This Week at NJ21st: School Dashboard Trends, AI Student Surveillance and $2.9M Bonds

This week was packed, and it feels like we covered almost every topic, so let’s get started because there is a lot.

State  

There was also a lot of news on the state level this week, starting with a slew of bills covering EMS, energy and AI that had their day in Trenton.

While politicos are celebrating a small decline in the unemployment rate, the picture is still very mixed, and the strength of the recovery remains uncertain as numbers on private-sector job losses came out.

The NJDOL showed its teeth on worker misclassification, as one company was hit with a stop-work order and a $200K bill. We cover what went south for the Teaneck limo company and what businesses need to understand about NJ’s ABC Test.

Regional  

We finished our 7-District Dashboard on the NJ School Performance Reports, which included Chatham, Madison, Millburnand our dashboard-wide analysis. Spoiler: we are still lagging behind our pre-COVID numbers as a group.

Local  

We will start in New Providence with an ambitious Town Council agenda that included a $2.9M bond and some police purchases that deserve a bit more detail. The NP BOE meeting took a typical next step after budget approval, but key policies without backup documents showed up on their agenda yet again.

Moving on to Berkeley Heights, we cover a Berkeley Heights BOE agenda with some big decisions, including an AI surveillance system that carries with it some big questions on student privacy and well-being. Staying with the district, Shauna shares her trials and tribulations in getting BOE committee minutes and gives us a summary of Athletics Committee meetings. 

Moving to the Township, Laura provides us with a recap of a Town Council meeting that was another chapter in what has been a strange ride thus far this year. We also have two candidate statements: George Deluna for Mayor and Edmund Maciejewski for Town Council. Lastly, resident Michael Leblond gives us an updated tally on Berkeley Heights power outages in his letter to the Mayor and Council.

Speaking of updates, Garwood resident Bruce Patterson shares another contribution on the impact of PILOTs in his community.

On The Socials….

• NJ WARN notices continue to mount, and the end date for Fiserv is approaching.
• The NJ Globe reveals that NJ ELEC, NJ’s election watchdog, hit all 42 county political organizations with subpoenas.
• Berkeley Heights BOE canceled its meeting this week due to quorum issues.
• Loretta Rivers considers challenging Danielsen again in ’27.

Top Five Articles for April:

NJ Revenue: The Warning Lights are Starting to Glow

The Hole Gets Bigger: Treasury Expands New Jersey’s Health Benefits Alarm

Why NJ’s Payroll Drop May Matter More Than the Unemployment Dip

The 21st District Face-Off: How Seven Towns Stack Up on Per-Household Spending

Legal But Opaque Part 2: A Case Study of the Berkeley Heights Recreation Hire