The Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Board of Education will hold its reorganization meeting at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 8 at the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School (MEMS), Millhurst Road, Manalapan.
Lori Semel, Joanne Schechter and James Raffone will be sworn in to begin serving three-year terms on the board. Semel, of Englishtown, and Schechter and Raffone, of Manalapan, were the winners in the Nov. 6 election.
Semel and Schechter are currently serving on the board; Raffone will begin serving his first term. The nine-member school board consists of eight residents of Manalapan and one resident of Englishtown.
During the board’s Dec. 18 meeting, board President Dotty Porcaro said the reorganization meeting was moved from the district’s offices in Englishtown to MEMS because it is anticipated that members of the school district’s custodial staff may be in attendance that evening.
Porcaro said an item on the Jan. 8 agenda will deal with the custodial staff as the board plans to seek requests for proposals from companies interested in providing custodial services for the district.
In a related budget matter, Porcaro said, “I was reading a newspaper and I saw an article on page 1 that said, “New Jersey lawmakers eye $100 million bailout for horse racing.’ I was furious when I saw that.
“Our legislators can bail out horse racing, but punish education. That is what they are doing to this district. Manalapan-Englishtown has been put in a horrible position. It disturbs me when I read this kind of news,” she said.
The board president was referring to action that was taken by the state Legislature and Gov. Phil Murphy during the summer which resulted in a redistribution of state aid to school districts.
Administrators in Manalapan-Englishtown have said the district will lose millions of dollars in state aid during the next six years. During recent meetings, board members have been discussing what actions they may need to take as they develop a budget for the 2019-20 school year.
