Shauna’s Notes of the 01/27/2025 BOE Meeting

The Union County Superintendent, Daryl Palmieri again selected Gale Bradford to fill the role of President of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education, and the meeting opened with Mrs. Bradford sharing a directive given by Mr. Palmieri that the board work together.  A relatively straight-forward vote elected Dipti Khanna to the position of Vice President of the board, with only Board Members Pamela Stanley and Deb Terrero voting ‘no’.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of peaceful proceedings.  Mrs. Bradford went on to lead a very confusing discussion on committees, trying to stop questions and end discussion at times, and delivering some statements that were factually false.  Whether Mrs. Bradford meant to deceive is up to interpretation, but to this observer it appeared as though the intention was to justify her creation of ad-hoc committees by misinforming the board and public as to the current state of the board and by misinterpreting Board Policy 0155.

The first false claim came when Mrs. Bradford said the board has no committee structure at this time, and then went on to inform the board that she was creating ad hoc committees to address several issues.  These committees included Infrastructure, Math Sequencing, Budget, Referendum, Custodian Contract Negotiation, and a Mountainside Committee. She said she had invited New Jersey School Board Association (NJSBA) field representative Jeanne Cleary to a special meeting to deal with setting up committees and appointments.  There are a couple things to unpack here.

Board Attorney David Dissler told members that Mrs. Bradford is well within her right as Board President to create ad hoc committees and appoint members.  This authority falls under emergency need.  Here’s where that gets complicated.  The infrastructure issues our district is facing should fall under the Finance and Facilities committee which is a standing committee from the previous year. Mrs. Bradford claimed the need for the ad hoc Infrastructure Committee is due to events like the fire panel failure at Columbia Middle School and the ongoing problem with heating coils at Governor Livingston. However, the fire panel was replaced at CMS without current appointments to the Finance and Facilities committee.  Heating coils in the classroom were also replaced.  “Emergency” should not be at play here. 

After Mrs. Bradford announced the committees she claimed that district policy 0155, which says nominations for committees must be approved by a majority of the board, was “in limbo”.  Board Member Natasha Joly attempted to ask Mr. Dissler whether that was correct, but Mrs. Bradford refused to let him answer, instead saying that we have nine committees and that’s too many.  (It was unclear what this had to do with policy 0155.)  Mrs. Joly again asked why we weren’t following our own policy, and Mrs. Bradford repeated that we have no committee structure.  Board Member Tom Forreger added that policy 0155 is in effect and that it names eight committees and several liaisons.  Member Pamela Stanley then admitted the policy is in place, but said the board has “no time” and told the other board members that their objections are “heard, but not relevant”.  At this point, Vice President Dipti Khanna asked again about policy 0155, and this time Mr. Dissler was allowed to answer the question.  He stated that Policy 0155 stands.  This means that Mrs. Bradford can recommend board members for various standing committees, but board member appointments must be approved by the majority of the board.  Again, Mrs. Bradford is within her rights to create ad hoc committees, but the question of whether there is a true emergency remains.  Mr. Dissler corrected Mrs. Bradford’s claim that we have no committee structure, stating that we are still a ‘board of committees’ – a recognized type of board formation.

On the subject of the Math Sequencing Committee, Mrs. Joly asked what Mrs. Bradford expected this committee to do.  Mrs. Joly pointed out that Dr. Kelly Curtiss has already made recommendations for the sequencing of math classes for the district.  Mrs. Bradford’s response was that we have a professional development day coming up and that the committee could work with Dr. Curtiss on that.  Mrs. Joly then, rightfully, asked whether Dr. Curtiss had asked for help.  Mrs. Bradford’s response was ‘this is a request of our ad hoc committee’.  What?  Talk about irrelevant.

Questioning the Referendum committee creation, Board Member Sai Akiri stated that the referendum was listed as an item to be dealt with by the Strategic Planning committee. Ms. Akiri asked, if the referendum was such an urgent issue, why there was not a single meeting scheduled last year.  The response from Mrs. Bradford was another non-answer in the form of a statement that our five-year strategic plan has ended, and that we hired the NJSBA to help us with our Superintendent search, noting that the search was part of Strategic Planning.  Ms. Akiri then questioned whether is was permissible to have the NJSBA representative assist in forming committees.  She noted that our contract with NJSBA had expired.  Ms. Akiri then asked Mr. Dissler whether we had a current contract, or whether the former contract would allow the NJSBA to help with a new strategic plan.  He answered that he would have to look into that to see what the old contract said.  Ms. Akiri asked Mr. Dissler whether the new board would have to approve NJSBA as a vendor.  The answer was ‘it depends’.  Ms. Akiri asked that we look into that before inviting the Representative Cleary to a meeting.

At this point in the meeting, new Board Member Bill Dillon spoke to the larger issue that there is work to be done, and pointed out that we may not have working committees for several months. He is correct in that.  It does, however, raise the issue of what qualifies as an emergency.

Lastly, Mrs. Khanna noted that what just happened with Mrs. Bradford’s ad hocs was the exact opposite of the directive issued by Mr. Palmieri that the board work together.  She also reiterated that there is nothing in the language of Policy 0155 that says standing committees aren’t functional anymore.

There is more to unpack from the meeting, but that is another article, or perhaps a short novel.  Fortunately, as I briefly mentioned on the NJ21st Facebook feed, this new board later showed glimmers of hope that they will have the ability to fulfill the directive of working together. Let’s hope that holds.

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