Catch up on the biggest stories in Moorestown this week.
The MHS softball team is looking to take the team far this season, and a Moorestown art teacher is teaching her students how to be good caretakers of the earth. Catch up on everything from the past week in the Weekly Roundup.
Water woes: resident questions how Moorestown is allocating water
The public comment portion of Monday’s Moorestown Township Council meeting was host to inquiries about how the township is allocating water and what action, if any, Moorestown is taking to work with the Department of Environmental Protection. Resident Kevin Weinstein approached council with his wife, Mary, to explain how Moorestown’s moratorium on water allocation is impacting him and his wife. Weinstein said he and his wife began the process of trying to bring public water to a farm property they own on McElwee Road in the fall of 2016 and have been met with roadblocks since.
Moorestown Board of Education passes preliminary budget with school tax increase
Moorestown residents could see a tax increase under the 2018–2019 budget proposed at last Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting. The preliminary budget includes a $92 school tax increase for the average assessed home valued at $450,470. The Board of Education unanimously passed the 2018–2019 preliminary budget for submission to the executive county superintendent of schools for approval. The total budget is $72,016,232, with approximately $62,936,029 to be raised through taxation. Business Administrator and Board Secretary Joanne D’Angelo said a 2 percent tax levy will result in an additional $1,234,040 in revenue for the district.
‘Let them eat (birthday) cake,’ urges Moorestown family who’ve made helping out a habit
Moorestown resident Meghan Zonies said when her daughter Julia was turning 5 this past October, she wanted to turn birthday party planning into an opportunity to teach her young daughter an important lesson in empathy, so the family also collected party supplies to donate to a local nonprofit. What started as a lesson for her daughter on giving back has since transformed into an ongoing family project. Zonies and her two daughters — Julia, age 5, and Jane, age 3 — are continuously collecting birthday supplies and hoping they inspire their friends and neighbors to get involved as well.
WAMS to see potential schedule changes during 2018–2019 school year
William Allen Middle School will see changes to its master schedule during the 2018–2019 school year. Principal Matthew Keith, at the Tuesday, March 27, Board of Education meeting, said changes include a new start time, smaller class sizes and more student/teacher contact time throughout the school day. Keith said the schedule change has already been approved through all the proper channels, and the next steps are implementation. As presented, WAMS students will start 12 minutes earlier, with the school day beginning at 7:35 a.m. instead of 7:47 a.m. Students will log an additional 12 minutes in class, with the new schedule calling for seven 51-minute periods and a 40-minute lunch period, and with the additional class time, writing and math will be integrated further into core content curriculum.
