By Nicole M. Wells, Special Writer
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — “Sit down, shut up and color.”
That’s the message Ken Mortello said he and other members of the public received at a recent Bordentown Board of Education meeting when they voiced opposition to a district-wide schedule change for the 2013-14 school year.
According to resident Melanie Kunkler, the problem is not just the schedule change itself, but also that at the meeting Feb. 6, the board voted to approve the 2013-14 school calendar as an agenda item without first consulting with and seeking feedback from the district’s parents, who would be affected by the change.
”They snuck this in the calendar,” Ms. Kunkler said. “They didn’t put it on the agenda as a change so that a bunch of parents would show up. No parents showed up because we thought there was no big deal.”
Ms. Kunkler said the district historically has handled in-service days as half days where the students report to school at the usual time and are dismissed early. The teachers and staff then receive professional development instruction in the afternoon.
The board approved the 2013-14 school calendar with the change that the majority of in-service days will operate on a delayed opening schedule where the professional development instruction will occur in the morning and the students will report to school two hours later than usual.
Of the six in-service days on the 2013-14 school calendar, five are being treated as delayed openings.
The change poses a problem for working parents in the district, Ms. Kunkler said, because they now have to figure out how to safely get their children off to school in the middle of the morning, which cuts into the workday. On a half day schedule, most working parents are not affected, she said, because most use the after-care program, which receives the students when they are dismissed and watches them until their parents arrive to pick them up.
Mr. Mortello said the board said that the before-care program would be available for those parents who need it, however, there is a $20 fee for using it.
He also said the board didn’t consider how the schedule change would affect the staffing of the before-care program.
”Before-care is being operated by teachers and aides,” Mr. Mortello said. “You’re going to increase (the numbers in) before-care by probably about 600 students. It’s mostly teachers (staffing before-care). Aren’t they supposed to be in the in-service classes?”
Board President Lisa Kay Hartmann said the approval of the calendar happened the same way it always has.
”We didn’t do anything cloak and dagger, anything in secret,” Ms. Hartmann said. “Nobody, not the administrators, not the union, brought up, ‘What about child care?’”
Ms. Hartmann said there are parents in the district who have said privately they like the new in-service schedule. They won’t publicly admit to liking it or appear at board meetings for fear of being “attacked,” she said.
Ms. Kunkler said a petition was started at www.ipetitions.com to get the board to reverse the schedule change, but it was unlikely they would put the old policy back in place. The petition can be found at www.ipetitions.com/petition/teacher-inservices/?m=0.
”There were over 150 signatures on it,” Ms. Kunkler said. “They don’t care.”
Going forward, Ms. Kunkler said, major scheduling changes should be presented to the taxpaying parents of the district before they are voted on by the board.
”We did our due diligence as we always have,” Ms. Hartmann said. “We’ll be more than happy to review how we go about this in the future.”

