School Board

School uniforms and banning the student use of electronics in classrooms were two of the topics touched upon Oct. 26 in a candidates’ forum with the four Board of Education contenders. The forum was sponsored by the Franklin Township PTO/PTSO Presidents’ Council and held at Franklin Middle School.

(Update: School district steps in to clarify that Potosnak is the school board’s representative to the Chamber. See update at bottom of story.) The legitimacy of last Spring’s Franklin Township Chamber of Commerce executive board election has a surprising challenger: the Board of Education’s president.

The Board of Education member who recently called for the resignation of the board president is now the subject of an online petition seeking her resignation. Township resident Erik Ransom on July 25 launched a petition on the Change.org site calling for the resignation of board member Pat Stanley.

The Board of Education member who called for the board president’s resignation over comments he made at the Franklin High School graduation underwent a barrage of criticism at the July 23 meeting, but maintained her position. “He overstepped his bounds,” board member Patricia Stanley said of board president Ed Potosnak at the meeting’s end.”Mr. Potosnak and I disagree  as to the rules …

Video courtesy Ed Potosnak. A Board of Education member is calling for the board president’s resignation over comments he made on same-sex marriage at the 2015 Franklin High School graduation.

About 96 percent of township teachers are “effective” or “highly effective,” according to the state’s new educator evaluation system. The new system, called “AchieveNJ,” evaluated teachers and school leaders based on ” multiple measures of educator practice and student achievement,” according to a press release from the state Department of Education.

It took nearly two hours in closed session April 23, but the Board of Education eventually turned to one of its former members to fill an unexpired term. The board picked former board member Richard Seamon of Rue Chagall to fill the unexpired term of Richard Arline, who resigned because he is moving out of state.

Board of Education members will try again April 23 to pick someone to fill an unexpired term. The board could not agree on a candidate at a special April 13 meeting, although it did whittle the field from five candidates to two.

“Fewer than six” of the more than 6,000 district students eligible for the controversial PARCC exams have opted out of the tests, interim schools Superintendent Lee Seitz said Feb. 26. The computerized tests – known as the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam – will be given to students in grades 3-11. They will be administered in …

Students who refuse to take next month’s computerized PARCC tests run the risk of being marked absent from school. Or do they?