Montville BOE President, VP Re-Appointed

The president and vice president of the Montville Township Board of Education were re-appointed during the board’s annual organization meeting Tuesday night.

After being nominated and unanimously appointed president, Karen Cortellino took a moment to thank the board members for their “vote of confidence” and then turned her praise to the community members seated in the audience for passing the budget on April 27.

“You can’t imagine how pleased we were the night of the vote,” Cortellino said. “We were jumping for joy like kids in a candy store.”

Matthew Kayne was subsequently elected for another term as the board’s vice president.

Before Cortellino’s re-election, Kayne, Michael Palma and Frank Cooney––were sworn in. Cooney, who had served on the board for a decade until three years ago, is the .

The only organizational item on the agenda that was not completed during the meeting was the appointments for the board’s various committees, which Cortellino asked to be moved and announced during the June meeting after she has had time to consider.

Several members mentioned abolishing the board’s communication committee, folding communication duties back into the other three committees and easing the workload of superintendent Paul Fried. Cortellino said she would consider this unless a member of the board wanted to serve as a communication liaison.

New Appointments

The board announced the appointment of two new coaches at the high school.

James Delaney will become the school’s new varsity football coach while also serving as a physical education teacher, and Dana Bertoli will take over as the soccer coach for the girls’ varsity team.

Fried also spent a few moments speaking about Douglas Sanford, who will take over as principal of Montville Township High School on July 1.

“I’ve had the pleasure to meet with him regarding his entry into the district and been working with some people to arrange some evening meetings for him to meet people,” Fried said. “We’ve also talked about him shadowing some students in order to meet some kids.”

World Languages Program Discussed

Discussions concerning the details of the district’s proposal to expand the world languages program at the middle school level dominated most of the business half of the meeting.

Since the last time the idea was discussed in front of the board–during budget meetings–Fried said there have been significant changes made to the plan.

In the original plan, sixth graders would have taken a different language each quarter, seventh graders would have taken at least two quarters of a language and eighth graders would have had a yearlong language course load.

“We did hear from some of the parents that they would still like the students to take some of the electives that they value throughout those three years [of middle school],” Fried said.

As a result, sixth graders will now take a quarter of Spanish, a quarter of Italian and two electives; seventh graders will take French, Chinese and two electives; and eighth graders will have the option to choose a full year of one of the four languages or half a year of conversational Spanish, a quarter of technology education and quarter of study hall.

In response to Palma’s question regarding whether it would be possible to replace a study hall with another elective, Sharon Carr, principal of Robert R. Lazar Middle School, said it could potentially be an option, depending on whom the school would pay to teach the classes, and said it could be done in a way so as to “keep the apple cart balanced.”

Although many board members favored cutting down the amount of study halls available to middle school students, Carr said many parents to whom she has spoken seem to like the opportunity for their children to relax.

Cortellino said this is one of the key issues the administration should keep in mind when a recommendation is made concerning the program at the board’s next meeting on May 24.

Some audience members, such as Gerhard Mayer, whose son is bilingual in English and German after learning the latter language for eight years at the German Language School of Morris County, asked if there was a way for middle school students to test out of the language requirements.

“I would prefer if my son, for eighth grade, were to be able to test out of the requirement and take advantage of the other things he is also really interested in, such as TV production,” Mayer said. “It would be nice if he didn’t have to spend his time learning a language that he doesn’t care about.”

Fried said there currently isn’t a mechanism at either the middle school or high school level for students to be able to test out of a language but that the administration would look into it.