Community Member Shares their Email to the Berkeley Heights Board of Education

We received several emails and other communication from officers and members of volunteer organizations that support our schools who expressed upset with BOE Member Gale Bradford’s insertion of their organization in a letter of support for Ms. Penna’s Bid for President.  We also received similar communication from educators in our community.

We received permission to publish this letter – as we do with ALL correspondence to the Board from community members- from the individual who wrote it. 

Given our policy connected to volunteer organizations that move to remove volunteers for offering an opinion on local government, we are keeping their names on this matter confidential.  We have verified the confidential source for this article and have met with him/her face to face.  

Good afternoon. Below is a series of screen shots sent to me from an educator in this community, originally sent from Gale Bradford. Included in the screenshots are a personal email from Ms. Bradford in addition to a cover letter for a petition for Angela Penna for President for the BOE, in which Ms. Bradford is personally seeking signers. 

There are members in our community, who are named in the cover letter, who serve as leaders of volunteers organizations through appointment or election, who were unaware of the document being circulated, and did not provide consent to being on the document. 

NJS A 18A:12-24.1 

c. I will confine my board action to policy making, planning; 

e. Nor take any private action that may compromise the board;

 f. I will refuse to surrender my independent judgement; 

Ms. Bradford enlisting the public to support her personal interest undermines the public trust in the Board of Education. 

Most troubling is that she asserts that a woman with a full time job cannot fulfill the role of Board President. This wasn’t an issue with our prior male Presidents, who both had full time jobs. What message is this sending to the young women and girls in our schools and our community, coming from a member of their Board of Education?….

 

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