallway of the high school.
"It was bad,” said Ms. Fallon, referring holding the polling place in a hallway of the high school. “It’s really tiny.”
Kurt Stumbaugh, business administrator and board secretary, said that there would be ample room in the gym to accommodate voters.
Roosevelt’s tuition contract for the upcoming 2012 to 2013 school year was also approved at the meeting.
"We’ve been giving them the two percent cap. They are actually close to twenty percent below the statutory tuition rate,” said Mr. Strumbaugh.
"I wanted to get them up closer to the statutory (rate) but it was not well received, and the thought was we don’t want to push them too far because they would pursue other options,” said Mr. Strumbaugh.
Said Board President Robert Laverty, “We don’t need to go into contract details.”
Mr. Strumbaugh said, “It’s pretty simplistic. They can live with two percent. We can live with two percent.”
Next year, Roosevelt is considering moving its sixth graders to the East Windsor Regional School District.
Another concern raised at the meeting was concern regarding background checks for school volunteers.
"We want parents to volunteer and participate in their kids’ education but is there some sort of protection for blindly approving people without any knowledge of who they are?” Board Member Bruce Ettman asked.
"Ironically, we are working on that,” Mr. Forsthoffer said.
A statue on the matter is being rewritten and will be brought up at the next board meeting, according to Mr. Forsthoffer.
However, he continued, “These individuals do not need to have criminal background checks or need to be fingerprinted.”
The next Board of Education meeting will be held March 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hightstown High School cafeteria.

