The superintendent announcement was not the only change discussed at the April 16 meeting: Board member Robert Johnson announced that he would not be seeking reelection. Johnson, who has served on the board for nine years, will step down after the April 30 board meeting. “Technically, my term ended at the beginning of April, because of the change of the election date to November. So I am already serving for an extra month.”
Board president Hemant Marathe said he would be sorry to see Johnson leave the board. “He was instrumental in navigating several difficult issues, and was a tremendous help to me, because he worked very well with all of the board members. There are nine board members; although we appear to agree on many issues, we all have different opinions, and Johnson helped us build a consensus on many issues. He also has set the bar very high for a replacement.”
The district announced that it was seeking candidates to fill Johnson’s position through December; interested parties were given until just Thursday, April 25, to submit their applications.
When asked why the process was compressed into a relatively short amount of time, Marathe said that “we have to fill the position within 60 days. Depending on how many candidates we get, the process may take a while. We gave people 10 days to decide whether to run — that is enough time. We have done this twice before to fill temporary vacancies, and the board members are aware of how this process works. It is a very short-term position — only until December — so we wanted to make sure the successful candidate would have a full six months in the position to get up to speed on board procedures.”
As the News went to press on the evening of April 25, the following residents had filed for the open seat: Cornell Edmonds, South Mill Road; Louisa Ho, Snowbird Court; Rakesh Kak, Le Parc Court; and Yingchao Zhang, Findley Lane.
Three board positions will be up for election in November: two West Windsor spots, including the one being vacated by Johnson, and one Plainsboro spot. Residents interested in running must submit their applications by Tuesday, June 4.
Other Board Action. The board also approved the appointment of Cathy Reilly as the supervisor of K-12 language arts. She replaces Deirdre Bova, who resigned earlier in the school year.
Four security monitors were also hired as part of the Eyes on the Doors (EOD) school security pilot program, which is currently underway at Village and Millstone schools. The pilot program will continue until the end of the school year.
In addition, students from the Future Problem Solvers program gave a presentation to the board, speaking about the importance of the 21st-century competencies and about various programs they have developed, such as a problem-solving club for fourth and fifth grade students, a mini-master library program, and a girl scout merit badge, and a recommendation for an information literacy class to help spread student understanding of the competencies. Board members praised the students for their efforts to help expand the understanding of the competencies, noting that this is very much in line with board policy.
Finally, board member Richard Kaye discussed the results of the state’s recently released performance reports: “WW-P did very well. The only category where we scored lower was in the K-5 college-career readiness category. The determination the state used was attendance. We live in a community where children leave for extended periods of time to travel. This does not concern us. We do not un-enroll the students or play the paper chase game. And, if you look at the reports, we have very high performance in middle schools, so this is not a concern. You have to chuckle and wonder who came up with these criteria.”
The next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 30, when the board will formally appoint Aderhold as superintendent. A full presentation of the district’s information technology programs, including changes and pilot programs, will also be presented.
