Dear Point Pleasant Borough Community,
The spring season is especially welcome this year as a reminder that our lives are a series of new beginnings and that no change is truly permanent. Acts of nature and the senseless acts that have punctuated the year can no more extinguish our human spirit than a bitter winter can keep spring blooms from rushing to the surface to announce the season of rebirth.
It has been an unforgettable year for all its achievements and milestones, as well as the unforeseeable twists of fate. The extraordinary highs and unfathomable lows have forever shaped and changed us, but as the winter thaws and the world begins anew, so too do we. Our spirit has been transformed and strengthened by the bonds we share as the Point Pleasant Borough Community.
The Point Pleasant School District is grateful and proud of its role at the hub of our community. We are fortunate to introduce our students to some of their first experiences participating in the broader activities in our community, perhaps the first time these young boys and girls begin to understand their place in the world around them and their ability to affect change as one and as many. We at the schools are also fortunate that when our friends and neighbors are in need we are able to help. The people, services and resources of the Point Pleasant Schools are always ready and available.
It’s hard to believe with so much that has happened that the end of the school year is nearly upon us. We are in the midst of spring testing but that too will soon be over and before you can blink our Class of 2013 will be donning their caps and gowns. What they’ve accomplished this year is merely prelude to the adventurous paths their adult lives will follow.
And this year has been packed with achievements for both our students and our staff. Our commitment to recognizing excellence among our staff and students through various recognition programs has seen the district distribute certificates of achievement numbering in the hundreds. Over the past year, students have received commendations for their academic pursuits, seen critical acclaim for their work in the performing arts and have secured a number of state sectional championships and sportsmanship awards.
We began the school year on the heels of the high school teacher John McAllen’s receipt of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching, the highest honor our nation bestows on educators. This award comes just two years after a district teacher was named the Milken Family Foundation’s Educator of the Year.
These awards and accolades bring honor to our district and serve as a testament to the superior quality of our schools’ educational and co-curricular program. Our Board of Education’s recent adoption of the 2013-2014 budget guarantees that the achievements of the past offer but a glimpse of future success with the implementation of exciting new programs and initiatives provided for in the budget.
Consistent with the district’s commitment to delivering a first-class educational experience to our students while remaining accountable to taxpayers, the approved budget maintains our schools’ high quality educational and co-curricular programs and progressively addresses students’ evolving needs yet comes in under the State’s Budget Cap!
Despite changes to the procedure for the passage of the school budget, under last year’s State legislation, the district remains dedicated to fiscal responsibility and committed to transparency in the budget process.
Since September 2012, we have all gotten a little older and hopefully a little wiser, but it’s our spirit that has been most transformed, strengthened by the bonds we share as members of the Point Pleasant Borough community.
On behalf of the Board of Education and Central Administration, I would like to thank you for helping to nurture the connection between our schools and our community. Our ability to rise together is the foundation for the successes in our schools and in our lives.
Sincerely,
Vincent S. Smith
Superintendent of Schools
