Berkeley School Board Authorizes Stokes Trip After Months Of Discord

The Stokes State Forest trip for Berkeley Township's sixth-graders, and efforts to fundraise for the trip, have the formal blessing of the Berkeley Township Board of Education.

The school board unanimously approved two resolutions Thursday night, one approving the trip and setting aside $5,000 to pay for the trip's two coordinators. The other authorized the Berkeley Township Environmental Education Program Foundation to raise money to hold the trip this June for the current year's sixth-grade class.

"If we are going to get this paid for without taxpayers' money we have to do everything we can to encourage fundraising by this foundation," Board Vice President James Fulcomer said after both were approved.

Students will have to pay $150 per person to attend, but fundraising can now move forward, board members and foundation members said.

The Stokes trip — a three-day, two-night program at Stokes State Forest in Sussex County run by Montclair State University's New Jersey School of Conservation — was part of the curriculum for the district's fifth-graders for 40 years.

But the program came under fire during the 2008 budget process. Voters defeated a referendum on the Stokes trip and it was cancelled for the 2008-09 year.

The trip was reinstated in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, after a grassroots campaign by parents, students and some staff, and was designated for the district's sixth-graders.

The trip was again cut from the 2011-2012 school budget, when the foundation was first suggested and formed as a way to fundraise for the trip.

said Gerard Morey, chairman of the foundation.

That has changed, Morey said when the board went into executive session.

"We're just ecstatic," he said. "The board is working with us for the benefit of the children. The stumbling blocks have been removed."

Cheryl Altieri, secretary of the foundation, said there had been a whirlwind of meetings between last Friday and Thursday night's school board meeting.

"More has been accomplished since Friday than in the four months previous," she said.

One of the stumbling blocks had been the very issue of .

Ideas had been proposed in the fall and early winter, but had gotten nowhere because the board had to approve the fundraising.

The resolution authorizing the fundraising efforts includes a a list of potential fundraisers, including a gift auction and spaghetti dinners, and the use of school facilities for hosting some.

More importantly, Fulcomer said, was allowing the foundation to distribute information about fundraisers through the district's schools, to get the word out and maximize participation.

The first resolution, authorizing $5,000 for two Stokes trip coordinators, said it would be transferred from the salary account that pays Superintendent Joseph H. Vicari, a move that came at Vicari's request, Fulcomer said.

Vicari was not at the meeting due to a death in his family, Morey said.

"He had planned to be here, but he called me as he was on his way out of state to apologize and to tell me why he would miss the meeting," Morey said. "He has promised his full support."

Morey, who addressed the board during the public comment, thanked the board for the resolutions.

He then addressed Laura Venter, the district's business administrator, about one last issue that was not directly addressed in the resolutions.

It involved an e-mail Venter sent in December to the district's staff, informing them that those who wanted to chaperone the trip would not be covered by the district's worker's compensation policy and would have to use personal or vacation days to participate.

"What about that e-mail that went out a couple months ago?" Morey asked.

"That's now void," Venter said, sparking applause from the audience that was primarily members of the district's staff.

Former longtime board president James J. Byrnes - who is now Township Council president and also a Foundation member - said the Foundation has asked for the number of children in the district who receive reduced or free school lunches.

The group is looking to establish some type of "Adopt-A-Child" program so students who can't afford the price may still be able to go, he said.