Perry Township voted for this year’s members of the school board, on Nov. 4. Though the voting is customary, this year’s members Steve Maple, Ed Denning and president Jon Morris went uncontested.

“All three of us were delighted that we were able to serve another 4 years. We have a lot of plans and we’re able to carry them out,” Morris said.

Though their positions have not changed, the school board members still have several implementations for the upcoming years.The tentative schedule is to apply for a new referendum this spring in order to fund future school wide implementations including trailer removal and the addition of 89 new classrooms throughout the township. With the continuously increasing student body, the school board is focusing on increasing space within  Perry Township schools.

“Right now, the emphasis is going to be on our referendum coming up in the spring, so that we are able to add new rooms, instead of continuing to add trailer space,” Morris said.

The possible referendum will also be used in order to increase the transportation routes within the township. This will lead to all elementary, middle,and high schools  having their own transportation route opposed to the current situation in which high school and middle school students share a single bus route. Another dominant focus of the school board is to possibly change the school times so that elementary students both enter and exit school before the students who are in the middle and high schools.

This program is believed to lead to raise grades within Perry Township Schools. Several sleep studies, according to  thesleepfoundation.org, have found that teenagers tend to sleep later in the evening, which would cause them to wake up later in the day. Elementary school students have been found to be more alert within the early morning and become more tired by the afternoon. The change in start time is believed to improve attendance, amounts of sleep and the overall efficiency of students’ class work.

The main predicaments within the idea are the sports schedules, student’s part time job hours and families who may be unable to watch their elementary children. A typical situation described by Morris was a family may be unable to watch their children, because the middle or high school children would not be able to watch the one in elementary school since they would be home before their older siblings.

The school board has several ideas meant to improve the quality of the township. Though the referendum and the new class schedule has yet to be voted upon, the board hopes to implement these ideas and many others in order to improve the township.