New Information Leads to Questions Surrounding List of Roads Presented by the Policy Committee
BHCW received information from sources within the District that: (1) Other than the Feb 26 presentation and the sample rubric, there are no other documents that have been shared with the Board (2) There is NO email communication with the rubric from transportation consultants. (3) There was NO FINAL REPORT that ranked the 265 streets that the Board could review or, based on the latest...
How Did Berkeley Heights Schools Compare on Student Growth for Math and ELA?
Student Growth is defined in the NJ Performance Report as: …..a measure of how much students are learning each year. New Jersey’s ESSA state plan outlines that academic progress will be measured with school’s median student growth percentile (mSGP) on statewide ELA and mathematics assessments. Each individual student receives a Student Growth Percentile (SGP) for English Language Arts (ELA) in...
NJ Proficiency Reports – How Did Each Berkeley Heights School Do on Math, Science and ELA?
Earlier this year we published preliminary results on each school, based on NJ DOE data with a caution that folks should wait on the NJ Performance Reports to come out before arriving at any conclusions. The final result lined up pretty closely with our original analysis. Here is the updated data. Math CMS is the only school at/above where it...
John’s Letter to the BOE on the Busing Issue
Good Afternoon, With all the money the District has put away, I am not clear as to why, for this year at least, we could not offer either Universal Busing or at least a deep discount to ALL families. Dipti, Tom, Sai, Natasha I understand the issue of fairness regarding how the roads were determined. It felt deliberate and political and intended to put those BOE...
The $34,000 OPRA Request
On 08/2022 a resident made an OPRA request for legal bills between 5/20/21 and 5/20/22 on 08/2022 and the District provided overly-redacted bills that blocked out key information. A lawsuit with the Superior Court to obtain this information was filed on 10/22/22. Instead of providing this information, the District made the decision to engage in a lawsuit that spanned 18 months. The same attorneys who prepared and...
A Second Possible Solution to The Courtesy Busing Issue
Families who live within 2 miles of their children’s school must notify the District of their desire for bussing by a cut off date. All children who qualify for the lunch program receive bussing for free. Families of children who do not qualify for the lunch program are to pay the cost of the service equally. During this time the...
A Possible Solution to the Busing Issue
Just an Idea… Subscription Busing Tier 1 Household not on a hazardous route and makes at or above the median income for Berkeley Heights Households – $1000 Tier 2 All Caregivers demonstrate proof of employment, do not live on a hazardous route and make below the median income (basement of 80%) for Berkeley Heights Households – $500 Tier 3 All...
Families on Both Sides of the Courtesy Busing Issue Need Our BOE To Work Together
Recently, a former BOE Member and proxy for Ms. Stanley on Social media accused Ms. Khanna of changing her positions within the context of Courtesy Busing, or – as he put it- this “child safety” policy. Again, let’s look at the facts behind this empirically thin argument. Here is another clip of Ms. Stanley arguing that we get rid of...
“Slim Empirical Arguments”, “Pulling out the Rug” and “State Aid”
Level-Setting the Community Discussion on the Transportation Policy I encourage every parent to get involved, regardless of how they feel about the transportation policy or any policy for that matter. It is important for different voices on all sides to present their arguments – even if it is an opinion -opinions are important – they offer a perspective or a...
Child Safety is Being used as a Shield to Push through a Disturbing Policy Precedent
And Another Great Example as to Why OPRA is so Important… Before October 2023, the NJ Department of Education published the DRTRS summary report that anyone could access. Unfortunately, after multiple Berkeley Heights residents raised questions on the discrepancy in the number of Courtesy busing students reported to the state department of education and by the district last year, the...
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