A Closer Look at the BHPSNJ Personnel Committee’s ‘Admin Math’

After NJ21st released an article on February 22nd, 2026 regarding the number of administrators per student in the Berkeley Heights School District, we noticed that when BOE member Gale Bradford gave the report from the Personnel Committee during the March 12th meeting, she spoke about discussions the committee had regarding administrators, specifically the Assistant Principal position at Governor Livingston, and she reported on ‘administrators per student’ as shared by Dr. Feltre.  This sparked the need for a follow-up, as there are some very different numbers and definitions being discussed.

As part of my article, I suggested the district consider not hiring a replacement for one of the Assistant Principals at Governor Livingston. This was also mentioned by Mrs. Bradford in her report.  She started her report by telling the full board that the Personnel Committee had discussed the interim GL Assistant Principal position during their meeting on March 10th, and noted that the BOE had voted to have the position filled during the February 26th BOE meeting.  New GL Principal Meg Berry provided responsibilities for this job.  Mrs. Bradford told the board that Dr. Feltre had provided some historic information about the second Assistant Principal, saying that this administrator role was added in 2002.  Dr. Feltre also shared a table with the Personnel Committee showing the number of administrators per student, which Mrs. Bradford said was in the “middle 200’s” for the other schools, and that with the Principal and two Assistant Principals at the high school, that ratio was the same.  She reported that if we were to eliminate one of those three jobs, the ratio would double, to 417:1.  (I’m not sure how that math makes sense, but then again I’m a designer because I don’t ‘math’ well.) 

In the report, Mrs. Bradford said the committee noted that some of the duties of the two assistants were repetitive, but that they needed to be “in case of an emergency”.  Mr. Morales asked for an organizational chart, which was provided.  Dr Feltre discussed the differences between the duties of the Supervisors in grades 6-12 versus the Assistant Principals, and noted that administrative salaries make up $3 million of our roughly $60 million yearly budget. Mrs. Bradford said that there was an analysis provided by Dr. Feltre on the ratio of administrators to students, and she shared support for two Assistant Principals to “advance academic progress”, which – she said – would be difficult to guarantee without both.  Declining enrollment was brought up, and discussion was had about sharing or spreading out the duties of an Assistant Principal among the Supervisors.  Dr. Feltre noted that this would need to be negotiated with the Berkeley Heights Administrators Association (BHAA).  Lastly, Dr. Feltre told the committee that all options were on the table, and a recommendation was made to present to all board members and seek feedback, then discuss again in April. Ms Akiri asked if the duties of the Assistant Principals could be reviewed and possibly merged before posting to fill the Assistant Principal position permanently. 

Given the report of the Personnel Committee, here are a few things that stuck out as needing clarification and further discussion.  

In my article, I used the number of District Administrators and Administrative Staff, since this is fairly consistent with the data that can be found at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website.  In their data, they also include Supervisors, which they call “Instruction Coordinators”.  I did NOT include our subject supervisors in my numbers.  If I had, our ratio would have been even lower.  For a small suburban school, the national ratio of District Administrators, Administrative Staff and Instruction Coordinators is 254:1 as of the most recent data I could find.  As a reminder, our number – using the parameters above – is 106:1 without Supervisors.

Dr. Feltre, in her presentation to the Personnel Committee, said that the School Administrator to student ratio was “mid” 200’s to one.  NCES shows the national average for a small suburban school to be 275:1, which falls pretty much along the same lines.  [Side note: our schools show a lower teacher to student ratio than the national average.  I have not looked into the ratios of other school employees, such as instructional aides, librarians, guidance counselors, etc., but it could be an interesting data set to explore.]  It’s quite interesting that the school numbers are relatively in line with national averages, while our administrative numbers are so much higher. Some of this happened during the employment of Julie Kot, who was Business Administrator under Melissa Varley, adding multiple positions to the office of the BA.  Other jobs at the district level are less clear as to when they were added.

Of note is the part of Mrs. Bradford’s report in which we find out that any sharing or spreading out of duties from an Assistant Principal to the department supervisors would need to be negotiated with the BHAA.  It begs the question of just how detailed these contracts are, that duties can’t be rearranged.  If the contracts are so specific, was this always the case, or is this something that the BHAA has implemented over time through negotiations?  Can those contracts be changed?

Although not implicitly stated, the mention of $3 million in salaries in conjunction with noting the $60 million overall budget seems to imply the amount is such a small percentage that it shouldn’t be a concern.  When looking at budgets that have constraints, you won’t find a lump sum of millions that can be subtracted.  Small cuts across multiple lines need to be scrutinized and pared back, and administrators and administrative staff should not be exempt.

A highlight (being very optimistic here) is that the Superintendent seems to be keeping abreast of resident and BOE concerns and on the surface appears to be taking them seriously.  This is a massive improvement over the former SI, who made it a point to tell parents she wouldn’t continue conversations with them when they disagreed with her, and who continually ignored advice, eventually leading to confirmed charges of nepotism and settlements of lawsuits.  If this attentiveness to the community proves to be real and consistent, Berkeley Heights may just be on track to improvement.  

Reference on Staff Statistic