Junior High

School Board Votes to Institute Mask Mandate and Update Quarantine Guidelines

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Due to the rising COVID cases in the community, the Exeter Township Board of School Directors met tonight to make changes to the District's Health & Safety Plan. Tonight, they approved two motions, which go into effect tomorrow, January 3, 2022, when all students and staff return to school. They are as follows:
  • All students, staff and visitors must wear masks inside school buildings from Monday, January 3rd through at least Wednesday, January 19th.
  • They updated quarantine guidelines to align with CDC recommendations.
The District will be updating its Health & Safety Plan and FAQs to reflect these changes, which will be available on its website at www.exetersd.org/covid.

Exeter Launches New District Website

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Featuring a news-forward focus, a clean design and community-centered content, the District launched a new website this month at the URL-friendly www.exetersd.org to refresh its online presence. New features include a day-of-the-week widget to help parents and students remember the cycle day, a consistent menu from school-to-school, a news-centered splash page with news, events and social media/ParentSquare feeds, a Community Bulletin Board for local organizations to post their registrations and events, and a grade/department-centered fly-out directory on each school's page to make it easier for you to find teachers and staff. Please make sure you click on the SCHOOLS tab to check out your school's respective site!

We're continuing to make adjustments to our mobile-friendly version and have a few other tweaks/improvements in the works, but we're eager to hear your feedback or suggestions! Please feel free to email communications@nullexetersd.org with features you'd like to see, which may be included in a future update!

Jason Zalno receives TEEAP Teacher Excellence Award

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The Technology & Engineering Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEEAP) awarded their Middle School Teacher Excellence Award to ETJH's Technology Education teacher, Mr. Jason Zalno. A teacher at Exeter for more than a decade, Mr. Zalno created many of the junior high's STEM curriculums throughout the last decade, teaching students how to apply engineering principles to global problems, such as vertical farming, hydroponics and water filtration and cleaning systems. He's also taught robotics and computer science by implementing curriculum from CODE.org and Microsoft's Micro:bit Educational Foundation.

A teacher who embraces the challenges that each day bring, Mr. Zalno says that he loves how "Every day is a different day. There's never two days that are the same--and never a lesson that is exactly the same."

The Teacher Excellence Award is one of the highest honors given to Technology and Engineering Education classroom teachers and is presented in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the profession and their students. Mr. Zalno was recognized this month by TEEAP, and learned he will now compete at an international level for an award presented by the International Technology & Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA). Congratulations to Mr. Zalno!

Mask Update

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Dear Exeter Families,

The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court struck down Pennsylvania’s school mask mandate yesterday, effectively ending masking requirements in PA public schools. At this time, the Exeter Township Board of School Directors has mandated that staff and students continue to wear masks until December 15th. On Wednesday, December 15th, staff, students and visitors may choose to wear or not wear masks in all school buildings. The District will continue to ask students who are visiting the school nurse to wear a  mask, and will provide one if requested. Masks will continue to be required to be worn on school buses as per federal TSA requirements. 

At a future date, the government or the Board of School Directors could reimpose masking requirements. Please continue to monitor school communication for updates.

Thank you for your continued cooperation.

To the ETSD Community

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Dear Exeter Families,

Our number one concern is to provide the safest learning environment possible for all of our students and staff, which is why we will always take any rumor or threat against our students, staff or school community seriously, and why we will always immediately partner with local law enforcement and other agencies to help us investigate these threats to the fullest extent of the law as soon as they come to our attention. Today, you may have heard that there are rumors of violence at the Junior High School. We want you to know that when we received information about this situation, we immediately involved the Exeter Township Police Department to help us investigate any credibility to this rumor. We also immediately began to open dialogue with our students so that we could investigate the situation with both them and their parents.

We understand that this situation is concerning to our students and their parents, which is why we are taking extra steps to provide additional layers of security at the EJHS. These steps include--but are not limited to--adding additional police presence on campus and in the hallways; searching lockers; and conducting thorough searches of all student backpacks, coats, pockets, etc. before students are able to enter the building.

We appreciate the students, parents and staff who have been so cooperative to assist us in this situation. We continue to encourage our students, parents and community members to come forward to us, the Exeter Township Police Department, or report ANY concerns that they may have to Safe2Say, which is a free and anonymous hotline. Please know that we clearly take threats to our students and staff seriously, and the District will take the fullest legal action against those who are responsible for creating terroristic threats to our school community.

Please feel free to contact the Junior High should you have any further questions or concerns.

Thank you,
Alex Brown, Principal