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Resident asks board for earlier notice on large purchases and calls for review of Hazelwood principal reappointment
Summary
During public comment a resident asked the board to provide advance lists of proposed expenditures above $500, questioned the timing of the bill list, and asked the board to delay the scheduled reappointment of the Hazelwood principal pending further review of evaluations and parental concerns.
A resident identified on the record as living at 109 Green Avenue used public comment to ask the Middlesex Borough School District Board of Education to give board members and the public earlier notice of significant expenditures, and to request that the board table a scheduled reappointment for the Hazelwood principal.
“Reading the bill list, you’re just reading what’s been paid, but you have no control over what the money is being spent on,” the resident said, urging the board to provide “a list of potential expenditures that are over $500” for board review before purchases are made.
The resident also asked the board to table the reappointment scheduled for 02/25/26 and to review performance evaluations before any decision. The speaker said parents have raised concerns about practices at Hazelwood, naming issues they described as: failure to follow board policy on visitor identification and badges; a fire incident that parents learned about on social media and that was not recorded as a drill in the school record; a delayed internal hiring decision tied to a planned maternity leave; lapses in ticket collection for school events; and incidents of student-on-student contact that, according to the speaker, were not properly communicated to parents. “A principal’s job is very important as it requires great leadership,” the resident said, and urged further investigation before reappointment.
Board leadership responded that the district’s finance and facilities committee reviews the bill list in committee and that the full board sees the bill list when the agenda is released. “We usually get that before a publicist,” the board president said when answering questions from the resident about whether board members see bills in advance.
No motion to table the reappointment or any board action on the request was recorded during the public-comment period. The board secretary’s public-comment instructions were read at the start of the period; speakers were asked to give their name and address for the record and to limit remarks to agenda items.
