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Jersey Shore School Board passes updated chaperone policy

JERSEY SHORE — After much discussion, a request for an exemption to school policy requiring a one-to-10 chaperone-to-student ratio for a field trip was approved by the Jersey Shore Area School Board on Tuesday.

The request was made by the Future Business Leaders of America for them to attend the Regional Leadership Conference at the Pennsylvania College of Technology on Jan. 8 where they would be competing and participating in workshops.

The board’s issue with the request was that 120 FBLA students are signed up to attend the conference and as of the time of the board meeting only six chaperones were accompanying the group.

Board member John Peccia questioned why there always seemed to be some group asking for an exemption to the policy and maybe the policy needs to be revisited.

“I’m not saying one to 10 is wrong,” he added.

The students involved with the request are older, but Ken Dady Jr., assistant superintendent, pointed out that a higher ratio would not be appropriate for younger students.

“You have to be careful if you’re going to revisit the policy, what that’s going to look like, because the policy is written for K to 12,” he said.

Superintendent Jill Wenrich noted that the only times that exemptions have been made were for FBLA are for students walking from the middle to the high school.

“I have been involved with many districts and most all districts have a one to 10 ratio,” she added.

The board’s approval came with the caveat that the advisor to the FBLA keep trying to secure more chaperones for this event and that in the future the groups should abide by the district policy concerning the ratio of students to chaperones.

In her report to the board, Wenrich said Jan. 21 would be a make-up day for the day missed recently due to snow.

Under personnel matters,the board:

• Accepted the letters of resignation from Body Smith, assistant Middle School boys basketball coach and Travis Segraves, assistant girls varsity track and field coach.

• Approved volunteer coaches, Lou Anne Gasperine for swimming and Kelob Herman, Zakary Herman, Christopher Winchester and Theodore Weiss all for wrestling.

The agenda item dealing with the retention of fall sport head coaches and sports for the 2019-20 school year was tabled until the next meeting so that board members could read their evaluations.

The next board meeting will be at 7 p.m. Dec. 3 at the Administration Building, 175 A & P Drive.

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