November 25th Meeting Recap - Block Scheduling Moves Forward, PR Firm Replaced, and Capital Reserves Under Scrutiny

Quick recap of the Nov 25 RIH BOE Meeting before the holiday:

Audit Report:

The district auditor presented the Audit report, it was a clean report with no significant recommendations. The auditor noted there was a significant spend down of capital reserves in the past year.

Block schedule (with late start time):

If you will have or will have a student in the RIH district, watch the Block Schedule presentation! This proposed change is a big win for our students! Block scheduling has been discussed in our district going back many years. Most recently it was a recommendation from the 2023 Strategic Plan process run by Dr. Dionisio. RIH is late to the game in implementing this type of schedule, many high performing districts in NJ have been using this type of schedule for many years.

Last year's RIH BOE, under the leadership of Judy Sullivan and Kim Ansh, put up a lot of road blocks for Dr. Dionisio, resulting in the presentation being pulled from the agenda in October 2023. Many of these Board members who put up roadblocks to implementing Block Scheduling last year (including Kim Ansh and Marianna Emmolo), are now claiming they have always been very supportive of Block Scheduling.

I hope the RIH BOE will unanimously vote to support this long delayed implementation in December.

New Job Description for 'Part Time Coordinator of Content and Communications':

The BOE voted to approve the new Job Description for “Part Time Coordinator of Content and Communications”. The Job Description and salary were not made pubic, however, as I speculated, this position was recommended by the new Superintendent to replace the Public Relations firm hired by Kim Ansh’s majority. Kim Ansh stated that the position would be 20 hours per week, Brian DeLaite commented that it will double the attention to Communications using someone who knows our district. The PR firm was paid $3,500 per month. It was not publicly discussed what the new position will cost.

Interim BA report:

Ms. Zeno announced that the district had $1 million in Interest Income and $1.8 mil in Other Income from cell towers, etc., which allowed the district to replenish the Capital Reserve Fund. This appeared to be a response to the audit report noting significant spend down of capital reserves over the past year under Interim BA Ms. Zeno and Finance Chair Marianna Emmolo.

Public Comments:

Joel Ansh (husband of RIH BOE President Kim Ansh who is also a Franklin Lakes Town Council member), expressed his support for Block Scheduling. Interesting that he is suddenly supportive of the initiative that his wife did not appear to support last year.

Board Comments:

Brian DeLaite was positive about the implementation of Block Scheduling, and also noted that replacing the PR firm with a part time employee will more than double the attention to communications.

Helen Koulikourdis thanked the work of the 2023 Strategic Planning Committee that recommended implementing Block Scheduling, and thanked Ms. Demarco for acknowledging the work of the Strategic Plan Committee.

Sorry for the brevity, it’s a busy week. Happy Thanksgiving all!