News-pourri

District and school administrators took part in an August 23 webinar about the start of the school year. Student work loads this school year will generally be the same as they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, although students will work more independently, rather than in groups. Also, school buses will top off at about 40 students per trip, as a …

Approximately 48 percent of the school district’s teachers, administrators and support staff have self-reported that they have been vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus, a district official said on August 20. Of the 666 people who responded to a district survey – which was sent to 1,250 teachers, administrators and support staff – 604 of them reported being vaccinated against the …

The landscape plan for the proposed southern branch of the Franklin Township library. The Franklin Public Library Board of Trustees should heed suggestions on its proposed southern branch made by the township Environmental Commission and planning department officials, the Planning Board recommended at its August 18 meeting. The Board passed on its recommendations over the objections of a handful of …

Prizes were awarded at various holes during the golf outing. More than 70 duffers hit the links at the Bunker Hill Golf Club August 16 to raise money for the district’s teachers. The event was the inaugural golf outing hosted by the Franklin Township Warrior Educational Foundation, a 2-year-old non-profit formed by “a group of parents, former educators, representatives of …

Baseball great Dwight “Doc” Gooden shows kids in the Simuel Whitfield Simmons Organization program how to throw a curve ball. About two dozen kids from Franklin and the surrounding area – most of them baseball fans – got a treat on August 7: a face-to-face meeting with baseball great Dwight “Doc” Gooden. Gooden, who at one time called Piscataway his …

Environmental expert Susan Quackenbush told the Zoning Board of Adjustment about potential environmental impacts from a proposed temple on South Middlebush Road. The attorney for the developer of a proposed 21,000-square-foot temple slated for South Middlebush Road said August 5 that the building’s design will probably be changed. Attorney Peter Lanfrit told the Zoning Board of Adjustment that so many …

The Somerset County Health Department is beginning to plan how it will address vaccinations, especially of school children, come the Fall. Michael McCarty, the County health department’s liaison to the township’s Advisory Board of Health, told Board members August 4 that health officials started talking about September this week. “We’re starting to look at plans for what to do come …

FMS – SGS Campus vice principal Daryn Plummer was the graduation’s keynote speaker. More than two dozen township middle and high school students received graduation certificates July 30 from the Franklin Youth Initiative’s Boy’s Council program. The ceremony was named in honor of Bruce Medley, who ran the program until his death earlier this year. Begin in 2007, the program …

Halen Abera is the newest member of the township Human Relations Commission. The newest junior commissioner was welcomed July 28 by the township Human Relations Commission. Halen Abera, a rising Junior at Franklin High School, joins Aryan Shah as the Commission’s junior commissioners. “I’m very involved in the community,” Abera said. “I have dreams of being heavily involved in politics …

Nine people, including two incumbents, are running for three open Board of Education seats in the November election. The incumbents running to retain their seats are Laurie Merris of Wilson Road and Pat Stanley of Hudson Court. Current school board member Ed Potosnak, whose term also expires at the end of the year, is running for Township Council on the …