New superintendent reports drop in recorded incidents; parents press board over Arbor Elementary safety and communications

Erson Glover, in his first board meeting as superintendent, outlined five priority goals and reported a small decline in the district’s semianual student-safety metrics for the period Jan.–June 2025, drawing both praise for staff supports and calls from parents for focused action at one elementary school.

"This report describes incidents that occurred from January 2025 through June of 2025," Superintendent Erson Glover said, adding that the district saw total reportable incidents fall from 76 for Jan–June 2024 to 67 for the same period in 2025. By category the district reported 20 violence incidents, 4 vandalism, 29 substance-abuse incidents, 3 weapons incidents and 11 confirmed HIB (harassment/intimidation/bullying) findings for the Jan–June 2025 period, he said.

Board attorney David Rubin provided the semianual HIB summary and told the board there were 46 HIB reports during the period and 11 substantiated findings. "My job is to try to look for patterns as opposed to one-off incidents," Rubin said, adding he has not seen evidence of systemic patterns such as racial discrimination or bus-route clustering in this reporting window.

Still, board members and members of the public pressed for follow-up on uneven distributions of incidents across individual schools. "There still continues to be a very large number at Arbor Elementary School," board member Nancy Salgado said, noting a disparity when some schools reported zero incidents while Arbor had higher counts and multiple substantiated HIBs. She urged the board and administration to investigate root causes and consider sharing successful practices from middle schools that have improved.

During public comment, Jeremy Patel (153 Dalton Ave) thanked outgoing board member Brenda Smith and asked specifically: "What are we doing about it?" regarding Arbor’s numbers. He urged clearer communication to parents about counseling resources and after-hours services, saying he had difficulty locating information and asked that case managers or the counseling department improve outreach. Board staff asked public commenters to email the superintendent’s office and said the district posts some items on ParentSquare and will follow up with directly requested information.

Glover highlighted partnerships the district uses to support students — counselors, substance-abuse specialists and a partnership with "the Haven" based at Rutgers University — and framed school climate as central to prevention work. He said the district is continuing prevention-focused interventions and school-climate teams and that relevant reports will remain available to the public.

Next steps: the board signaled it will follow up on Arbor Elementary concerns, with members asking administration to provide clearer communication to parents about counseling and special-education supports and to return with findings if patterns persist. Parents were instructed to submit written questions to the superintendent’s office for a formal response.