School Board Approves Calendar for Next Year and Accepts Grant That Will Fund Robotics Program

In addition to holding a , members of the Lawrence Township Board of Education at their meeting Monday night (Jan. 9) approved the school calendar for the 2012-2013 year.

That calendar can be viewed online on the school district’s website or printed from the Patch media box at the right.

The meeting also saw the board members approve a number of personnel action items – such as a $19,790 payment for unused vacation time to former Lawrence High School Lower School Principal David Roman, who – and discuss various initiatives currently underway, such as an effort to redesign the district’s website to make it more user-friendly and a plan to market township schools to residents.

“We’ve changed our strategy to realize just because a public school exists in a community doesn’t mean that that’s where the kids automatically go,” Superintendent Crystal Lovell said to the board, explaining the marketing plan. “There are lots of choices for schools – choice schools, private schools, Catholic schools, charter schools, home schools, virtual schools… There are just a lot more opportunities for children and parents and they need to know the wonderful things that we do. And we do a lot in our buildings, there’s a lot going on, but people don’t always know that. So that’s why we’d like to get out the word and treat each person as if they are our customer that we’re trying to gain and bring into the schools and show them why there’s no other place to go but Lawrence [Township Public Schools].”   

The start of the meeting was dominated by the district and school board honoring more than two dozen students for their philanthropic, academic and athletic accomplishments.

“It’s always a pleasure to have a night like tonight where we get to honor our students. This is one of those great nights that I love doing,” Lovell said as she welcomed the audience seated in the Lawrence High School auditorium.

Before the student recognitions took place, however, School Board President Laura Waters and Vice President Leon Kaplan accepted a check presented by Pepper Evans and Ivy Cohen of the . The $60,241.65 grant from the education foundation will be used to fund the creation of a new robotics program at Lawrence High School and a district-wide audio-visual/TV production program called Lawrence Snippets. 

The awards portion of the board meeting also featured a video preview of the “" event and Poetry Out Loud competition taking place Friday, Jan. 13, at Lawrence High School, and also a presentation by Ben Franklin Elementary School Principal Chris Turnbull and some of his students to the board of a mural called “Peace Making Friends” that the students created with art teacher Anthony “Toj” Colavita to thank board members for their dedicated service to Lawrence Township.

“A little known fact is that January 2012 is the 11th annual School Board Recognition Month in New Jersey. It’s a time to raise awareness of what exactly the school board member do in New Jersey and to give them thanks for all of the hard work that they put in because in New Jersey there’s over 2,500 public schools that educate almost 1.4 million students,” Turnbull said. “And when you think about a school district, you think about the board policies that have to go in so we know exactly what to do in every situation; the curriculum that we teach runs through the board of education and they read every word of it and have to approve it; the financing and staffing which make the district run all go through the board of education; and not only the board meetings, there’s a lot of hours. And if we look over at the board members, their combined annual salary for what they do for our district is zero dollars. They volunteer their time.”

Audio from the full school board meeting Monday night, including the awards presentation portion, can be listened to via the school district's website by clicking here.

The following students were presented certificates of recognition by School Board President Waters and Vice President Kaplan during Monday's meeting: 

Nathaniel “Nate” Whitehead

• A kindergartner at Eldridge Park Elementary School, for distribution to those in need.

 Maanav Ganthapodi

• A third-grader at Lawrenceville Elementary School, held in Texas in November.

Abigail “Abby” Crutchley

• A third-grader at Slackwood Elementary School, . Her winning art entry will appear on the cover of a future third-grade math text book and be displayed at the new Museum of Mathematics in New York City. Slackwood School will also receive almost $15,000 in prizes, including a classroom Smartboard and a computer. 

Shehara Yoosuf

• A senior at Lawrence High School, she volunteered last summer at the Lawrence Community Center. Working to earn her Girls Scouts of America Gold Award, Shehara spent several months renovating an empty classroom at the center into a functional library and parent-child bonding area for underprivileged children and their families.  Once Shehara received approval for the project – which she named “A Chance to Build Dreams” – she raised $2,000 to pay for it.  The money was spent on art supplies, bean bag chairs and a rug, a flat-screen television, two compact disc players and headphones to listen to books on tape, and a fish tank.  Over 500 books were also donated to stock the library. A ribbon-cutting ceremony, marking completion of the project, was held in October.

Lawrence High School Operation Smile Club

• The Lawrence High School Operation Smile Club, coordinated by Cheryl Eng, is recognized as the largest student chapter on the East Coast. Four members of the club – Nicole Tunnard, Leanna Glass, Caoimhe O’Sullivan Roche and SaraBeth Sullivan – last summer went to Beijing, China, for Operation Smile’s mission training workshop and International Student Cultural Exchange Conference. They learned about their role as educators for the missions they would be assigned and what they would be teaching the children during their mission experience. Upon completion of the training workshop, the girls were assigned missions to four different countries during the 2011-2012 school year: Nicole Tunnard traveled to Fengkai, China, from Nov. 8-16; Leanna Glass went to Guwahati, India, from Nov. 11-21; SaraBeth Sullivan’s mission was in Accra, Ghana, from Dec. 1-10; and Caoimhe O’Sullivan Roche will be going to Chinadega, Nicaragua, later this year in February.

Field Hockey:

• Lindsey Freitag was named to the All CVC Second Team by The Trenton Times and Second Team by the Central Jersey Field Hockey Coaches Association (CJFHCA).
• Caitlyn McBride received an Honorable Mention from the CJFHCA.
• Sammie Peralta received an Honorable Mention from the CJFHCA.

Cross Country:

• Rebecca Scardelletti received an Honorable Mention from CVC Track/Cross Country Coaches Association.

Girls’ Soccer

• Sarah Borajkewicz was named to the N.J. Girls Soccer Coaches Association All-State Team, Top 20 All-Area, and received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.
• Kelly Shillaber received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.

Boys’ Soccer:

• Zac Cartun was named to the All CVC Second Team by The Trenton Times, received an All-State Honorable Mention from the N.J. Boys Soccer Coaches Association (NJBSCA), and was selected to the Mooch Myernick Senior All-Star Team.
• Sean Purcell was named to the NJBSCA Third Team and the Mooch Myernick All-Star Team.
• Tim Kelly received an Honorable Mention from the NJBSCA and was named to the Mooch Myernick All-Star Team.
• Jess Russo was named to the NJBSCA Third Team.
• Jonathan Bembry was named to the Mooch Myernick All-Star Team.
• Luke Buschman was named to the NJBSCA Third Team.

Football:

• Ryan Lutes received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.
• Jihad Bryant was named to the West Jersey Football League First Team Offense and All-CVC Second Team by The Trenton Times and The Trentonian.
• Edward Carrington was named to the West Jersey Football League First Team Offence and received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.
• Semei Mitchell was named to the West Jersey Football League First Team Defense and All-CVC Second Team by The Trenton Times, and received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.
• Michael Russ was named to the West Jersey Football League Second Team Defense and received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.
• Justin Scott was named to the West Jersey Football League First Team Defense and received an Honorable Mention from The Trentonian.