LITTLE EGG HARBOR – Pinelands Regional High School saw a steady decrease in absences to date between the 2023-2024 and the 2025-2026 school year, according to a presentation given by Dean of Students Michele Maleski at a recent Board of Education meeting.
The presentation also showed a decrease in absences at the junior high school in 2025-2026 compared to the previous school year.
The 2024-2025 school year showed a spike in absences at the junior high school that was greater than the 2025-2026 and 2023-2024 school year.
Maleski spoke about their “attendance wins for this year. The biggest thing is we have our consistent attendance policy through the 7th and 12th grade.”
“We streamlined everything so that all of the families are getting the same message from both buildings,” she said. “We unified those procedures.”
Similarly, there were less tardies at both the junior high school and high school in the 2023-2024 and the 2025-2026 school years.
Maleski explained why it was important to track lateness. “When you’re receiving credit – and each class and every class has credit for each particular class – seat time is very important and it goes from the first period of the day to the very last period of the day.”
New Jersey State law does not excuse absences with a doctor’s note, according to the presentation. The district’s policy, however, is that they will excuse an absence with a doctor’s note, according to Maleski. The district really educated families this year on how important it is to have that excuse.
Reasons for excused absence under New Jersey state law include religious observance, Take Your Children to Work Day, transportation closure, up to three days per year for college visits, Veterans Day and elections, and one day per year for civic events.
Maleski said, “Our big goal was over this past summer, and the summer prior, we really sat down with our families that had a history of having issues getting themselves to school, and we prioritized that by really doing personal attendance action plans with each of those families, because every student had different things that they were having challenges with getting to school.”
“We did over 20 home visits this year, sitting down at people’s kitchen tables, figuring what’s going on, and really honing in on a very select group of students that were finding attendance as a family very challenging, and we’ve made over 400 phone calls easily,” she said.
In other news, the board approved the contracts of Gina Frasca as Assistant Superintendent for the 2026-2027 school year with an annual salary of $154,722.
Board member David Hewett voted no on the contract approval of assistant superintendent, and Vice President Crystal Martin recused herself from the agenda item. All other board members voted yes.
The board approved the business administrator/board secretary contract for Amanda Miller for the 2026-2027 school year with an annual salary of $139,326
The board approved the superintendent merit goals for the 2026-2027 school year. Board members Florence Grasso, Betti Anne McVey, and Martin voted no, with all other board members voting yes.
