The Contrast in Two Local School Districts

The newspaper excerpts in this post, the first concerning the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education, and the second about the Franklin Township Board of Education present two very stark approaches to public access in the current school budget discussions.

The issue in question is the extent to which the public should or should not be able to sit in and listen to deliberations of board members concerning the very real problem of trimming down the school budget for the next school year. Bridgewater-Raritan chose one approach. Franklin Township chose another, very different one.

At the beginning of March, Kara Richardson reported in the Courier News that the B-R BOE’s “Finance Committee will meet in a closed session (emphasis mine) today (Tuesday) to discuss how to shave another $2.4 million from the budget.”

That committee, which consists of three board members, is chaired by Lynne Hurley and includes Pat Breslin and Anda Cytroen; with Al Smith as the alternate should one of the others not be able to make a meeting.

Bridgewater-Raritan School Superintendent Michael Schilder and Peter Starrs, School Business Administrator/Board Secretary are usually expected to participate at such committee meetings.

In contrast, the Franklin Township Board of Education chose to take a completely open approach to discussing its cuts totaling about $7 million:

Today in the Courier News print edition, Mary Ann Bourbeau reported that Shirley Pietrucha, President of the Franklin Board of Education said “The board’s finance committee has expanded to the board as a whole, so all of the board members will be present at the budget workshop. As a result, the workshop will open to the public, (emphasis mine) but public comment only will be permitted during the first 30 minutes.”

Good for you, Franklin Township.

I’ve always been a strong proponent of having as many committee meetings and full board meetings as possible open to the public. Usually, though, boards of education tend to interpret New Jersey’s Sunshine Law (the Open Public Meetings Act) in a far too restrictive manner, thereby shutting out the public from the scope and content of its deliberations.