BHCW 09/24/2023 Newsletter
What’s Important to Know About Berkeley Heights This Week… This weekly newsletter can be a meaningful example – a tale of two governing bodies. You already have a clear picture of how our BOE behaves, so I won’t rehash all that here. Our Mayor and members of the Town Council responded to and spoke openly about complex issues to members...
The Retirement That Wasn’t
Marybeth Kopacz, the now-former Assistant Superintendent of BHPS, ends up in Roxbury Township Schools as Supervisor -Written by an Educator in the Community The “retirement” of Berkeley Heights Public Schools (BHPS) Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education and Intervention Marybeth Kopacz was one of six administrators to depart BHPS for various reasons over four months (April-July 2023). However, the departure of...
Council Members Respond to Feedback on the Berkeley Heights Affordable Housing Concern
Council Members Poage, Varenerin and Kingsley respond to feedback on remaining Affordable Housing obligation discussed during the 09/19/2023 Town Council Meeting. I sent an email last night requesting that expressing my displeasure at the Council’s response to suggestions made at the meeting to consider other alternatives to Developers in resolving the remaining Affordable Housing Obligation. Below are the responses I...
Candidate Comments During the 09/05/2023 and 09/19/2023 Town Council Meetings: Margaret Illis (D)
Comments on the Affordable Housing News and Littell-Lord Bids In this clip, 2023 Town Council Candidate Margaret Illis (D) speaks on the Littell-Lord Renovation (agenda item on rejected bids) and on the announcement that the town still has to allow for 30 more Affordable Housing units (a total of 115 additional apartments). We are going to start with the 09/19/2023...
Mayor Devanney’s Response to Resident Concerns on Proposed OPRA Reform
In this clip, Mayor Devanney responds to my concerns regarding OPRA reform. The Mayor’s response does not address the specific concerns of the letter connected to legislation proposed by Assemblyman Danielsen that would, in fact, impact residents and journalists. I also believe it overstated the cost and work involved in automatically making documents public – especially when you consider the...
The Berkeley Heights Public School Busing Controversy Is Not Going Away
-Jessica Lesperance I’m sharing another email that I sent to the entire BOE, Dr. Varley and Ms. Sheehan on August 23rd regarding busing. Not surprisingly, I did not receive a response. At the board meeting this week a few people asked about courtesy busing and inquired as to what the plan was, and the response was that they are trying...
BHCW 09/17/2023 Newsletter
What’s Important to Know About Berkeley Heights This Week… Online Version PDF Version See All Newsletters
Laura’s Notes from the 09/14/2023 BOE Meeting
The BOE Majority and Attorney are now playing Thought Police Superintendent’s Report As we wrote on the night of the meeting, the Data Presentation did not present on the declines from the prior testing year to this year, and the comparisons are being made to State averages, not comparable schools. And, as John wrote in a prior article, the lack...
Natasha’s Notes on the 09/14/2023 BOE Meeting
2023 BOE Candidate Natasha Joly Shares her Notes on the 09/14/2023 BOE Meeting GLHS Student Gia Ghosh presented a beautifully written essay on her experience growing up as an Indian student in Berkeley Heights. She spoke eloquently about how the community has evolved positively. NJSLA presentation – the audience could not follow along as all of the visuals were blurry, so it was...
The Unredacted Detailed Budget That Some of Our BOE Members Have Not Seen
2023-2024 Unredacted Detailed Adopted Budget- Berkeley Heights Public Schools According to confirmed sources within the District neither the previous Business Administrator, Finance Chair Joy Young or Board President Angela Penna circulated the unredacted detailed adopted budget for school year 2023-2024 to the full BOE. In other words, this would be the first time some BOE members have access to this...
nj21st.com (with the exception of featured images and logo) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
