Influencing Policymakers 

We will schedule a private meeting with members of the Board of Education to present our research and how necessary the solution is. These members include Nick Markarian (Superintendent), Jennifer White (Wellness), Timothy Salmon (Curriculum), Lawrence Rascio (Operations and Facilities), Keith Molinari (President), Robin McKeon (Policy), Kirsten Light (Finance), Ruchika Hira, Csilla Csipak, and Nimish Amin (Vice President). We have already brought up the premise of our project at the board meeting on May 22, 2023, so they're at least aware of our ideas. The BOE would be in charge of implementing our solution because they are the ones that set the start and end times and therefore would be able to make the change for us. 
In addition, we will discuss our ideas with the RHS principal, Dr. Lazovich as well as the elementary and middle school principals Paul Ciempola (Cedar Hill), Holly Folley (Oak Street), James Oliver (Liberty Corner), Joanne Hozeny (Mount Prospect), and Karen Hudock (William Annin). We want everyone to be aware of the solution and even provide some feedback so that the transition will be easy for everyone since it will affect the entire district.

We want the change to be a BTSD initiative and if we see improvement trialing it in our district, then we want to petition the state government to mandate that high schools should start no earlier than 8:30 am as Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin and Senator Vin Gopal proposed last year. We would do this by writing to our local representatives who would hopefully be on board with us. However, we won't do this until it's seen as a success in Bernard's Township School District.