I wanted to give you an update on our petition.  As promised, I presented our petition at the March 16, 2021 BOE meeting.  I followed up that presentation with an email to the board the evening of March 16th:  My email is below:

Great meeting tonight!  Attached you will find 4 documents.  
 
1.  The petition as it appeared on Change.org
2.  The petition signatures.
3.  The petition comments.
4.  The statement I read at the meeting tonight. 
 
I hope that I did a good job trying to explain why shifting the calendar to start earlier and end earlier is harder for families.  For those board members that don't have to use child care, or may be out of touch with the programs offered, let me share just this one example - it's a good one.  Summer camps do not start until the first week of July for the most part.  Most of the schools get out the third week in June, as have we for many years.  I have always struggled to find care for my kids for the last week in June before camps startup.  With the new proposed calendar, the kids start having half days on June 8th and are out June 13.  So I have to figure out 3 full weeks of care when there are no camps open yet.  If other schools followed this schedule, the camps would be shifting too.  But as I have pointed out many times other schools do not follow this schedule and camps have no reason to shift.  We are not big enough or have enough resources to trailblaze on this issue. 
 
I am looking forward to hearing back from the BOE after you discuss my petition.  Thank you all for thoroughly examining this petition.  
 
Sincerely,
Tina Breen

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Today I sent a second email to the board as a follow-up.  It is below: 

Good morning everyone.  I wanted to send a follow-up email to the board about my petition email on March 16, 2021.  I have not received a reply, and at the very least, I wanted to make sure that it was delivered successfully.  I noticed that my statement at the last BOE meeting was not saved properly, so I reattached it here.  I would like to understand what the next steps are for the board to follow since my petition was presented and the timeline. I can expect to hear some feedback from the board.  

I have been reporting updates to the people who signed the petition through change.org and would love to let everyone know that the board is communicating well with me and that they are upholding one of the two board responsibilities : 

The school board has a dual role: To represent the concerns of the citizens, taxpayers, and parents to the school administrators and to represent the needs of the students and school district to the citizens, taxpayers, and parents of the community.
https://www.njsba.org/news-information/school-board-basics-frequently-asked-questions/

I hope everyone has a great spring break, and I look forward to hearing back from the board president.  

Tina Breen

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I will let you know when I hear something back.  Thank you, everyone, for your support.  You can also feel free to reach out to the Manville BOE for an update on this petition if you are someone that signed it.  Here are the email addresses of the board members:

jesposito@manvillesd.org, tkenyon@manvillesd.org, jlombardino@manvillesd.org, bagans@manvillesd.org, kgall@manvillesd.org, sliszczak@manvillesd.org, kharabin@manvillesd.org, slukac@manvillesd.org, jpschar@manvillesd.org