Caldwell-West superintendent presents semiannual HIB report showing school-level incident counts

At the Caldwell-West School District board meeting on Nov. 10, Superintendent Dr. Furnari presented the district's semiannual report submitted to the New Jersey Department of Education covering Jan. 1 through June 19, 2025.

Dr. Furnari said the report summarizes instances of violence, vandalism and HIB (harassment, intimidation and bullying) and related trainings. He said the obligation of the district is to share those numbers with the board and public as part of the state reporting process.

Key counts presented for the second half of the 2024-25 school year included:
- James Caldwell High School (secondary level): 42 incidents.
- Grover Cleveland Middle School: 18 incidents.
- Secondary-level HIB: 2 confirmed cases and 3 alleged cases in the reporting period.
- Grover Cleveland Middle School HIB: 5 confirmed and 8 alleged cases in the same period.
- Jefferson Elementary: no incidents reported in these categories during the period.
- Lincoln Elementary: 5 incidents leading to removal and 2 alleged HIB cases.
- Washington Elementary: 1 incident leading to removal, 1 confirmed HIB and 1 alleged HIB.
- Wilson and Harrison elementary schools: none reported in these categories.

Dr. Furnari said the district conducted two districtwide trainings during the reporting period rather than individual school trainings. He said work is underway to collect the current year's data and that a midyear update for the period September through December will be provided at a future meeting.

The report is part of the district's statutorily required submissions to the New Jersey Department of Education; the board took no immediate disciplinary actions as part of the presentation and no formal policy changes were proposed during the meeting.

Next steps: the superintendent will provide midyear figures for the current reporting cycle when available, and the board will review any specific case-level follow-up in closed session if required by privacy rules.