Moorestown Board of Education member, Brandon Pugh, discusses what the district has been up to in May.
By BRANDON PUGH, Moorestown Board of Education member
In this column, Moorestown Board of Education Member Brandon Pugh provides monthly updates on what’s going on in the school district and on the BOE.
The end of the 2017–2018 school year is now less than a month away, which provides for an opportunity to highlight work accomplished this year and to prepare for the next school year. This included student recognition, the approval of the 2018–2019 budget and discussion surrounding a possible change to a district policy.
The board held a public hearing on the 2018–2019 budget on May 1. At this meeting, the budget was adopted unanimously by those present. The budget calls for $78,425,988 in total expenditures, which includes the general fund, special revenues and debt service. This will be balanced with $10,694,881 in total anticipated revenue and $67,731,107 in taxes to be raised. This equates to a $92 tax increase for the average assessed home of $450,470, or about a 1.9 percent increase. Other takeaways included a desire to investigate full-day kindergarten delivery and a firm pilot for a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program. The user-friendly budget and the budget presentation is available at www.mtps.com.
The May 15 meeting began with an opportunity to recognize student success. This included students from the William Allen Middle School and the Moorestown High School who obtained summa cum laude/gold on the National Latin Exam, gold medalists on the National French Contest and gold medalists on the National Spanish Examination.
There has been a lot of discussion surrounding proposed changes to the class size policy, or Policy 2312. Changes to this policy were introduced in April on first reading to align Moorestown’s policy with the recommendation of our policy provider. The policy committee did not recommend changing the class size numbers in the policy but rather recommended clarifying what happens if the current “guidelines” are exceeded. The process to date under the policy is vague, so the recommendation was to explicitly state the process, including board notification from the Superintendent should the general numbers be exceeded.
Also, there were two items on the May agenda to note. First, were the board meeting dates for August 2018 through June 2019. These can be found at Exhibit 18–297 on the May 15 agenda. As a reminder, the board usually does not meet in July. Second, is the tax schedule for 2018–2019, which can be found at Exhibit 18–298.
As a reminder, the district art show presented by MoorArts is on June 2 at the Church Street Recreation Center. This showcases art from students in grades K-12, including paintings, drawings, photography and sculpture. This event coincides with Moorestown Day on Main Street.
The next regular meeting of the Board of Education is Tuesday, June 12 at 7 pm in the William Allen Middle School Media Center. This meeting is earlier in the month due to the high school graduation the following week. It would be great to see you at a future board meeting, but please do not hesitate to reach out at any time.
The views and content in this column do not necessarily represent those of the Moorestown Board of Education as a whole or any other individual member
