Inside the Berkeley Heights Athletic Committee: Fees, Fields, and Locker Room Equity

After two emails to the Berkeley Heights Board of Education regarding the delayed posting of committee meeting minutes, NJ21st received a response email from the Business Administrator confirming that the minutes posted were the most recent minutes received by her office.  Subsequently, within a few days new minutes were posted for Finance and Facilities, Athletics/Co-curricular,  and Technology/Communications.  

Still missing are updated minutes from Negotiations, Policy, Personnel and Strategic Planning. Mrs. Stanley, as committee chair for Strategic Planning, has not submitted ANY minutes for publication, nor has she, as chair of the Policy committee,  updated those minutes.  This is worth noting due to Mrs. Stanley’s scolding of other BOE members when they have not shared their minutes in what she deems a timely manner.  We would like to remind Mrs. Stanley that the board agreed to post committee meeting minutes to the district website.  I will be submitting an OPRA request for these minutes, as Mrs. Stanley did not reply to emails.

The Athletic committee met on May 11th.  They discussed finalizing the coaching list for Fall 2026, including self-assessments by coaches and student feedback.  Also discussed was declining student participation, particularly of female athletes.  The committee will be looking at the turf field at Governor Livingston, as it is in the final year of warranty.  Natural or synthetic turf was not specified.  The turf was just serviced, and was in suitable shape for the remainder of the spring sports season, and for the fall of 2026.  It was mentioned the turf field should be added to the district’s long-range facilities plan.

Locker rooms were discussed, including whether the state of male and female locker rooms was equal.  Feedback from the community and female athletes was taken into consideration.  Plans for locker rooms may include a new locker room, perhaps with conversion of a storage space.  A stand alone locker room for outside teams may be rotated for use between male and female teams for each season/year. 

The participation fee of $200 is included in the minutes.  It was noted that this fee does not cover costs of operation, and an increase is possible.  The minutes do not give a suggested increase.  This fee had been raised somewhat recently from $150.  The advantages and disadvantages of placing these fees into the Athletics budget, rather than the General Fund budget was discussed.

The last item on the agenda was the need to find a solution to staffing on days where the preparation of the facilities for athletics cannot be completed by a single custodial staff member.  The minutes state that most times this preparation is completed by one person, but that greater demand, staff time off, weather, etc. can dictate a need for more staffing.  The Business Administrator and Athletic Director are to discuss how other staff can be leveraged.

Athletic Committee minutes: Minutes-May-11,-2026-Athletics_Co-Curricular-Committee-Meeting.pdf 
Additional committee minutes will be reviewed within the upcoming days.  All minutes can be found here: Committee Meeting Minutes | Berkeley Heights Public Schools