The Primary Is Underway: Republicans Keep Problematic Ballot Design and a Familiar Name Runs for County Office
Ballot Design The ballots are out, and Democrats have moved forward with ending the line while Republicans will continue with the old ballot design. As we wrote in April, “the line” refers to a ballot design both party machines have used in NJ to ensure their candidates have a strong advantage in the primaries. Earlier this year, Senate Candidate Andy...
NJ Proficiency Reports – Berkeley Heights Public Schools Climate Indicators
Two climate indicators we decided to examine this year were HIB and Chronic Absenteeism compared to the other schools on the BHCW 7-District Dashboard. Chronic Absenteeism Berkeley Heights was in the higher middle in the percentage of students identified as chronically absent but experienced the second-highest jump from 2018 to 2019. HIB We demonstrated some improvement in connection to...
The New BOE Majority is Turning Things Around, and the Party Machines Are Getting Nervous
I am writing a lot this week but have more to say than usual. If all you’ve been paying attention to is the noise on the forums and theatre in Council meetings, you would have missed a few significant developments. With a new majority in place within the BOE, some significant changes that will benefit families have arisen: (1) Budget : For...
05/07/2024 Town Council Meeting – Two Issues Come to a Head
While much attention has been given to the Board of Education over the past few months, and I am thrilled to see the public interest and parent engagement BHCW has been working to increase is booming, interesting developments have been occurring over at the Town Council. During last night’s Town Council Meeting, two brewing issues came to a Head. Some...
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...
nj21st.com (with the exception of featured images and logo) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
