The Real Story on How the January Berkeley Heights BOE Meeting Fell Apart
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. The chaos that happened at the most recent Berkeley Heights BOE Meeting was set in place well before any BOE member stepped through the Governor Livingston cafeteria door and, as mentioned in the intro I wrote about Melissa Varley’s letter to staff, it started in the District’s Central Office. There is no longer any question...
Ignorance of Parliamentary Procedure Is Creating Chaos & Harming Our District
Edmund Tom Maciejewski For those of you following Thursday’s Super Chaotic Board of Education Meeting. One thing, regardless of where you stand on Angela Penna forcing this chaotic situation, is that nobody on the board, nor the lawyer nor the administrator understands Robert’s Rules of Order which is what governs the rules of the meeting. Case in point, Sai made...
The Whole Story Behind Agenda Items A and I: Payroll and Ethics
Notes from Laura on the voting at the re-org meeting No Board members voted against agenda item I in an attempt to stop payroll from issuing paychecks on 1/15/24. When the motion to vote was made for resolution I, Board members had an issue with how Agenda Item I was worded. They did NOT have an issue with paying BHPS...
Ms. Penna and Ms. Stanley: Here’s a Compromise
Email John sent to the Board Earlier Today on the President Deadlock: I would be ok with Angela Penna being president if the following occurred: -Committee Memberships need to be approved by a majority vote of the BOE -Committees are taped and provided to the public -The 48 hour rule is removed -The the power of the President is diminished...
Berkeley Heights BOE Document Drop – September 2023
Committee Meeting Minutes, Executive Session Minutes and Board Correspondence for September 2023 Here are the Committee Meeting minutes for September 2023 that we asked for on October 13, 2023. The time frame for OPRA is seven business days. It took two months for BHCW to receive these documents. Of note were the RFP’s approved by the Finance Committee that we...
Transparency in NJ Had a Near Death Experience – What Now?
Now that there has been a pause to overhauling OPRA and OPMA – let’s take the opportunity to make both laws better. I would argue that one of BHCW’s most significant accomplishments is the normalization of OPRA requests in our community. It wasn’t too long ago that neighbors would post the OPRA requests of other neighbors in some weird attempt...
How the Number of Berkeley Heights BOE Meetings Compare with Neighboring Districts
Berkeley Heights is in the middle of the pack with an average number of Board of Education meetings over three years. -Written By An Educator In the Community Earlier this week, Berkeley Heights Public Schools posted their Board of Education (BOE) agenda for the reorganization meeting on Thursday, January 4th. Including this reorganization meeting, there will be at least 15...
Ho, Ho, Ho: Laughing All the Way
The Rules Surrounding Transparency Continue to Not Matter…. I recently wrote about an exchange involving my own OPRA request, and I have received more information about how OPRA requests have been handled by our District from other residents. In short, residents are at the mercy of the Custodian of Records and/or the Business Administrator, and they have little recourse with...
More Questions Remain on the BHPSNJ Improper Transportation Survey
At the last meeting, Mr. Juskiewicz said there was no board correspondence since the previous meeting. I pointed out the exchange regarding the transportation survey. He apologized for the oversight. I wanted to share this exchange as I think it highlights the administration’s lack of attention to detail when it comes to collecting data from our kids and the inability...
Board Games: Not What We Had on our Holiday Wish List
Questions surround recent board decisions and superintendent recommendations… The Berkeley Heights BOE may be taking advantage of having a new Business Administrator in place, who has not yet had time to review past BOE actions, or they may merely be doing what they do, which is ignoring any and all policy, law, guidance and public comment with which they disagree....
nj21st.com (with the exception of featured images and logo) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
