New school year brings some changes
BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer

EDISON — When most township students start school tomorrow, they will see the same faces in different places and spruced-up surroundings.

Full-day classes start tomorrow for all students except those who are in kindergarten.

High school students will start their day at 7:35 a.m. Middle school students will begin at 8:30 a.m. and elementary school students will get a later start at 9 a.m.

The 13,522 students currently enrolled in the district’s 17 schools (100 more than last year) will be welcomed by "familiar faces in different places," said Schools Superintendent Vincent Capraro, "everyone is moving up and around."

Capraro was referring to the shifting of most of the schools’ administrators.

Once three people retired, a domino effect within the staff was created. Those retirees were Frank Cangelosi, principal of Edison High School; Robert Ranta, assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction; and Kate Lutter, principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.

Joseph Kovacs, who was most recently principal at Herbert Hoover Middle School, stepped into Cangelosi’s shoes at Edison High.

Nicholas Romanetz, who was vice principal at J.P. Stevens High School, went to Herbert Hoover to replace Kovacs.

Rose Traficante, formerly principal at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, replaced Ranta as the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction.

Daniel Donnelly was moved from principal at Washington Elementary School to principal at Woodrow Wilson.

Traci Solasky, who was guidance counselor at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, is now the principal at Washington.

Louis Figueroa, who was vice principal at Edison High School, replaced Lutter as principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.

Regina Foxx is now principal at James Madison Intermediate School.

Capraro said he was proud that J.P. Stevens High School was recently rated the No. 1 high school in Middlesex County and No. 46 in the state.

"We will continue this year to do what we have done in the past to make the schools successful," he said.

There will also be an additional kindergarten class this year, which will be moved from the Lindeneau School to Washington Elementary. The all-day kindergarten program that started in the 2003-04 school year has been successful, he said.

The district also added two modular classrooms to both the James Monroe Middle School and the Lindeneau Elementary School, Capraro said.

"They should be done by January," he said.

The district is also promoting healthy lunches, said Capraro.

"We have posters and all sorts of promotional material emphasizing healthy eating," he said. "Following that philosophy, we are serving a lot of low-fat, low-carbohydrate foods and vegetarian dishes. We’re steering away from any high-fat, low nutrition foods."