Smooth school opening, superintendent says

The opening of school this month was the smoothest of the five years he has been here, Superintendent Matthew Beck told the Board of Education at its meeting Thursday, Sept. 18.

He pointed out that the National Junior Honor Society will be running again this year at the middle school and thanked Catherine Jennings for being the adviser after several years when no adviser could be found.

He noted that Jane Esposito, the district supervisor of mental health and wellness, will retire Nov. 1 after 26 years. “Among countless other accomplishments, (she) has been an integral part in overseeing our state-recognized threat assessments teams and protocols.”

Recent resignations include Jennifer Gryzeski, a preschool teacher at Helen Morgan School, effective Nov. 11, and Amanda Nickerson, a school psychologist at Mohawk Avenue School, effective June 30.

NJQSAC report

Beck said the district was designated as high-performing on its New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC) review, the state Department of Education’s monitoring and district self-evaluation system.

Each school district is evaluated in five categories every three years. Sparta received 100 percent in the fiscal and governance categories, 95 percent in personnel, 83 percent in instruction and program, and 82 percent in operations.

Districts that receive above 80 percent in all five categories are deemed high-performing.

Sparta also was considered high-performing three years earlier after under-performing three years before that, Beck said.

“We are going to continue to analyze where the points were lost and rectify those for the immediate future and for the next monitoring.”

HIB report

Jamie Barker, the district’s director of student support services, said the number of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) incidents increased slightly in the past school year.

At the high school, there were many more alleged incidents than confirmed ones, she said. Most of the confirmed incidents were related to social media. A large number of incidents involved peer conflict in friend groups.

At the middle school, there was a slight increase throughout the year, and at Helen Morgan School, there was a decrease during the year but an increase in March.

In grades K-8, most of the incidents involved verbal comments that occurred during gym and lunch and on the bus and the playground.

To address the problem, the district added a counselor in the middle school and increased peer mediation and supports for group dynamics at the high school among other actions, Barker said.

”We do have some violence prevention initiatives in place, proactive restorative programming in response to that impulsive verbal and written threats, and then HIB monitoring and training ... .”

On the district’s HIB self-assessment, it scored 77 out of 78, she said.

Board members Chad Wood and Roque Martinez were absent from the meeting.