The Salisbury Township School Board of Directors held a regular school board meeting Aug. 13 following an executive session pertaining to personnel issues.

Chief Financial Officer Dawn Nickischer informed the board she believes the district is in a good financial position at this time since the governor’s budget has not yet been passed which halts needed funding.

Superintendent Lynn Fuini-Hetten reported the latest word on the governor’s budget is that both sides have been unable to agree so in the next few weeks they will come together and the budget process will start over.

During the curriculum and technology portion of the meeting, the board approved the following: a 5-year affiliation agreement with Cedar Crest College, an agreement with Intermediate Unit 20 for Title I Equitable services for non-public schools, a partnership agreement with Keystone/Red Rock Job Corps, a Lehigh Learning Academy Agreement and the targeted support and improvement plan for at-risk students at Salisbury High School.

A roll-call vote was taken for the approval of the curriculum for Science K-12, Learning Lab 6-8 and UFLI Foundations for early reading after Director Laura McKelvey took issue with the unfinished seventh grade learning lab curriculum citing policy states the curriculum must be aligned with the standards. Since the alignment of standards was not completed, she reasoned that by definition the curriculum in its present state was, in fact, not a curriculum and should not be approved.

Fuini-Hetten acknowledged the curriculum needed to be finalized and she outlined the attempts made to complete it with those involved in the writing process. Any work that needs to be completed over the summer, such as curriculum writing, is voluntary and in this case the teacher was unavailable. Going forward if curriculum writing is incomplete, administration will step in and complete it.

Administration said they are committed to bringing a completed curriculum aligned to the standards to the board in September.

After a roll call was taken, the motion was passed 6-3 with dissenting votes from directors Joseph Gaither, Thomas Spinner and McKelvey.

The operations committee moved to vote on the 2025 additional school per capita tax in the amount of $735, the closure of the Class of 2025 student activities account, a deed of dedication for 17 square feet of district property to the Township of Salisbury, a conflict of interest waiver between Lehigh Career and Technical Institute, King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul, LCC and Salisbury School District and the student transportation program for the 2025-2026 school year. All motions passed.

Resignations approved by the board include Salisbury Elementary School teacher Devin Kelly, Instructional Assistant Robin Reynolds and swimming coach Mackenzie Sikora.

The board approved the hiring of Ashley Vinti, long-term substitute English teacher, Hira Bhatti, part-time long-term ESL teacher, Susan Knight, short-term elementary teacher, Kiersten Miller, full-time mathematics teacher and Rory Watson, full-time autistic support teacher.

Instructional assistants approved by the board include Emily Gittelman, Brandi Beers, Cheyenne Hamory, Christine Bucks, Susmitha Kothapalli and Rachel Wolff.

Coaching positions approved by the board include Rachael Legath, tennis, Amy Huber, boys JV soccer, Eric Smith, co-marching band director, Mark Mixa, assistant football coach and Jonah Miller, JV football coach.

Laura Nogueira and Michael Posh were approved to serve as educational liaisons for the 2025-2026 school year.

A list of new teacher mentors, game workers and substitute additions and deletions were also approved by the board.

The board went on to approve the final adoption of two policies dealing with the use of facilities and artificial intelligence.

During board reports, the board approved an agreement between Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21 and Salisbury Township School District to provide Title I equitable services for Salisbury students attending nonpublic schools for the 2025-2026 school year.

In her superintendent’s report, Fuini-Hetten expressed her appreciation for all the work staff has done over the summer to run summer programs, process enrollments, prepare technology and school buildings for the coming year as well as securing supplies and materials.

On the topic of graduation rates, Fuini-Hetten reported the 2024-2025 graduation rate was 85.6%. In a class of 146 students, 21 students did not graduate and of those, four dropped out and 17 will continue their education in 2025-2026. Ten of the 17 continuing students are receiving special education services.

Of the 5-year cohort of students who could have graduated in 2023-2024 but continued their education into 2024-2025, 92.3% graduated. In a class of 130 students, 10 students did not graduate and of those 10, six dropped out and four will continue their education in 2025-2026. Three of the four students receive special education services.

Of the 6-year cohort of students that could have graduated in 2022-2023, 87.17% graduated with 13 students dropping out and two students who receive special education services will continue into the 2025-2026 school year.

She noted the Red Rock Job Corp partnership agreement the board approved will allow the district to mark students who are enrolled in and successfully complete the program as graduated which will, in turn, help graduation rates. Currently, when students went into the job corp and successfully completed the program, they were not counted as graduates.

Fuini-Hetten reminded families Aug. 25 is orientation day for students in kindergarten, fifth and ninth grades and Aug. 26 is the first day of school for all students.

Nominations for the Alumni Wall of Honor are being accepted until Oct. 1. Applications can be found at www.salisburysd.org under the community tab.

During the citizen’s comments portion of the meeting, Dennis Engle suggested the board consider finding ways to cut down on legal expenses when possible.

He also relayed an incident where a resident who is finding it difficult to meet tax obligations was upset because Portnoff, the debt collection service hired by the district, was taking pictures of his house which the resident referred to as “mafia tactics.” Engle wondered if there was a way of handling these kinds of situations in-house with a payment plan rather than resorting to debt collection.

Fuini-Hetten responded by saying the residents with these types of concerns should not hesitate to contact the business office and speak with Nickischer for assistance.

The Salisbury Township School Board will hold an operations and finance committee meeting 7 p.m. Sept. 10. A curriculum and technology meeting followed by a regular school board meeting will be held 7 p.m. Sept. 17. All meetings will be held in the administration building, 1140 Salisbury Road, Allentown.