The Salisbury Township school district held a regular school board meeting March 20 with all board members in attendance.

During the curriculum and technology portion of the meeting the board approved the Salisbury School District local holiday resolution for the 2024-2025 school year and an affiliation agreement with New York University for the placement of student interns in speech and language pathology.

Additionally, the board approved an overnight trip for Salisbury twirlers to participate in a competition in Wildwood, N.J.

Ian Riccaboni, finance committee chair, brought a motion to the floor to approve the final results of a state required audit of financial statements for PlanCon J which was a bond fund issued from February 2008 through June 2012.

The motion was passed.

In personnel news the board accepted the resignations of Krista Atiyeh, full-time nurse at Salisbury Elementary School/Salisbury Middle School, Freya de Conde, full-time English teacher at Salisbury High School and Paula Douri, SMS winter cheerleading coach.

The board approved Kate Hennelly as an after school program tutor and Patricia Jacoby as an after school program instructional assistant tutor.

Also approved for the Extended School Year summer program were Melissa Cerco, Vicky Evener, Elizabeth Kantzaridis, Beth Neitz, Lucy Reinsmith, Rebecca Woodward and Ashley Merkel.

Preston Kucsan was approved as a substitute teacher for the ESY program and Carol Monaghan will provide nursing services.

Instructional assistants for the ESY program include Susmitha Kothapalli, Kimberly Lichtenwalner, Kirsten Mohry, Kristine Alder, Sheri Mohry, Briana Lighting, Jasmine Riegel, Jaclyn Williams and Samantha FaRannte.

Teacher Vicky Evener and instructional assistant Donita Marze were approved to provide extracurricular support services for two students March 13 through May 15.

Alene Shafnisky was approved to serve as an assistant track coach for the 2023-2024 school year.

The board also approved the following volunteer positions: assistant varsity softball coaches Julie Swoyer and Gary Neitz and assistant varsity baseball coach Timothy Aungst.

The board approved several school board policies for final adoption dealing with suicide awareness, fraud, students experiencing homelessness, foster care or other educational instabilities and Title I parent and family engagement.

During board member reports Laura McKelvey, who serves on the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit board, highlighted a program that provides adaptive bicycles for students with disabilities and two programs currently being developed dealing with mental health, particularly suicide awareness and the creation a database for mental and/or behavioral health resources.

The board also approved agreements with CLIU for a driver’s education program, the adoption of the CLIU policies, procedures and use of funds and an intergovernmental agreement for special services for the 2024-2025 school year.

Director Sarah Nemitz reported on the happenings at Lehigh Career and Technical Institute. She noted an LCTI Foundation is in the works to help support students with needs such as specialized equipment, safety shoes, uniforms and travel to competitions.

She also brought attention to a recent visit by Judd Pittman from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Pittman, the state’s Bureau of Career and Technical Education director, met with students including Salisbury student Amal Basyouni who took part in the panel discussion.

Director Rebecca Glenister provided some interesting facts pertaining to Pennsylvania’s Cyber/Charter schools in her Pennsylvania School Boards Association Legislative Policy Council report.

She noted the Pennsylvania Cyber/Charter school landscape is now the largest in the country with 61,000 students enrolled.

She also reported Commonwealth Charter Academy spent $8 million in advertising last year and PA Cyber/Charter School spent $2.3 million.

Conversely, the Salisbury Township board recently held a lengthy debate on whether to spend $2,200 to send out postcards to district families with targeted information about the master facilities plan and upcoming meetings. She remarked, “our money goes to the kids and not advertising.”

In her superintendent’s report Lynn Fuini-Hetten shared Salisbury Township School District’s March Community Update is now on the district website.

The update includes information about the master facilities plan informational sessions which will be held in the SHS library May 8 during the district art show.

Sessions will be held 5-5:30 p.m. and 5:30-6 p.m.

If you are interested in becoming an advocate for change within the Salisbury educational community, consider attending an advocacy program led by Fuini-Hetten and Nemitz.

Learn who the legislators are and how to advocate to legislators about the district’s unique needs.

A Zoom meeting will be held 10 a.m. April 18 and a recording will be available if you are not able to attend.

The state has notified the district breakfast will be free for all students next year and students who qualify for reduced lunch will receive lunch at no charge. It is important to complete the free/reduced lunch applications.

PSSA/ Keystone testing runs April through May and Fuini-Hetten reminds parents of the importance of students being present to take these tests. Due to the district’s small size, missing tests negatively impacts the whole district.

To close her report, Fuini-Hetten celebrated the district’s social worker Jill Williams as March is Social Work Month.

The next regular school board meeting will be held 7 p.m. April 17. All meetings are held in the administration building, 1140 Salisbury Road, Allentown