Bills, Bills, bills; Not the song from Destiny’s child
In late August, I received legal bills from the district for May 2021-June 2022. I found the statements overly redacted and nearly impossible to decipher or begin to understand the mounting legal bills the district incurred. My original request was to find evidence to support Dr. Varley’s statements, under oath, that she consulted with a lawyer before hiring her daughter...
A PLAN IS NOT A GOAL
The dictionary lists the definition of the word “goal” as “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.” “Budget” is “the amount of money needed or available for a purpose.” Let us focus on the first word for a moment. A school district defines the goals to set its ambition for the students and then...
Statement on 09/22/2022 Board of Education Meeting
I joined the Board of Education because I wanted to help provide the best education possible for our students. Unfortunately, the incivility and rancor among board members has distracted us from our goals. Thursday night’s meeting got out of control and I did not want to be a party to the proceedings so I left. I hope we can get...
DR. Varley’s RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS ON 09/22/2022 BOE MEETING/POLICY CHANGES
From Dr. Varley to BHCW in response to FOLLOW UP TO DISTRICT POLICY CHANGES – BOE MEETING 09/22/2022 : “ll answer in summary form as opposed to line by line questioning. The majority of policies are mandated by New Jersey Code (i.e., law). The codes change often, thus needing updating on a regular basis. This is something that no Board of...
THE HOW MANY GENDERS GAME
I need you you take a deep breath here and hear me out. I’m writing this after sitting back and not reacting to what has been a two day series of events that has become quite predictable in our community as the private messages rolled into my inbox: “why is he in your Facebook group” or “why didn’t you like...
FOLLOW UP TO DISTRICT POLICY CHANGES – BOE MEETING 09/22/2022
-Shauna Williams Now that the dust has kinda sorta settled from the last BOE meeting let’s take a look at one of the specific issues that arose. Dr. Varley said that the policy changes are required by the state (or another outside agency?) and that they haven’t been updated in a decade or more. That leaves me with the following...
THE DISTRICT PUBLISHES OPRA REQUESTS ON WEBSITE
After shutting down comments on social media, stopping the practice of reading parent emails, changing the budget review process to a shorter time frame (and not providing the full budget for public review), attempting to silence BOE members on social media and trying to set a precedent that BOE Members providing an opinion on meeting minutes is unethical, the District...
MY STATEMENT ON THE SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 BOARD MEETING
Our board meeting became disorderly yesterday evening. Pamela Stanley gave a prepared speech unrelated to board agenda items that sought to mischaracterize parents’ concerns. I requested Board President Michael D’Aquila to control the meeting and bring it back in order. He asked for Ms. Stanley to stay on topic, but she refused, and he did not exercise his powers as...
Hot Topics and noteworthy Board agenda items for 9/22/22
Here are the highlights to the agenda and attachments for the BOE Meeting tomorrow night. There are 199 pages of attachments in addition to the lengthy agenda – it’s a lot, so here’s the good stuff: ADMINISTRATION: Resolution A – District Policies – Study and First Reading P0163: Quorum; policy was updated in February 2021, as part of a settlement...
Political Leanings of Berkeley Heights
As a relative newcomer to Berkeley Heights, it wasn’t until I had been here through one or two election cycles that I noticed the typical national-level party split between Democrats and Republicans is quite different from how politics play out in Berkeley Heights. Politics and party are very easily understood in NYC. Everyone is liberal and everyone is a Democrat....
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