Belleville Resident Files Lawsuit Against School Board, Wants Layoff Notices Thrown Out

BELLEVILLE, NJ — A Belleville resident has launched a lawsuit against the local school board, alleging that its members and the district’s superintendent purposely moved a public meeting to a smaller venue to keep people from attending.

Michael Sheldon, a former Belleville Board of Education member and local activist, is accusing the board of willfully violating the state’s Open Public Meetings Act – otherwise known as the New Jersey Sunshine Law – when it relocated its May 20 meeting.

Sheldon said the timeline goes back to May 11, when the Belleville Public School District issued nearly 200 reduction in force (RIF) notices to non-tenured staff.

The Belleville Board of Education gave a green light to the district’s 2026-2027 school budget in April. The spending plan comes with a tax increase for homeowners and a wave of staff cuts.

• Related: Belleville’s New School Budget Has Tax Hike, Job Cuts

The cost cutting eventually sparked an outcry from community members and educators, including a local high school principal and the president of the Belleville Education Association.

• Related: Students Protest Belleville School Cuts, Principal Blasts Staffing Changes

A large crowd was expected to attend the board’s meeting on March 20, including many people critical of the cuts. On March 15, the school board published a legal notice announcing it was moving the May 20 meeting away from the regular location, Belleville High School auditorium, to the common room at School #10, a tinier venue with less parking spaces, no air conditioning and a worse audio-visual system.

The move wasn’t done in good faith, Sheldon’s lawsuit alleges:

“Under New Jersey's Open Public Meetings Act, public bodies have a legal obligation to provide reasonable accommodations commensurate with expected public turnout. The lawsuit argues that relocating the meeting to a highly restricted space immediately after triggering a massive school system crisis was a deliberate political stunt. By physically limiting the number of people who could fit into the room, the board effectively shut out the BEA, parents, and taxpayers to avoid public scrutiny. The complaint outlines that because the meeting was structured in absolute bad faith to suppress public comment, the court should void every board action passed that evening. This includes the massive RIF terminations as well as administrative reshuffling and the creation of new administrative positions.”

Sheldon is now arguing that all actions taken by the board during that meeting – including the formalization of hundreds of staff terminations – should be invalidated.

Patch reached out to district administrators seeking comment about Sheldon’s lawsuit. We will update this article with any reply we receive.

View the lawsuit online here.

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