A regular school board meeting of the Salisbury Township School board was held Oct. 18 at the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute following an executive session.

Chief Financial Officer Dawn Nickischer presented the board with a detailed schedule for developing the 2024-2025 Salisbury Township School budget.

The last day to submit the completed budget to the Department of Education is July 15, 2024.

Carol Klinger, curriculum & technology chairwoman, brought several items to the board for approval. The board approved Moravian University student teacher Michael Neuman who will work with speech and language pathologist Laura Mackay at Salisbury Middle School and Salisbury High School. Also approved was Dr. Kathleen Whitbread for an independent reading evaluation for a student receiving special education services.

The board granted approval for the following agreements: Catapult Learning for eight weeks of after school math tutoring at SMS provided through ESSER funds, grant-funded Project AWARE, which screens for risk factors for suicide and other mental health issues and Propio, a language translation service.

During the operations committee portion of the meeting the board approved the establishment of the student activities fund for the Class of 2027 and a sheltering and mass care facilities memorandum of understanding with both Muhlenberg College and Southern Lehigh School District.

The finance committee requested and received approval for a one-year subscription with DebtBook in order to meet the GASB-96 requirements for recording lease/agreements at a cost of $9,000.

In the area of personnel changes, the board accepted the resignations of Sandra D’Allessandro, part-time instructional assistant, SHS, Katherine Yaglowski, part-time instructional assistant, SHS and Michael Breiner, full-time custodian, Salisbury Elementary School.

Several coaches tendered resignations including assistant track coach Emily DeOliviera, cheerleading coach Mercedes Newman and varsity cheerleading coach Paula Douris.

New hires approved by the board include Rebecca Woodward, full-time long-term special education substitute, Joseph Welsko, long term health/physical education substitute, Heather Loux, part-time instructional assistant, Susmitha Kothapalli, part-time instructional assistant and Kim Godown, part-time second shift custodian.

New coaching staff approvals were granted to Mark Mixa, SHS JV girls basketball coach. Maia Geiger and Ashley Nagy will coach the newly created SHS co-unified Bocce team.

Christopher Butynski was approved as a gameworker for the 2023-24 school year.

Beth Neitz was approved as a new teacher mentor for Joseph Welsko and Wendy Hauser will mentor Tami Cantilina.

The board approved proposed policies for final read through and adoption with one change to policy 1C.1, which allows an external candidate to serve on a committee while not a current board member with advance board approval.

In her superintendent’s report Lynn Fuini-Hetten said she had an opportunity to take part in a Penn State University roundtable discussion focusing on middle level education. She was able to raise concerns with those in higher education about the challenges of the current certification constraints.

Fuini-Hetten also recognized Sarah Nemitz and Christopher Freas for their advocacy efforts. Nemitz and Fuini-Hetten both spoke at the PSA/PSBA Conference and Freas gave a presentation entitled “Four Steps to Build Stronger Board and Superintendent Relationships.”

In other meeting news, updated 2023-2024 enrollment data as of Oct. 1 was presented for each grade level along with the projections generated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Forecast 5 and Salisbury Township School District.

The districtwide climate survey has been distributed to families and the data generated is currently being analyzed.

Fuini-Hetten also thanked LCTI and their student hosts who provided the board with an informative tour of the facility.

Fuini-Hetten noted there is still a significant need for positions to be filled in the area of instructional assistants, custodial/maintenance and substitute teachers.

The operations and finance committee will meet 7 p.m. Nov. 8 and a regular school board meeting will take place 7 p.m. Nov. 15.

All meetings will be held at the administration building, 1140 Salisbury Road.