Schools

Fort Lee School Board Re-Org Scheduled For New Year's Day

School board officials will swear in four newly elected BOE members and elect a new school board president and vice president at the annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 1, 2013 at 1 p.m.

The four new members of the Fort Lee Board of Education elected in November will be sworn in on Jan. 1, 2013, school officials announced Friday.

The BOE’s annual reorganization meeting will take place on New Year’s Day after the board voted early in the year to move school board elections to November.

“When you used to have the elections in April, the state would always set about a week when you needed to have your re-org meeting, and it was typically either the end of April or the first week in May, depending on when the election was held,” said business administrator and board secretary Cheryl Balletto, adding that because the election was held in November this year, “you do it either the first of the year or within that first week.”

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The first order of business at the reorganization meeting, which takes place in the Fort Lee High School library starting at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 1, will be for Balletto to swear in the four new BOE members.

Esther Han Silver, David Sarnoff and Holly Morell were elected to three-year terms on the school board, and even though Candee Romba was already sworn in for an interim period, Balletto will swear her in again after she was officially elected in November to serve out the one-year, unexpired term of former board president Arthur Levine, who resigned from the board in August.

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After the new members are sworn in, the board will nominate and then vote on a new board president, after which whoever is elected will take over the meeting and repeat the process to elect a new board vice president.

Once all of that is complete, the board will vote on resolutions, including posting meeting dates for the year and appointing professionals like board attorney, architect of record, auditor and others.

“Those are all appointed by the board; they’re not upon the recommendation the superintendent,” Balletto said.

The meeting will also include a public comment session, according to Balletto.

The BOE’s annual goal-setting meeting, which was originally scheduled for Nov. 5, had to be postponed in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and has not yet been rescheduled—something that may or may not happen on Jan. 1.

“The notice does not say that there’s going to be a special public work session or anything like that, so it’s just going to be a re-org meeting at this point,” Balletto said Tuesday. “It is Dec. 11 though; I have time to change that notice if I’m directed to by the board, but as of right now, I have not been told to change anything on the notice.”


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