School Board

New goals for the school district and strategies to achieve them were the main topics Jan. 11 at a strategic plan workshop held at Franklin High School. About 50 people – school and district administrators, faculty, parents and Board of Education members and Mayor Phil Kramer – met in the school’s cafeteria for the fourth in an ongoing series of …

The Board of Education welcomed one new member and retained its leadership at the Jan. 5 reorganization meeting. The board for the third consecutive year voted in Ed Potosnak as president and Nancy LaCorte as vice president. Newly elected board member Ardaman Singh was sworn in, as were LaCorte and Danielsen, the other two winners in the November election. While …

A group of parents and students seemed to have made an impression on the Board of Education Dec. 22 when they asked members to rejuvenate an ailing district orchestral band program. The program has not recovered from budget cuts it suffered in 2010 and, most recently, from schedule changes at Franklin Middle School, according to parents and school officials. But …

Board of Education member Julia Presley said good-bye to her colleagues Dec. 22, as she prepared to leave the seat she’s held for the past six years. Presley, a former school board vice president and president, declined to seek re-election this year. Her seat was won by newcomer Ardaman Singh. Presley presided over a divisive period in the board’s history, …

Dozens of Franklin High School students and some parents showed up at the Sept. 22 Board of Education meeting to express their anger over the aggressive enforcement of existing and new policies by the school’s new principal. At the end of the long night, they were told by the board president that the policies to which they objected could be changed, …

All charter school students would be banned from district-sponsored co-curricular and athletic activities starting in the 2017-18 school year under a policy revision introduced by the Board of Education at its Aug. 25 meeting. If enacted, the policy revision would allow charter school students who have participated in those activities in prior years to do so again during the 2016-17 …

Key people involved in the Class of 2016 graduation – the first one held at the current Franklin High School – were commended at the July 21 Board of Education meeting. “We thought it was important to recognize a few key individuals who made the graduation at Franklin High School possible,” said board president Ed Potosnak. “It was a fabulous …

A policy prohibiting discrimination against transgender students caused a minor controversy at the July 21 Board of Education meeting. Board member Pat Stanley failed to garner any support for her motion to table voting on the policy, a move she made after saying the board seemed in a rush to approve it. Under the policy, the school board “will accept a student’s …

A 19-year education veteran from the Irvington school district was named the new principal of Franklin High School at the April 28 Board of Education meeting. Cheryl A. Clark, most recently the principal of Irvington’s University Elementary School, was unanimously approved by the school board. The position carries a salary of about $130,000 per year, said board president Ed Potosnak. Clark …

The Board of Education April 28 went on record as opposing a charter school proposed for Cortelyous Lane. Alarmed by the steady increase in the amount of taxes needing to be diverted to the handful of charter schools attended by Franklin students – in 2016-17, that figure is estimated to be $9 million – the board approved a resolution stating that …