No Cuts in Berkeley Gifted and Talented Program, School Officials Say

While the Berkeley Township Board of Education protected the Operation Schoolhouse and gifted and talented programs Thursday night, the well-regarded DARE program may be at risk.

“I have 224 letters on my desk about it,” Superintendent Joseph H. Vicari said.

Several members of the board expressed surprise that the program may be on the town’s cuts list, and the board agreed to draft a resolution asking the town to keep it.

“We recognize the importance of it,” Vicari said, noting the Berkeley Township Elementary School Auditorium was filled with parents and grandparents for the recent fifth-grade DARE graduation. “We know it works.”

Board President John A. Bacchione said the finance committee found ways to protect both Operation Schoolhouse and the gifted and talented programs, for the same reasons.

“I was not in favor of closing Operation Schoolhouse,” board member Thomas Grosse said.

Grosse, a Berkeley Township police officer, said the program’s presence creates a drug-free school zone in the Manitou Park section of the township and gets a lot of use in the fall and early spring.

Board member James J. Byrnes questioned the effectiveness of the program. Byrnes said it seemed as though it wasn’t being used much by the students.

“We’ll have to work on that,” Grosse said.

Bacchione said the gifted and talented program will remain status quo.

“There won’t be any extra money going in,” he said.

More information will be presented at the next regular school board meeting in August, Bacchione said.

School officials and board members have been grappling with cuts ever since voters turned down the $26,512,541 tax levy portion of the $32,022,145 budget by a vote of 2,101 to 1,929.

Vicari and other school officials had hoped it would pass, since the amount to be raised by taxation dropped by $168,721 from last year to $26,512,541. A property owner with a home assessed at the township average of $204,100 would have seen a decrease of 52 cents for the upcoming budget year. The proposed school tax rate was 51.5 cents for each $100 of assessed valuation.

Although board members gave no details on how the programs were saved, Vicari has said previously that if he stayed at the minimum salary of $18,500 with no benefits – the amount he accepted to return as superintendent – it would help protect teachers’ jobs.

The bottom line, Grosse and Byrnes said after the meeting, was that no programs would be cut.

“We don’t want a kid sitting in a hallway waiting for a program,” Byrnes said.

The board is looking for ways to save money and potentially generate income through its energy programs. A workshop meeting is slated for June 20 to discuss solar panels and other energy-generating and energy-saving plans.

“It’s a very complex issue,” Byrnes said.

Board member Jim Fulcomer asked about class sizes. Fulcomer said he had noticed dramatic differences between third-grade class sizes at Bayville School, where the third-grade classes had 17 students each, and the third grades at Clara B. Worth School, where the class size was 25 students each.

Vicari said the disparities would be addressed, but that he needed more time to look at it.