Gloucester City School Board Changes Principal Assignments

The Gloucester City Board of Education (BOE) voted to change principal responsibilities, effective July 1, 2016. These changes will be required for the opening of the new middle school, for planning purposes, and also for the smooth transition of students and staff, said School Superintendent, Joe Rafferty, during the February 9 BOE meeting.

Karen Kessler will be the principal for pre-school through third grade. William O’Kane will be the principal for grades four through eight. Sean Gorman will be the principal for grades nine through twelve. As for the assistant principals, Rafferty said they will be re-adjusted or moved as the district transitions to its new configuration.

During the meeting, Director of the Early Childhood Center, Norell Gurcsik, reported the period one data, from September 1-December 31, 2015, for Harassment Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) and Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System (EVVRS).

Gurcsik said: “We only had HIB investigations occur at the high school for the report period. We had six investigations and four of them were affirmed HIBs.”

As for the EVVRS report for the report period, Gurcsik stated that there were three incidences of violence, one for vandalism, one for weapons, and one for substance abuse.

As for action taken, the police were notified three times with no complaints filed and the police were notified three times with complaints filed, Gurcsik said.

The district’s 2014-15 School Grade Report from the New Jersey Department of Education can be found here.

During the business portion of the meeting, the BOE voted to approve all items on its agenda. Approvals included:

• Payment of bills for a grant total of $3,895,100.59
• The date for the 2016-17 Budget Hearing, which will be May 5, 2016. Caucus will immediately follow. Click here for the district’s 2015-16 Budget.
• The 2016-17 Academic Calendar, subject to change based on the opening of the new middle school.
• Permission to introduce Project Lead the Way Engineering Pathway beginning with the 2016-17 school year. Amount to be determined. Project Lead the Way is a pre-engineering pathway that engages students in open-ended problem solving and how-to-apply engineering design processes by using the same industry leading technology that are used in the nation’s top companies. This will be funded by NCLB Title 2016-2017.

In other matters, the superintendent spoke of the possibility of creating an educational foundation. Rafferty said that fact finding is being done to see if it can be a possibility.

Following an Executive Session, the BOE took the following action:

• To allow two students to return to school.
• To affirm the January and February HIBs (Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying) as presented.

The Board will meet next on March 3 for its caucus meeting and on March 8 for its regular meeting. All meetings are held at 7:00 p.m. in the GHS Media Center.