The regular board meeting of the Salisbury Township school board was held June 16 via Zoom.

The meeting began by recognizing two district staff members set to retire: Mary Kay Parlo, accounts payable administrative assistant and Elizabeth Seaman, instructional assistant.

“Thank you to everyone for giving me this opportunity for the past 22 years to serve the district,” Parlo said. She had three children educated and graduated in the district and started her career with Salisbury as a volunteer in the 1990s.

Seaman worked for Salisbury for over 28 years.

“We all worked together as a team and I appreciated that and that’s what made Salisbury very special to me,” Seaman said. She made sure to also thank the staff for allowing her to be a part of the “Salisbury family.”

Before the meeting entered its procedural portion, a citizen comment period allowed community members to voice their opinions pertaining to agenda items.

Many parents and stakeholders from the community voiced their concern regarding a proposed health and safety plan asking students to remain masked in schools until they are fully vaccinated.

Families cited bullying, ineffectiveness of masks and their beliefs about the transmission level and severity of the virus being overblown as reasons they opposed the school board adopting a health and safety plan that would require masks for all students until they have received a full vaccination for COVID-19.

Despite the dissent from the community, the school board did unanimously pass the proposed health and safety plan that would allow masking to continue during summer instruction and activities.

Superintendent Lynn Fuini-Hetten said as guidelines are handed down over the summer and additional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance is provided, updated safety plans would be brought before the board to vote.

The school board also approved the final budget for the 2021-2022 school year, which included no changes to the version reviewed during the previous school board meeting.

Additional personnel matters to the retirements announced earlier in the meeting were reviewed and brought to a vote.

The retirement of Wayne Kucsan as a full-time utility maintenance worker at Salisbury High School as well as the resignations of Seth Tanner and Lissa Flores as part-time one-to-one instructional assistants at Salisbury Elementary School and Michaele Hippauf as a full-time third grade teacher at SES were approved.

The board also voted to approve the reinstatement of employment for Rosemarie Ambriano-Yob and Cortney Woodruff, both of Allentown, as part-time one-to-one instructional assistants at locations yet to be determined.

The following employments were also approved by the school board: Elena Zervos, of Nazareth, as a full-time elementary autistic support teacher at SES, Alexandra Serson, of Hellertown, as a full-time special education teacher at Salisbury Middle School and Scott Monahan, Jack Monahan and William Baker, all of Allentown, for 2021 summer custodial assistance.

The next meeting of the school board will be held via Zoom July 14.