Two Years Of Shining A Light-2023

What we’ve accomplished this year…

Today marks two years since we published our first article. When we launched, our goal was to inform the public about the lack of research behind and violations of laws surrounding the reconfiguration of our District and the disingenuous tactic of the Administration and Board Majority of conflating Kindergarten with throwing children and teachers out of their schools (both evidenced in a vast amount of research to be connected to declines in student and staff performance).

We have accomplished a great deal since that time. However, I would like to highlight some of our accomplishments this year.

Last year we started a community-wide discussion on proficiencies that ended up being an omen to the results we’ve seen this year. As a result, this year, we’ve developed a 7-District Dashboard that we will be using moving forward to track District Spending and Academic Performance on various indicators and have made that publicly available.

We injected facts into the budget discussion and were at the forefront of using data to demand transparency and fight the District’s attempt to cut teaching staff. We broke the budget down in digestible pieces for the public and integrated it into the dashboard discussed above. BHCW contributors also exposed suspect transfers from health benefits accounts and requests for increases that did not appear to have a basis in reality. When the District attempted to spin family concerns about cuts in AP classes and Athletics as “rumors” and “misinformation”, we provided on-tape evidence that these concerns had a firm basis.

We’ve provided an in-depth analysis of the Districts implementation on the collaborative model. We informed the public about Building Thinking Classroom, conducted the only parent survey on this issue, and provided the results to the District – validating parent concerns that the District was failing our students in it’s implementation.

BHCW exposed the misinformation surrounding OPRA requests and the District’s attempt to prevent the public from getting information on the Distric’t’s spend in connection to the Administration and BOE’s legal and ethical issues. We provided a voice to families whose children’s information was leaked to the public while information the public should have access to is being kept under lock and key. We also have taken on providing the community with BOE Correspondence which was once openly available to the public during meetings but has now vanished.

BHCW stayed on course in informing the public on cuts to world languages, crammed classrooms, and the current Administration’s lack of priority in this subject area.

A BOE Seat aligned with our positions on cutting administrative costs, supporting students and teachers, and transparency and family involvement went from a 1-year term to a full term.

We educated the public on Wawa, the municipal budget and exposed an attempt at a political hit job against a high performing Town Administrator. We remained an outlet for residents to freely offer their opinions on local leaders running for elections without the fear of being censored or silenced.

We are Berkeley Heights Community Watch, we will continue to shine a light on local government and we welcome everyone in our community to add their voice.