Possible Factors Connected to the Decline of Berkeley Heights Schools: Family Engagement

May 23, 20236 Comments

My Fourth Email to the BOE on Possible Causes for the Decline and Suggestion on How to Repair Them

A tremendous body of evidence supports family engagement as necessary for successful outcomes in human services. Many studies have pointed to family engagement as leading to higher academic achievement, pro-social behaviors, and interpersonal effectiveness.

In its review of 51 Studies on this topic, the SEDL (now under the umbrella of American Institutes for Research) came to the following conclusions relevant to this factor:

When schools build partnerships with families that respond to their concerns and honor their contributions, they are successful in sustaining connections that are aimed at improving student achievement. And when families and communities organize to hold poorly performing schools accountable, studies suggest that school districts make positive changes in policy, practice, and resources.

Action Steps based on Synthesis:

Build families’ social and political connections.

Focus efforts to engage families and community members on developing trusting and respectful relationships.

Embrace a philosophy of partnership and be willing to share power with families. Make sure that parents, school staff, and community members understand that the responsibility for children’s educational development is a collaborative enterprise. (source)

Instead of entertaining a plurality of perspectives in arriving at compromises, the Administration and Board respond by making it more difficult to hear feedback that differs from its position. The very thing could improve its decisions. “I don’t like them,” or “They disagree with me too much,” or “They called me out for breaking the law” is not a valid reason to systematically weaken our schools by limiting the avenues families and students can provide feedback on the District’s practices.

Here is the record of evidence to support my position:

During the reconfiguration, Dr. Varley responded that families should not have been involved in the decisions surrounding the most significant changes to our school, which led to an ethics investigation that was later determined by the SEC to be unsubstantiated due to – in large part, I imagine- my question and the Superintendent’s response to my question being mysteriously inaudible. But the tape is less important than what the entire reconfiguration process evidenced, which I already described in my last email.

The reconfiguration, however, was far from the only example of our District’s challenges to the issue of family engagement.

In July 2021, the BOE decided to stop allowing Zoom access after such access led to an explosion of family involvement in meetings. The District also threw this issue into a committee and spent thousands of dollars in the promise that families would be able to participate (which means speaking) at meetings via Zoom when meetings moved to Governor Livingston. This has yet to happen.

In April of 2022, residents discovered that the District was looking to remove French, which led to an effective community education campaign by community members using the District’s social media pages. Community members contradicted the Superintendent’s announcements that contained incorrect information directly underneath the District posts. Soon after, the District locked all comments on their pages, and the Superintendent claimed the reasons connected to “spam”. “Spam” likely means thoughtful articles exposing the bad information used to justify the decision. In this one example, we see the failure of engagement (yet again) in coming to a significant decision and then cutting off the opportunities for engagement as a consequence of families engaging.

In May of 2022, the BOE voted through a policy that prevented BOE members from communicating with the public using social media after two BOE members informed the public of how the Budget process was deviating from past practices involving the community and BHCW finally went over the District’s head in obtaining the entire budget from the State of NJ and provided it to the public.

In discussing the feedback the Superintendent received about the District’s DEI initiatives, she broad-brushed those who wrote the District with concerns about the lack of clarity and goals by implying that they were similar to segregationists. I challenge the Superintendent or any BOE member to take anything I or anyone cc’d on this email has written to the District on DEI in supporting that conclusion.

But it wasn’t about being accurate – it was more about the message it sent: “If you make our lives difficult by asking for a process accountable to research and evidence, we will smear you.”

Late last year BHCW conducted a survey on Building Thinking Classroom…a real one that asked relevant questions and provided helpful information. The results were ignored by at least one member of the BOE who indicated that she did not even look at it and implied that the results were falsely manufactured.

The BOE as a body, late last year, arbitrarily ended the practice of allowing members of the public to come up multiple times if they still needed to finish their points. Nowhere in the policy is the BOE empowered to do this. Members of the public are given blank stares by BOE Members and “Ill answer you in the end” responses when community members attempt to engage with them in a discussion or debate only to have their questions spun to mean something different or unanswered. Improper cautions of not speaking directly to BOE Members or bringing up criticisms of the Superintendent are given to members of the public during meetings- not only does this impact engagement, but it increases the Districts’ vulnerability to a lawsuit. The BOE President should not be directing the public’s speech unless there is a compelling reason – every time she attempts to enforce these manufactured rules she is creating a pattern that brings the District closer to even more legal issues than it already has.

It has now come to a point where even Board Correspondence is no longer listed on the agenda or available for the public to read during meetings.

The following consequences can be expected:

(1) It demoralizes the public and makes them feel as if they have no say or that the opportunities to have a say are pointless

(2) It causes the public to go to third parties outside of the District to hold the BOE and Administration accountable

(3) It causes the public to create a website, establish a quasi shadow BOE and fill in the gaps for the community

This attack on engagement is closing off a feedback loop that is extraordinarily vital to the success of the District – and it is harming our District in irreparable ways. Let’s be clear – what has happened to our proficiency scores and rankings, along with the circus created by the BOE’s politicized use of attorneys, have harmed the reputation of the District more than anything families will post on the Districts Facebook page. In fact, the Administration has done more harm to the reputation of our District with the content they’ve posted on their Facebook page than any member of the public. The behavior of the Administration and Board Majority during public meetings more so.

When a public body makes terrible decisions that impact children and families, the best solution is to try to repair the damage caused instead of frantically running around trying to stop everyone from talking about it.

My suggestions to repair this factor include

Allowing members of the public to speak at BOE meetings multiple times
Increasing the time limit for speakers to 5 minutes
Getting rid of that ridiculous clock
Opening up comments on the District’s Social media page
Having town halls and referendums on significant decisions
Respond to questions and concerns empirically and directly instead of trying to make everyone who disagrees appear as if they are attempting to “tear this District apart”.
Answer questions when the speaker at a meeting asks them (like normal people) instead of the strange little circus we have going on right now.
Eliminate subcommittees and do the work in full view of the public – like our Town Council.
Bring the Budget back to a public vote – this will help solve the issues discussed in the first factor (Budget priorities) while also giving the public power over decisions made in the District

A good first step is to have Dr. Varley provide her evidence that:

Covid is the reason why our rankings fell and are behind comparable schools in our area despite having the highest per pupil cost*

AP students in our schools care less than AP students in other schools as the reason why our rankings fell and are behind comparable schools in our areas despite having the highest per pupil cost