Hillside superintendent outlines budget timeline, grants and new policy requirements

Superintendent Glover told the Hillside Public School District board the district received preliminary budget allocations and outlined key deadlines and policy requirements for the coming months.

"We received our preliminary budget allocations for the 2025–26 school year" and the district must prepare materials for the New Jersey Department of Education, Glover said. He told the board March 19 is the date to prepare a budget for NJDOE review and described planned community forums in April to gather public input ahead of final board action. He noted the local tax-cap limit is 2 percent for typical budget increases and that any request above that requires additional state approval.

Glover discussed district grants, saying the district receives a little over $2 million in grants overall and singled out a mental‑health grant of about $1.25 million. He said the district manages roughly nine grants and that paperwork and reporting requirements are extensive; he told the board three more grants had been received and would be before the board for approval that night and that another $10,000 grant was expected in roughly three weeks. In response to a public question about a proposed $12,000 grant‑manager stipend (motion 21 on the labor agenda), Glover described the scale of the grant portfolio and the staffing and compliance needs that accompany grant management.

Glover addressed federal and vendor requirements related to student technology. He said Google Education requires a parent permission form for every student because of new national requirements tied to Google Education access; he said the district has about 3,000 students and parents will be asked to complete the permission form through Genesis. "You can opt out," Glover said of FAFSA-related and similar permissions, "but it's essential before they sign out of it, the guidance team ... need to make sure they're having conversation with their parents about the importance of it." He also told the board the governor has proposed a cell‑phone ban policy and allocated grants to districts that choose to adopt such policies, and that the district must produce an artificial‑intelligence policy for review by the board within the coming months.

Glover said Hillside had been removed from an unidentified NJDOE status — a change that will reduce some state funds the district had been receiving — but that removal signaled the high school is meeting state expectations. He also mentioned discussions with Apple Education about potential district partnerships, saying the talks could bring resources and job opportunities to students.

Separately, Glover said 72 percent of district students receive free or reduced‑price lunch and urged families to address unpaid lunch balances, calling food access an important but fiscally constrained priority.