By John Tredrea, Special Writer
Each year, state law requires all New Jersey school districts to publish a report on violence and vandalism in their school or schools, present that report to the board of education and make that report available to the public.
In discussing this year’s violence and vandalism report in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District, Assistant Superintendent Anthony Suozzo, who compiled the report, noted that the district’s problems in these two areas continued to be relatively few.
Over the years, district officials have said most of problems addressed by the violence and vandalism reports occur in the hallways and cafeterias.
Hopewell Valley’s violence and vandalism report for 2014-15 states that there were no incidents of violence during that school year. There were three incidents of violence, all of them fights between students, during the preceding school year.
There were two incidents of vandalism, both minor, during the 2014-15 school year. There were two the preceding year as well.
There was one incident involving a weapon in 2014-15, Mr. Suozzo said.
In response to a question from a school board member at the March 16 board meeting, Mr. Suozzo said that incident had to be reported because a student, who is an avid hunter, had a hunting knife in his vehicle while it was parked on school grounds during an extracurricular activity.
“There was no intent to use the knife (at the school), but this had to be reported because what happened was against our policy,” Mr. Suozzo said.
There were 13 incidents of harassment, intimidation or bullying reported to school officials in 2014-15, the same number as the preceding year. One of those incidents was confirmed in 2014-15, down from four that were confirmed the preceding year.
In the section of the violence and vandalism report that deals with actions taken by the district, it was reported that no students were expelled in 2014-15 or the year before. Neither were there any in-school suspensions during either of those school years. There were eight out-of-school suspensions in 2014-15, up one from the year before.
IN OTHER BUSINESS at the March 16 school board meeting, the school board accepted the resignations, all effective July 1, of three teachers.
The resignations are from Stony Brook Elementary teacher Gail Fleming, who’s been with the district since 1992; Bear Tavern Elementary special education teacher Jill Case-Leestma, with the district since 2000; and Central High School English teacher Lindsey Pennington, with the district since 2008.
