'Dramatic' School Staff Issues To Be Addressed By New Hillsborough Committee

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — As Hillsborough continues to see a loss in school employees, the Board of Education recently created a new committee to help "stop the bleeding."

The Hillsborough Education Association and the BOE will work together in the new committee to try and gather information on resignations and retirements among school employees, said board member John Oliver at the Jan. 3 meeting.

The committee will "work on a survey to stop the bleeding and stop losing people within the district through retirement or when moving on to better positions," said Oliver.

Henry Goodhue, president of the HEA, has spoken openly at several meetings about the decline in staff members.

Comparing the number of staff members who left in 2021 versus 2019, Goodhue said more than triple the number of employees left for retirement, better positions, or other reasons at the Nov. 22, 2021 meeting.

"For some time the HEA has voiced our concerns related to dramatic increases in retirements and resignations. These concerns are compounded by difficulty filling existing positions, short staffing and suffering staff morale. All of which negatively impact our students," said Goodhue.

Hillsborough Schools Spokesman Michael Callahan said Goodhue's numbers are not as dire as were presented.

To date, the district has received retirements/resignations from 96 staff members during the 2021-22 school year. To compare to previous years, the total number for the 2020-2021 school year was 118 and the total number for the 2019-2020 school year was 104, according to Callahan.

"Trends suggest that the District is on pace to match those numbers but not necessarily to vastly exceed them as the resignations/retirements received during October and November this year is extremely similar to what we received last year. With that, knowing the job market as a whole is problematic, the District has taken several steps with regard to recruitment efforts including various advertisements," said Callahan.

Despite the discrepancy in numbers, Goodhue is happy with the formation of the new committee.

"We welcome this step and look forward to collaboratively ensuring Hillsborough schools remain among the best," said Goodhue.

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