Public commenters press Hillside board on tutoring, discipline and insurance; board extends comment time

The Hillside Board of Education opened a public-comment period that included student requests for tutoring, a parent's sustained grievance about discipline and communication, and an insurance broker's proposal to seek savings on stop-loss coverage.

Megan Dorsonville, a Hillside High School senior and recent National Honor Society inductee, said more than 100 students had signed a petition asking the board to "reconsider" tutoring at the high school and asked that services be restored before winter break. "We are respectfully asking for you to reconsider this issue and hope that it can be solved by the time we come back from winter break," she said. Superintendent Glover responded that tutoring had not been stopped and that tutoring "will be re-begin as soon as a couple of our adults take care of some things that they need to." The superintendent invited Dorsonville to follow up.

Parent Ann Marie Cumberbatch gave an extended, emotional public comment alleging that her daughter was suspended and that she had experienced a lack of timely acknowledgement from district officials after raising concerns by email. Cumberbatch also alleged that Child Protective Services visited her home after an anonymous educator report; she demanded the board acknowledge and act on prior correspondence. The board chair and superintendent said they had been in communication with the family and that the superintendent had "made the final decision to make sure that some discipline records were adjusted," but declined to discuss student-specific details in public because of privacy rules.

Jacob Krakauer, an insurance broker with Brown & Brown, addressed the board about rising benefit costs and said the district's stop-loss premium listed on the agenda was about $2,500,000, up from $1,600,000 three years earlier, and cited about $1,700,000 in prescription spend. "We would be able to save you a minimum of a half a $1,000,000 to $1,000,000 if we were scrubbing the documents and being able to look at everything and take it out to the markets," he told the board and offered to review the account.

Union president Angela Lawler asked whether mid-year changes could affect staff coverage; Brown & Brown and district representatives said exploring markets ahead of Jan. 1 would not jeopardize coverage and that proposals could be turned around quickly.

Procedural actions: The board voted to open public comment and recorded voice votes for motions to extend the public-comment period and to close public comment. Later in the meeting the board approved a motion to move into executive (closed) session to discuss personnel, labor negotiations, attorney-client matters and contract negotiations.

Why it matters: Public commenters raised issues that intersect personnel, student-discipline privacy and district finances. The exchanges signaled concerns that the administration said it would follow up on outside the public meeting where appropriate.

The board thanked speakers for their remarks and moved on to committee reports and a closed session.