Stephanie Benecchi (left), Matt Ritter and Meg Hollingworth recently took their oath of office as board members.
After the community approved a $46.7 million bond referendum during a special election in December, the Haddonfield school district is ready to implement upgrades to dated facilities and additions to its educational offerings throughout 2025.
According to Superintendent Chuck Klaus, bids are starting to go out, and construction on the upgrades is slated to begin this summer, with specifics to be announced in the coming weeks.
“We will be touching basically every building this summer,” he said. “We’re excited to get that work in place. That’s gonna give us things like accessibility. We’ll eventually have a full-day kindergarten, which we don’t have right now. We’re gonna have more classroom space.
“So that’s gonna set us up for the future very well.”
The work — expected to take between three to five years to complete — will be partially funded by taxpayers, with the state covering the rest.
In other news, the board of education hosted its first meeting of the year on Jan. 2, with three board members – Matt Ritter, Meg Hollingworth and Stephanie Benecchi – sworn into office after running uncontested for three available seats in the November election.
Hollingworth, director of product management at Aetna, and Benecchi, a lawyer and adjunct professor of law, were both reelected for a second term. Ritter, vice president of Subaru of America’s Eastern Region, previously served on the board from 2017 to 2020.
Jaime Grookett was unanimously appointed board president and Linda Hochgertel was unanimously named vice president.
Klaus expressed excitement over the year to come.
“We have outstanding students who work hard,” he noted. “We have a great teaching staff. There’s a lot of positivity going on. We have a very strong board, a very positive board, very well informed. They take the job very seriously.
“Right now, I think we’re in a pretty good place.”
