Natasha’s Comments During the 03/13/2023 BOE Meeting on Building Thinking Classroom and the OPRA Custodian Position
In this merge of two clips from the 03/13/2023 Booard of Education meeting, Natasha Joly challenges Ms. Stanley’s continued invalidating spin on Building Thinking classroom. In addition to parents having to subsidize the District’s failure by paying for outside math tutors, Natasha discusses her concern in hearing feedback from parents that students are simply dropping out of math or taking...
Deja-vu All Over Again
More information comes out about the OPRA Custodian Vote…And it is More of the Same -Natasha Joly It was about the same time last year that the decision to eliminate French was announced without any analysis to support the decision. Ultimately, the decision was reversed after parent and student pushback with supporting metrics and information. At the February 9th BOE...
OPRA: Your Right To Information
Why the Open Public Records Act is Important for Berkeley Heights Residents, How To Use OPRA and How We Can Help The purpose of local governing bodies is to represent the people, and to balance perspectives in coming to effective decisions surrounding our community and schools. The pandemic refocused the attention of millions from the hustle and bustle of everyday...
BHCW Night Watch Episode 6: Attorney Walter Luers on OPRA & OPMA, BHPS, and NJ
In this episode of Night Watch, Attorney Walter Luers discusses OPRA (Open Public Records Act) and OPMA (Open Public Meetings Act) in connection to the Berkeley Heights Public School District and the State of NJ. Unlike the Berkeley Height’s Public School Districts Attorney, he didn’t just sit there for 30 minutes staring at his phone. Learn more about Walter
More Than Just Ethics: The First of Three OPRA Cases Validates Parent Concerns on District’s Costly and Improper OPRA Redactions
The Government Records Council (GRC), also known as the authority on government records, a/k/a documents requested under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), recently confirmed suspicions that the Berkeley Heights Public School (BHPS) Records Custodian (Currently Julie Kot and ‘designee’ Steve Hopkins) inappropriately redacted (to black or white-out) responsive records. This ruling and fact are substantial because Ms. Kot has...
Ms. Bradford’s OPRA Custodian Vote: Super Secret Information & One More Business Assistant
In this clip, BOE Member Gale Bradford claims that she was “on the other side” of the OPRA Custodian issue (there does not appear to be any public record of statements from her confirming this). She then claims that she received “new information” that was not available to her as a member of the public that caused her to change...
Email To The BOE on the Proposed OPRA Custodian of Records PositIon
MORE MONEY OUT OF THE CLASSROOM FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, the District is trying to add yet another position to the Business office while using the cynical and Machiavellian ploy of blaming residents who are using OPRA to request information from a District that has progressively clamped down avenues...
Peeling the Spin: A Condensed Look at OPRA Requests
There are currently 118 individual screenshots of OPRA (Open Public Records Act) requests, from June 2022 to the present, on the district website. In an effort to parse this out and make it easier to get to the meat of the issue surrounding the appointment of a School Records Custodian, here is a breakdown. Of the 118 posted screenshots, five...
Tom Foregger Saves The Day Again
One of our concerns has been remedied for now as Tom guides the Board away from violating its own policies. Comments from residents on this clip of the District hiring yet ANOTHER person to help our Business Administrator do her job: “Not only is it a violation of policy, the district has not done it’s due diligence in investigating whether...
OPMA & OPRA: WE SHOULD FEARLESSLY DEMAND TRANSPARENCY
After listening to the BOE meetings in the first quarter of 2022, I was curious to learn more about the discussions in the Board’s Executive Sessions. So I sent an OPRA request for the Executive Session minutes from Nov 2021 to March 2022. The documented minutes from January to March 2022 are virtually identical and without any detail of the...
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