In other matters, Superintendent Joseph Rafferty said Mount Ephraim will consider participating in the \”Interdistrict Public School Choice Program Act of 2010\” during last week’s Board of Education (BOE) meeting.

The Act had been signed into law by Governor Christie on September 10.

Beginning with the 2011-12 school year, School Choice will allow parents to send their children to participating schools outside of their district.

Transportation would be provided to schools within a 20-mile radius of the student’s home.

Limits will be set on how many students may leave a district; and sending districts will have to pay tuition to receiving districts.

In other news, the issue of Easter/Spring Break has yet to be settled; Audubon’s break is the week before Easter and Mt. Ephraim’s is the week after.

Parents said that this is a problem for families that have students in both schools, and could reduce the number of voters in the school board election on April 26 because families may be out of town.

Another parent said that she was told by Audubon that it is the responsibility of the sending district to sync their calendar with the calendar of the receiving district. School Board president Dominick Cipolone said that that is untrue and that he will discuss the calendar with the board members.

  Mr. Cipolone read a letter out loud from Acting Commissioner of Education Rochelle Hendricks in reference to the $124,618 that Mt. Ephraim will receive under the Education Jobs Act allocation encouraging the district to use the money for classroom activities to improve education.

Raywood said the district’s JIF (Joint Insurance Fund) does not recommend the presence of students during the landing or take off of a helicopter for a proposed Drug Awareness program. Cipolone assigned the Community Relations Committee the task of meeting with JIF to see if a program can be scheduled for the spring. 

\”Kids do a great job and follow directions\” is what Mr. Rafferty said about student behavior during fire and emergency management drills.

As of November emergency management drills are a monthly requirement in addition to fire drills but Mt. Ephraim has been performing them for some time now.

Board members introduced the district’s new Supervisor of Special Services Amy Francis, who will earn a prorated salary of $80,000. 

Nadine Oliveti has been rehired at a prorated salary of $52,810 with benefits to work in the highly needed area of basic skills. The position will be funded by the 2009-10 excess fund balance.

The Board has approved the request of the Mystics Softball Organization to cease charging custodial fees for use of facilities.

Danielle Wallace has been approved to be a substitute teacher at a rate of $80 per day. Laura Gillian, Jennifer Spera and Dena Vanterpool have also been approved to be substitute teachers at $80 per day and substitute paraprofessionals at a rate of $60 per day.

Also, Maria Canuso has been approved as a substitute lunch aide at $7.25 per hour, and Denise Pooley as a substitute custodian at $9 per hour.

September Student of the Month winners from 1^st to 8^th grade are; Gianna Canuso, Audrey Warren, Tiffany Vu, Analyn Efymow, Kh-ang Ton, Kaila White, Tashana Brown, and Hakunu’u Misawic.

The next meeting is Monday, November 8, at 7:30 p.m. in Kershaw Middle School’s Media Center.