05/11/2023 BOE Meeting-Johns Notes

May 11, 20232 Comments

BOE Majority Refuses to Have Dr. Varley Explain our Rankings and Ratings Slide

Dr. Foregger motioned to have Dr. Varley explain the decline in ratings and rankings, and Ms. Khanna seconded the motion. This has been discussed and parsed out for weeks by this site leading up to this meeting. The rest of the Board either abstained or voted no, pretending not to know the source of the data.

We’ve written on this for weeks. It has been on Patch and NJ.Com.

If most of the BOE truly did not know what Dr. Foregger or Ms. Khanna were talking about, we have more significant problems than I thought.

Dr. Varley of course, blamed the pandemic as if Berkeley Heights was the only District affected by COVID. Dr. Varley also brought up the idiotic Algebra I- CMS argument, which still demonstrates a lack of proficiency, does not explain the horrendous numbers on the subject in HS or the other metrics (science for example)- the ratings and rankings we’ve been referencing come from the Dept of Education.

This BOE could not even convince Dr. Varley to explain the decline.

So did Dr. Foregger mess up by forgetting the specific source? Yes. Everyone who knows me involved with this site, experienced my rage over that moment. However he and Ms. Khanna not only named the most recent DOE data but other sources demonstrating a decline yet the gaslighting continued.

But how could the rest of the BOE not have known about the information he was referring to? Are the other BOE members really that divorced from important information about our schools to need Dr. Foregger to spoon-feed them the exact source on something the community has been discussing for weeks?

Could you imagine if the BOE Majority held Dr. Varley to the same standard when it comes to the “research” she cites for her ridiculous ideas. Dr. Varley the same person who during this meeting, had to count on her hands to figure out the number of administrators the District employs.

The bright spot – a really funny moment when Ms. Stanley who has been serving on the BOE for over a year needing to ask the attorney why a BOE Member would abstain from a vote.