At the March 27 meeting of the Evesham Board of Education, Superintendent John Scavelli gave an update on the status of the district’s upcoming “Teddy Bear Academy” daycare program.
“As of today, there are 45 registrations for the academy, and we have 90 slots available so we’re half full,” Scavelli said. “Some of the children will begin in June on June 30 and some will begin in September.”
He said the open house for the program the district held on March 15 was well attended by the public. Parents have been participating in tours of the facility, and the Evesham Child Care staff is still receiving daily phone calls and emails from interested parents. A second open house is tentatively scheduled for an unknown time in May.
After talking about the public’s response to the academy, Scavelli spoke about how the staffing and construction of the academy was progressing. Job descriptions were included on the meeting’s agenda, with the staff positions posted the following day.
The district will conduct interviews for those positions throughout April, with hiring accomplished by May and training through June. District staff will also engage in minor construction over the following months.
Board member Lisa Mansfield said she attended the open house and looked at some finished rooms.
“They were so warm and inviting for the children,” Mansfield said. “It was nice to just stand back and watch children who were there test out different rooms to get a feel for them. I see it being a wonderful program.”
At the meeting was also the first reading for the 2014–15 school district calendar. There are two early dismissal days now proposed as full school days on Dec. 23 and March 10, and Scavelli spoke about decision not to list on the calendar a specific order of makeup dates in case of inclement weather next year.
“At this point, our recommendation would be to leave it as is and that the dates will be made up either at the end of the school year or during spring break, and I think given any year … we’ll have to deal with the situation as we know them.”
Board member Sandy Student asked about building snow days into the calendar, but Scavelli said starting in the 2012–2013 school year as of negotiations with the teacher’s union that an unofficial agreement was reached to not build in snow days.
Scavelli also gave a report on the first round results of Reading Recovery, the individualized early intervention program for first-grade students. It targets students lagging behind their peers by placing them with reading specialists. Of the 59 students placed, 44 students were able to discontinue the program because of making significant progress in reading and writing.
The remaining students, although having aged out of the program, are still receiving support.
Scavelli also announced that the 2014–2015 Evesham school budget public hearing would be held on Tuesday May 6, at 6 p.m. in the all-purpose room at DeMasi Middle School. He said information about the budget is available on the district website.
In other news:
• The board recognized Lauren Utke and Cameron Vinson of DeMasi Middle School and Kyle Scott and Kevin Bookwalter of Marlton Middle School for participating in “Superintendent for a Day” on March 20.
• The board recognized Ryan Mehigan of Beeler School for winning the Marlton Rotary Club’s Fifth Grade Essay Contest.
• The board recognized first grader Jackson Gruber of Evans School after Gruber gave a presentation on the presidents of the United States.
