Parents voice concerns at Board of Ed. forum
Lunches, tech needs among topics discussed
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer
With about a month since the school year started, roughly 30 parents attended the first open forum held by the Board of Education last week discussing a myriad of issues and concerns they had.

The issues and concerns included the new lunch program at the elementary schools, bus transportation issues, school violence and bullying prevention, a possibility of full-day kindergarten, technology in the schools, which parents said should be upgraded, and the new dress codes.

The new hot lunch program started at the beginning of the school year for the 16 elementary schools in the school district.

"The reason for the new lunch program is because the meals before would sit for three hours in Styrofoam and leave gallons of condensation inside it," said board President Brian Molnar at the meeting on Oct. 2 at the Matthew Jago School No. 28 in Sewaren. "Now, the students get the food served to them piping hot."

Parents, who attended the meeting, said they were in favor of the new lunch program, but suggested that the school district should at least change the policy of ordering the food.

As of right now, the parents can order the food for their children on a monthly basis. A menu of the meal each day is listed on the school's Web site at www.woodbridge. k12.nj.us.

Board members said changing the ordering policy to biweekly should be feasible.

Parents asked Dr. John Crowe about the district's violence and bullying prevention policies.

"We take instances of violence and bullying very seriously," said Crowe. "The Woodbridge school district has tended to be a safe district … we are constantly looking at violence in schools, making certain that every door at every school is locked and each classroom is secured."

The Board of Education will present the school violence and vandalism report at the next meeting at 7 p.m., Oct. 16 at Avenel Middle School.

Board members said the feasibility of fullday kindergarten was not possible due to space issues; however, the state said it has implemented a mandatory program for about 90 students to attend full-day preschool.

"The first year is for students who live in low economic conditions," said Crowe. "We have to find space."

A parent asked the board to work on the communication between bus transportation and the schools.

Board members said they could put information about bus delays on the Honeywell Instant Alert security system, which the district implemented in 2007.

The security system, which is an Internetbased emergency notification and communication system, provides school administrators an effective way to rapidly and accurately contact every student's family in an event of a serious emergency.

Parents asked the board why the new dress code policies were implemented at Woodbridge Middle School and Fords Middle School and not the other three middle schools. Parents said they felt the dress code should be implemented at all the middle schools.

"With the discussion from the school staff, students and parent groups, a decision will be made if there is a need for a dress code implementation in the [other] schools," said Crowe.

Molnar said he invited Lucille E. Davy, state commissioner of education, to discuss state test score changes, but said she could not make it.

"She told me to contact her for our next open forum, which we look to hold in February," he said.

Parents said they liked the open forum, but felt that the board should have advertised the meeting more to bring out more parents. The next meeting will be announced on the township'sWeb site and in the newspapers.

Contact Kathy Chang at kchang@gmnews.com.