FACTORYVILLE — Members of the Lackawanna Trail Board of Education voted 8-0 to approve the resignation and Memorandum of Understanding between Dr. Tania Stoker and the school district during a regular meeting Dec. 4. Stoker’s resignation is effective Jan. 1, 2018. Board member Joseph Ross abstained from the vote.
During her 10-year tenure at Lackawanna Trail, Stoker served as assistant secondary principal at the high school for 3 1/2 years, elementary center principal for 2 1/2 years, and is currently in her fourth year as curriculum director.
Stoker is moving on to the Northern Lehigh School District where she will serve as Assistant to the Superintendent.
“It’s an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” she said.
According to Stoker, the people within the Lackawanna Trail School District made her job rewarding.
“I really think the Lackawanna Trail community is a great place, from the parents to the administrators to the faculty and staff,” she said. “They are just a great group of people. They care about the kids, they care about the community and they just do a really nice job.
“I would like to say thank you to the district for my first opportunity to be an administrator in various positions. I wish everybody at Lackawanna Trail continued success.”
Members of the board voted, 8-0, to elect Philip Stark as president and David Thorne as vice president. Stark and Thorne abstained from the vote on their respective positions during the reorganization session of the meeting.
Kevin Mulhern, Deborah Naylor, Adrian Bianchi and Stark were also sworn in as board members by Wyoming County District Justice David K. Plummer during reorganization.
Members of the board voted, 9-0, to approve the resignation of Debbie Ross from her cafeteria manager position, effective Jan. 1, 2018.
Members of the board voted, 9-0, to approve the resignations of girls volleyball head coach Ryan Laubach and boys basketball assistant coach Jason Fauquier, both effective immediately.
Fauquier was later approved as a volunteer boys basketball assistant coach.
Members of the board voted, 7-2, to appoint Michael Sunseri as a boys basketball assistant coach for the 2017-18 school year, at a stipend of $4,100.
According to Lackawanna Trail High School Principal Dr. Mark Murphy, the district has received approximately $25,000 in grant money from the Community Foundation of the Endless Mountains over the past five years, to help fund lighting and sound upgrades in the high school auditorium.
Superintendent Matthew Rakauskas has been pleased with the progress made on advertising in the school district, but would like to see even more growth in the future.
“Four years ago, we started advertising in our schools with local businesses,” Rakauskas said. “We have advertising in our elementary and high school gyms, from which we generate a small amount of revenue that goes directly into our general fund.
“One of my goals this year is to increase this even more — not just the signs in the gyms, but also naming rights.”
First National Bank reached a one-year agreement with the Lackawanna Trail School District in August for exclusive naming rights of the high school auditorium at a cost of $5,000.
According to Rakauskas, the next area targeted for the sale of naming rights is the high school library.
