Cooked? HS Cooking Class in Limbo

Hopatcong High School's cooking class might be cooked.

The Board of Education approved reduction-in-force notices for six Hopatcong teachers, including high school home economics teacher Wendy Wyman, at Monday night's reorganization meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Charles Maranzano said the high school must consider cutting a program to make room for financial literacy, a state-required program for freshmen and sophomores which will start next fall, if the borough council cuts from the district's proposed budget. Home economics isn't a required elective.

"It was a team decision that has been discussed and vetted at the administrative level," Maranzano said.

"We've had to really juxtapose electives so that we could minimize the impact on existing programs while introducing an entirely new program, which is now a high school graduation requirement.

The decision didn't exactly go smoothly with the school board, however. Members said they didn't see the recommendation coming. Maranzano said the school board wasn't consulted before Wyman received an RIF.

Board member Michele Perrotti said she wanted to look at enrollment in the rest of the high school's electives to see if any other programs could be cut.

"I think this reflects the very difficult decisions the board has to make," Lundin said. "It is very hard, and in part, I think the board wants to take a second look at these things."

Maranzano said he was willing to meet with the board over the matter.

"Let me bring to you the rationale," he said. "I'll bring [Director of Cirriculum] Jeff Hallenback, I'll bring [high school Principal] Emil Binotto, I'll bring [Director of Guidance] Gina Cinotti before you to explain how we're building a master schedule this year and a why a program needs to go in order to implement financial literacy, which is required by the state this year. If it's not the home [econmics] program, we have got to eliminate another program."