Five Things to Know: BOE Meeting

1. School officials urged parents to become proactive in voicing their concerns over a proposed charter school in the area. If approved, , a Mandarin immersion charter school, would draw students from West Orange.

West Orange Supertintendent of Schools Dr. Anthony Cavanna wrote a to Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf opposing the charter school. He urged parents to send their own letters to the commissioner as well.

"We're not against alternatives in programming," Cavanna said.

He said the district already boasts an award-winning Mandarin Chinese Program and that the charter school would impose a heavy financial burden. "If students from West Orange want to attend the charter school, the district has to pay a 90 percent per pupil expenditure to the charter school and it will add to the budget."

After the state Department of Education , the school without Millburn, Livingston and Union among the school districts from which they would draw.

2. The board of education recognized the Band Monday night for coming in second place at the New Jersey State Championship last month. Lewis Kelly, band director, had nothing but praise for the roughly 100 students enrolled in the band. Several of the students attended the meeting at and were applauded by school officials and the public.

West Orange High School math teacher Frank Iannucci was also recognized by the board of education and the superintendent for being the . Iannucci received $25,000 from the foundation last month. "I do what I do for my kids," Iannucci said, thanking his colleagues for his accomplishments. "I learned everything from my colleagues … teachers are products of each other."

3. High school principal Arthur Alloggiamento presented a report to school officials detailing results from the advanced placement program. Alloggiamento said the district's strong AP program propelled them to for the second year in a row. West Orange, he said, is ranked among the top six percent of public high schools in the nation.

In 2003 the high school boasted 163 students taking AP course, in 2011, more than 300 students were enrolled. The number of AP exams taken also spiked from 290 in 2003 to almost 700 in 2011. Alloggiamento said test scores remained above the state's average.

4. No instances of bullying, intimidation or harassment were reported by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Anthony Cavanna for the second month in a row.

5. Responding to a resident's interest in July's closed session meeting minutes, board member Paul Petigrow said the minutes would not be publicly posted. He said though minutes were drafted and adopted by the board, the meeting dealt with a personnel issue and would not be made available to the public.

School officials met in a for a yearly evaluation of the superintendent. The meeting