The current Berkeley Heights Board of Education didn’t magically arrive where they are now. There have been a series of events and actions that have led to the situation that exists today, and while one could argue for going back decades, to this author a majority of influences began with the early extension of Dr. Varley’s contract and the reconfiguration of our elementary schools and early childhood center. It continued when the election of new members led not to collaboration, but fighting against these members as they tried to introduce differing ideas. We saw derision on display, juvenile snickering, and outright hostility. We then saw Board policies being weaponized in an effort to restrict members’ ability to enact change.
If you were paying attention, at the time of the reconfiguration, to the “noise” (a term that has recently made its debut in an effort to silence critical debate), you would have noticed that there were numerous residents in a wide variety of positions who were opposed to both events. There were numerous residents who were not technically opposed but didn’t feel that Dr. Varley’s contract needed the early renewal, or they had different ideas on how the reconfiguration could be structured. These two events led, arguably, to long-time BOE member Doug Reinstein not being reelected.
Regardless of how one viewed Mr. Reinstein’s tenure, one should take an unbiased look at how BOE meetings were handled after his departure and take close notes on the differences in how resident concerns are addressed now and what avenues are open to parents who desire to have input into district decisions that will affect their students. As I wrote previously, the entire tone changed from one of respectful discourse and opportunity for real discussion, to one of impatience when residents came to speak, strict time limits, and unanswered correspondence. Although much of what we had previously was a dog and pony show, it was better than the outright rejection of resident contributions we are faced with now. While one can attempt to argue otherwise, this history is one of the main reasons we now have a BOE that is trying to change the current way of doing Board business.
Part of making that change is undoing some of the policy revisions that were recently made, including one put in place during the lame duck session. What may seem like “getting into the weeds” is, in reality, necessary in order to get back to the structure of previous years; structure that served previous boards well. In fact, we have seen former long-standing BOE members comment during the past two years that the way the Board has been operating is NOT how Board business should be done. While discussing one specific policy for an extended period of time can be viewed as not focusing on education for our students, the complete opposite is true. The District will run best with fair, tried-and-true policies in place. The old adage ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is quite relevant to the changes made to policy 0131. It doesn’t matter the age of the policy when it has guided the Board flawlessly for years.
The same is true of the most recent changes to procedure. There was no solid reason for the Business Administrator to deviate from former procedure, particularly when the New Jersey School Board Association recommends doing things the way we had been doing for decades. There was no reason to leave policy adoption off the agenda for the reorganization meeting. There was no reason, aside from protecting Dr. Varley’s choice of Board Attorney, to remove approval of appointments. (This was left off the last meeting agenda as well.)
If we can get policy and procedure squared away, it will ease the way forward. It can help alleviate some of the lengthy discussions that have happened during the first couple meetings, but it still remains for current board members to realize that in order to move forward there will need to be some actual compromise. “Do what we say” is not any type of compromise at all. “Stop trying to undo what was previously done to block you” is not a working strategy.
Nothing Occurs in a Vacuum: A Short History Explaining Why The Berkeley Heights BOE Needs So Much Repair
Looking forward, one can hope that board members will follow the behavior modeled by Dipti Khanna. During the re-organization meeting, it was Ms. Khanna who eventually brought about a resolution to a discussion that had gone on for some time, and she did so in a calm and professional manner, even as one board member interrupted and literally yelled at another. It was Ms. Khanna, along with Mrs. Joly, who extended an olive branch in voting ‘yes’ for Mr. Hyman to run the last meeting, after her nomination of Dr. Foregger was voted down. It’s Ms. Khanna who has a track record of not belittling others, nor does Ms. Khanna attempt to stop BOE members’ comments ‘in the interest of time’, a practice that was often pursued unevenly by the last board president.
While the easy road is to say that the issues of the past two meetings do nothing for our kids (a road made especially easy due to the fact that much of what is discussed is hard to follow, even for those who have read up on the issues and looked at the agendas), there IS an impact in that these items will enable the public to see more of what the board is doing. That leads to more confidence, which leads to less squabbling, which leads to a better working relationship, and so on. Chopping our way through the weeds is hard, but results in a cleared path.