We Know the Report Did Not Exist – We Never Believed It Did

Jun 30, 20231 Comment

Gale Bradford, Pamela Stanley and The BOE Majority Continue to Gaslight Parents on Questions Surrounding the BHPSNJ Declines

On 5/11/2023, Dr. Foregger and Ms. Khanna asked the Board of Education to instruct Dr. Varley to provide a report to the community on the Declines of our High School, Middle School, and Elementary School Students in the areas of Math, Science, and English Language Arts. Dr. Varley immediately responded by indicating the declines were the result of COVID and AP Students not taking the proficiency tests seriously. Ms. Penna, Mr. Cianculli, Ms. Young and the rest of the BOE Majority then threw the issue into a subcommittee after pretending not to know what Dr. Forreger or Ms. Khanna were talking about.

Starting 5/12/2023 forward, I sent 11 emails (28 pages) pointing out that our delines were far more significant than the six other comparable schools (GL, as an example dropped 50+ points in the rankings) in our area with detailed analysis along with research connected to student displacement, teacher resignations, and displacement, family engagement, and budget priorities.

Only Ms. Khanna and Dr. Foregger replied to those emails – the only thing we heard from Ms. Penna about publicly during that time was that the Superintendent was committed to remaining in our District as the community discovered she was on the candidate list for a position in Sarasota. Covering for Dr. Varley was a more important topic for Ms. Penna to talk about than our sliding proficiencies (05/26/2023).

During the 6/5/2023 BOE Meeting, Ms. Khanna asked Ms. Stanley

“Does the curriculum committee now have a date on which we can expect anything”

Ms. Stanley Responded:

“Tomorrow”

On 06/08/2023 I submitted an OPRA request for the report or work product (which meant ANYTHING) the curriculum committee was provided in connection to what Ms. Stanley promised would be available.

The response I received on 06/21/2023 :

“Your request does not identify the content/subject matter sought with reasonable clarity, and is accordingly deficient in its present form. If you could clarify your request and resubmit, I will endeavor to provide you with the information that you seek.”

In other words, the OPRA Custodian had no idea what I was talking about.

What followed was a strange email exchange that alluded to something existing, but for whatever reason, I was unable to get my hands on it (remember, I also used the term work product). I appealed to the BOE (including Ms. Bradford and Ms. Stanley) for their assistance in getting the document to no avail.

On 6/29/2023, after Ms. Bradford spent quite a bit of time talking about her knowledge of statistics and educational research she then used everything but what she apparently learned in her classes to address the public’s concerns.

(1) Instead of speaking to the comparative data by the state, she referred to internal data that indicated we were a high-performing District. This data has existed- it is nothing new and Ms. Bradford’s opinions about our District isn’t the issue. The apparent disconnect between the internal and external data can be a sign of a very serious issue in how we are internally measuring this stuff. This concern might be allayed if our internal data had comparisons to other schools, but they don’t. The questions I and other members of the public had involved state data that demonstrated we were declining.

(2) As a solution, Ms. Bradford indicated that the primary response was the Administrators they approved during that meeting along with changes to lunch schedules and increased funding for SEL without any detail as to the specific interventions and how they would connect to improvements.

Ms. Bradford, who went on about how educational statistics were complex, gave an answer wholly divorced from the factors driving our declines with no basis in evidence and also suggested that hiring more administrators would solve the problem.

At the end of the meeting, Ms. Stanley wanted to make clear that there was no report and that the District wasn’t “hiding anything”.

Ms. Stanley -I never believed you or the District were hiding the report – – it was more that I never thought any report that spoke to these concerns existed. You and Ms. Bradford confirmed that, so thank you.

In the future, it would be more effective to send an email stating that rather than feigning exasperation at a meeting after ignoring multiple emails on this topic.

So we went from a request asking the Superintendent to report on the declines to the issue being thrown into a subcommittee with some kind of work product being available to the public. That work product ended up consisting of a few minutes of vague references out of Gale Bradford’s seemingly endless dialogue about every email ever written to the District. It also involved Pamela Stanley talking about how everything is fine and that there is no document (other than minutes) the public will have access to in evaluating this.

So if this doesn’t concern you, let me put it another way.

If you are trying to sell your house right now and the buyer starts raising concerns about our School Districts’ declines -show them the analysis I completed. Show them the numbers and the drop in rankings. Then play Ms. Bradford and Ms. Stanley’s monologues. See if that convinces them that we are on the right track.

You know, pull the issue out of the Berkeley Heights Bubble and give the District’s response to this a real world test drive.

It is probably a good thing for them that they decided to present on this JUST BEFORE a long holiday and far enough from the elections for it to matter.

In any case, I am going to continue to request that the Superintendent provide us with a proper analysis of the State Data and her evidence that our declines were due to COVID and AP Students who don’t care instead of the more evidenced reasons involving student transfers, teacher transfers, teacher resignations, budget priorities and poor family engagement.

Emails Sent to the BOE Requesting Report/Work Product