This Week at NJ21st: Pavement, Proficiency, and Power Outages

Aug 23, 2025

Burning Through Reeboks Laura walked for miles and hours documenting driveways the town is spending “emergency” bond money repairing – what she found was both dissapointing and infuriating. She followed up with coverage of the Town Council meeting where the “emergency” bond was approved and a resident asked Councilwoman Susan Poage about her glossy campaign materials and promises to work on the flooding issue. Oh, and John wrote a really boring article about the Town Council Agenda.

Deborah McCalla Terrell Piscataway School Board Member and former State Assembly Candidate Loretta Rivers launches a call to action – demanding that residents ask why funds aren’t matching promises in New Brunswick. John writes an in-depth article on how policing in New Jersey can be better.

Test Tactics John spent last weekend writing emails to everyone (and we mean everyone) about NJ’s plan to move to adaptive testing this year. Notice of the new testing approach that seeks to replace the prior method of evaluating math and ela proficiency leaves some big questions unanswered – Is the test going to mask declines? Will children with vulnerabilities fall through the cracks? Is NJ complying with Federal law? New Jersey Education report, who originally broke the story added to these concerns.

BHPSNJ Continues to Push Forward Laura provides coverage of the Berkeley Heights BOE Meeting where residents heard NJGPA pass rates are improving, the Administration appears to be moving in the right direction and the conversation focused on students. John wrote another boring article on this Agenda as well.

Someone Has Been Reading Michaels Email’s One Berkeley Heights resident’s dream has finally come true and JCP&L is finally being held to account for declines in relaibility.

Who Peed in His Cheerios? John has one of his moments and yells at everyone for not showing up to meetings or writing articles.

On the Socials- Soon after NJ21st published Laura’s invetigative article on bond related repairs, the township suddenly decided to disallow Zoom Access to the Council Meeting.