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Salem County school boards approve grants, contracts, personnel hires and policy updates
Summary
At its Sept. 24 meeting, the Salem County Special Services and Vocational Technical School boards approved payroll and warrants, accepted multiple grants including a $426,583 COPS School Violence Prevention award, authorized contracts for facilities work, and approved several personnel hires, transfers and retirements.
The Salem County Special Services School District and the Salem County Vocational Technical School District boards met on Sept. 24, 2024, and approved a package of routine business including payroll and warrants, contract awards, grant acceptances and personnel actions.
Board members recorded roll call early in the meeting and approved minutes from the Aug. 27, 2024 meeting. The boards then voted to authorize attendance for board members and district administrators at the New Jersey School Boards Association Annual Workshop in Atlantic City Oct. 21–24, 2024.
Financial items approved included district payroll and payment runs for August 2024 and warrants presented by the Board Secretary. The records presented listed SCVTS payrolls of $158,031.97 (period ending Aug. 15) and $124,036.35 (period ending Aug. 30) and payments for the period of August 2024 of $508,005.66; SCSSSD payroll and payments for July/August 2024 were also approved per the Board Secretary report.
The boards accepted several federal and state grant changes and program agreements. The Special Services board accepted a U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP) award in the amount of $426,583 for school-violence-prevention work. The districts also reported additional FY25 Perkins Secondary grant funds of $20,343 and additional WIOA Title II funds of $166,666, and approved the 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) Salem County Achievers 2028 program schedule and related community partner agreements with organizations including the Food Bank of South Jersey, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, FamCare, Acenda Integrated Health Systems (Riverview Family Success Centers), Gateway Wellness Center (Gateway Community Action Partnership) and a GEAR UP/College Bound partnership with Salem Community College; those partner programs were listed as not costing the district additional funds for their services.
On facilities and maintenance, the board recommended and approved contracts including a one-year monitoring contract with Johnson Controls Fire for the Salem campus ($1,895.42), a contract to replace the fire-panel CPU at the Daretown campus ($9,157), and a CorePoint door-entry upgrade at Daretown ($5,209). The business administrator also recommended a vending services agreement with Four M Vending and several transportation jointures and co-op participation contracts.
Personnel matters and school operations were a significant portion of the agenda. The Superintendent asked the board to approve a shared-services agreement for Frank Maurer to serve as chief financial officer at Salem Community College (up to 15 hours per week, Oct. 1–Dec. 31, 2024, with possible month-to-month extension). The boards approved several hires and personnel changes including Dylan Tuthill as a part-time maintenance student worker (effective Sept. 9, 2024, $15.13/hour); Sgt. Michael Davis as a long-term part-time substitute for the AFJROTC program (compensated at a $325 daily rate); Nadina Brown as a nurse for Daretown (salary listed as $73,467, effective Nov. 4, 2024); Michele Drummond as secretary at RDS-Salem (effective Sept. 23, 2024); and Dana Comstock as an EIP teacher (effective Sept. 1, 2024, $52/hour). The board accepted the retirement resignation of Joseph Rojas, Aerospace Science Instructor for AFJROTC (effective Oct. 8, 2024). The board also approved payment of a retirement payout for Job Coach William Pennock Jr., estimated at 99.75 days at $75 per day (totaling $7,481.25).
The boards approved program and curricular items, including the School Self-Assessment for Determining Grades Under the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights for the Career and Technical High School and for the Cumberland, Daretown and Salem campuses, and multiple extracurricular and travel requests (for example, an LS Tours agreement for the 2025 senior trip to Orlando, April 7–11, 2025, at an estimated $2,083 per student and approval for FFA travel to the National FFA Convention Oct. 22–26, 2024, with a $5,000 district allocation toward student costs).
Professional development workshops for district staff were approved (examples: HIB training, ProLiteracy Conference, GSETA conference, Culinary Institute of America workshop, and other in-state and national conferences) with listed registration and travel costs and identified funding sources where applicable (ESEA Title IIA, Perkins, WIOA Title II).
The boards completed the second and final reading and approval of multiple policy updates, including curriculum content (P 2200), attendance regulation (R 5200), student-suicide-prevention policy (P 5350), emergency and crisis procedures (P 8420), service animals (P 5337) and firearms and weapons regulation (P & R 8467).
The public portion included recognition of Students of the Month and a retirement resolution for William Pennock. The meeting recessed into an executive session on specified confidential topics including personnel, negotiations and pending litigation, and adjourned at 9:11 p.m.
What happens next: approved contracts, grant acceptances and personnel actions move forward as adopted. Several agenda items noted that approvals are contingent on applicable guidelines or funding (for example, travel contingent on CDC guidance and program funding sources).
