Michael Dauber of Bordentown Township
To the editor:
I attended the Bordentown Regional Board of Education meeting on Feb 20 to speak about the negative impact that a recent policy change to the 2013-2014 school calendar would have on families with special needs children.
However, that chance was denied.
According to Lisa Hartman, board president, my “time” had expired by asking questions on the proposed school budget. Ms. Hartman blatantly violated policy 9325.5 in her attempt to limit public comment.
Numerous Bordentown Township residents attended the meeting with a handful wishing to speak about the impact that using delayed openings, instead of the current process of half-days, to accommodate the staff training would have.
The BOE solution is to have the affected working parents incur additional cost for their ill-conceived policy change.
Not one parent group was notified of the proposal nor any attempt made to gather impact information it would have on working parents.
Besides the policy violation by Ms. Hartman, the lack of respect for the taxpaying residents and parents of Bordentown Township and the lack of concern for the impact this will have on working parents and parents of special needs children is very disturbing.
The reading of a prepared statement on the topic at the end of public comments that did not address a single question from any of the parents is unacceptable.
The refusal of the BOE President to answer questions from the public is either lack leadership ability or a lack of justification for the change.
The township pays almost 80 percent of the school budget and we have six of nine members on the BOE. Can one of our six representatives explain why a township representative is not leading the BOE?
We need our representatives to represent us.
Only one member, Mark Drew, spoke out about limiting the speakers, the other five members sat silent.
Michael Dauber
Bordentown Township

