CLARK — Superintendent Edward Grande outlined this year’s district goals and objectives during a brief meeting of the Clark Board of Education, which was held on Monday in the township’s council chambers.
This year’s district goals can be broken into three objectives, Mr. Grande said: “to foster positive post-Covid school/district cultures so that our emphasis can move to being on best instructional practices; to focus on effective lesson planning in an attempt to bolster our instructional efforts; and to evaluate our security procedures and adjust them as needed.”

“Hopefully, now that the worst of Covid is behind us, we can start to come together again, and that’s going to be so important for the instructional work that lies ahead of us,” Superintendent Grande said.

The board also reviewed the district’s most recent anti-bullying scores, an annual requirement of the state’s Anti-Bullying Bill Of Rights. According to information provided by the New Jersey Department of Education, each school is required to complete an annual self-assessment to determine areas of potential growth and improvement. Schools award themselves points in areas such as documentation, general preparedness and program coordination, with 78 being the highest attainable score.

“We encourage our anti-bullying specialists to be hard on themselves and to use this tool as one for growth,” Mr. Grande said. “We’re not just trying to inflate the scores.”

The district’s five schools ranked themselves as follows: Arthur L. Johnson High School, 73; Carl H. Kumpf Middle School, 72; Frank K. Hehnly Elementary School, 77; Valley Road Elementary, 77; and Clark Preschool, 74.