Letter to the Editor: Gioia Responds to Recent BOE Resignations

Our town should be proud of our children’s test scores.  Compared to Berkeley Heights and other districts, our progress is very positive.  However, that is not the only legacy our community inherited from prior BOE decisions.  Unfortunately, reserves are drained, taxpayers fatigued, teachers work without current technology, and our children sit in significantly larger classes while parents are forced to pay for subscription busing and sports.  This was created by a long history of poor BOE decisions and now prior board members attempt to absolve themselves of these results as they resign their positions.  These resigning board members’ children benefited from small class sizes and frivolous use of our school reserves.  Yet, now they espouse large classes and walk away ignoring today’s young children who are forced to do with less as a result of their decisions.

It is disappointing that two board members resigned with less than a year left to their terms.  Resigning with comments like “the board has no plan” and “I am truly saddened and frightened by what the future holds for the Mountainside children” is nonproductive noise.  It is true that today’s board faces more difficult problems than past boards but these problems weren’t created yesterday.   Maintaining test scores, repairing our schools, and investing in technology, while stabilizing our finances, is difficult business. Unlike the past, the luxury of large cash reserves is gone and our problems will be resolved with constructive debate, critical thinking, and leadership - not self-serving rhetoric or group think.

I implore our community “to stand up, take notice, and ask questions.”  What was our past board’s “plan” for our children when our district was flowing with cash reserves?  How were our cash reserves depleted when there was no basic investment in technology or facilities?  Where did our money go?  And why are we asked to ignore these results?  

In the short time I’ve served on the BOE, I have concluded that we share common goals even though there were disparate views on achieving results.  I have never witnessed any disrespect between board members and I haven’t been involved in any non-transparent board resolutions.  If individuals want to resign and walk away from our problems, I wish them luck and thank them for their many years of service. However, do so gracefully and stop the “political crockery” so we can focus on repairing the inherited problems.

Dante S. Gioia

Mountainside Board of Education