Verona board hears spring sports recap, superintendent previews instructional changes and approves routine agenda items

The Verona Board of Education convened June 26 and approved routine agenda items after hearing a spring-sports recap and a superintendent report on instructional strategies.

Laura Pomerizzi, the district’s director of athletics, told the board every spring sport advanced to state-level competition and listed team records and individual honors across boys lacrosse, track, softball, golf, girls track, baseball and tennis. Pomerizzi named several student honorees and noted the district’s senior athletic awards presented June 12. “Every 1 of our spring sports made it to, the state tournament,” Pomerizzi said, highlighting a number of all-conference selections and sectional qualifiers.

Superintendent Steve Giuseppe summarized his takeaways from the Instructional Empowerment conference and described a model he referred to as “green box” instruction—high cognitive complexity combined with student agency—contrasting it with more common “blue box” approaches. Giuseppe said the district will begin rolling out focused teacher-evaluation protocols and professional-development sessions, including a virtual book club with Michael Toth for administrators and turnkey sessions on July 7 and in August. “What we need to do is get to green box instruction earlier and stay there longer,” Giuseppe said, framing the approach as aimed at deeper learning and narrowing achievement gaps.

During discussion, board members asked how the district will communicate classroom changes to families; Giuseppe described one-page family summaries, parent prompts and class-level materials teachers can share to generate conversations about student learning. Members also raised a procedural point about QSAC guidance calling for two bus drills per year; administration said QSAC had previously accepted the district’s approach but acknowledged the need to confirm compliance.

On the business side, the board approved a package of consent items across multiple sections of the agenda. The minutes for the June 12 meeting were approved after a motion by Mister Walker and a second by Miss Ferrer. Education items B1–B11 were approved; during that discussion a board member asked whether the approximately $2,500,000 shown for out-of-district placements is typical, and administration explained the total represents multiple contracts consolidated on the agenda and that transportation may be an additional cost. Athletics items C1–C5 and finance items E1–E10 (including a thank-you to the Lanning Avenue SCA for a clubs grant) were also approved. Governance item F1 passed after a brief exchange about safety-drill frequency.

There were no public comments on agenda items. The next regular public meeting was set for July 22, 2025, with a 6:00 p.m. confidential session and a 7:00 p.m. public session in the Verona Learning Commons. The meeting adjourned at 7:44 p.m.

Key factual developments and next steps include the planned administrator professional-development sessions in July and August to begin implementing the focused-evaluation model and the superintendent’s commitment to provide materials for family engagement.