In December 2021 a West Amwell resident made an Open Public Records Act request to the school district, asking for any emails or documents that mention the referendum, facilities or Class III officers for the year 2021, including emails to/from the 9 Board of Ed members and the Superintendent. The response to that request included over 3,300 emails and dozens of documents. These series of articles documents what we found.
One important set of NJ State laws are designed to keep our kids out of political questions. Specifically, school districts are banned from sending any advocacy information to existing students about any election or referendum. Specifically, N.J. Stat. § 18A:42-4 says, in full:
“Section 18A:42-4 – Distribution of literature as to candidacy, bond issues, or other public question to be submitted at election; prohibited
No literature which in any manner and in any part thereof promotes, favors or opposes the candidacy of any candidate for election at any annual school election, or the adoption of any bond issue, proposal, or any public question submitted at any general, municipal or school election shall be given to any public school pupil in any public school building or on the grounds thereof for the purpose of having such pupil take the same to his home or distribute it to any person outside of said building or grounds, nor shall any pupil be requested or directed by any official or employee of the public schools to engage in any activity which tends to promote, favor or oppose any such candidacy, bond issue, proposal, or public question. The board of education of each school district shall prescribe necessary rules to carry out the purposes of this section.” [emphasis ours]
What this says in plain English is that a school district can’t give existing students any kind of literature or communication advocating for or against a referendum, and they also can’t ask students to do so.
So it was somewhat troubling when the following School & Community Meeting Minutes were found in the OPRA vault:
When we saw these minutes we were sure that this terrible idea was shot down by the Superintendent or the Board Attorney, or some other adult in the room. You don’t bring the kids into these issues. You simply do not.
To thicken the plot, as it turns out a month earlier the Superintendent reached out to the admin staff on this topic:
The Superintendent here asks for names, home addresses and birthdates for “all of our senior students”, and later clarifies “I need it for the referendum”. This is troubling.
As it turns out, there were only six such seniors. So to make things easier, the Superintendent simply emailed them. Here is the email he sent to existing students:
Note that this letter does not speak to the costs of the referendum, or the issues with the LPS site, the many controversies around it, or anything at all negative. This is a pure advocacy letter that is a clear indisputable violation of N.J. Stat. § 18A:42-4. To make matters worse, the Superintendent closes with “Feel free to share this information with any recent graduates you feel would be interested” – here the Superintendent is soliciting the current seniors to advocate for the referendum themselves, a second violation of N.J. Stat. § 18A:42-4.
What we have here is a Board of Education and Superintendent who felt the law did not apply to them, and so broke them freely. And they would go so far as to involve students in their sordid plans.
