President Re-Appointed, 3 Sworn In to Bernards BOE

For the first time, the Bernards Township Board of Education held its annual reorganization meeting in January, swearing in three members who had won re-election in November for additional terms and re-appointing Susan McGowan as board president.

Robin McKeon, Audrey Cohen Sherwyn, and Beverly Darvin Cwerner, who ran as incumbents last November against challenger Louis D'Autorio, were sworn in for new three-year terms for each on the board.

The board also voted unanimously to re-elect McGowan as board president. Sherwyn was then voted in as the board vice-president.

McGowan had started last year board vice-president but stepped into the role of president when Susan Carlsson, who previously had been board president. Carlsson resigned in the middle of last year because she said was moving out of town and said she didn't want to serve the extra months added onto her term after the election had been shifted to November.

Carlsson said following the meeting that 2013 will mostly be a continuation of issues and initiatives already started in this school year.

She said the district will continue to implement new state standards, as well as looking again at security measures in district school buildings. McGowan said school officials also will look to put a districtwide strategic plan in place, although that probably won't take place this school year.

During her report, Cwerner said that the board's policy committee will be looking at starting the school year earlier, and ending earlier in future school years, as well as reviewing such issues as a request to add the Indian holiday of Diwali to the school calendar as a day off from school.

New assistant principal at William Annin

A familiar face being moved into new position early this year is Brian Heineman, the district's current supervisor of science and technology, who will become one of two vice-principals at the middle school effective Feb. 4.

The move means that the district now must search for a new science and technology supervisor, said Schools Superintendent Nick Markarian.

Heineman has held that role for nine years, and during that time has designed and updated the district's K-12 technology plan three times, said Sean Siet, assistant schools superintendent.

Heineman is president of the New Jersey Science Education Leadership Association and also has been presented at statewide conferences, Siet said.

Heineman replaces Paul Ciempola, who moved to become the vice-principal at the Mount Prospect Elementary School when that school's current vice-principal, at that school at the end of this month. The current principal, she is retiring at the end of January.