Rockaway Borough Board holds retreat to clarify governance roles and set 2026 priorities

Rockaway Borough, N.J. — The Rockaway Borough Board of Education convened a retreat on Feb. 28, 2026, at Lincoln School Cafeteria to focus on governance practices, committee roles and priorities for the year. Board President Edward Graf called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. and read the notice required under the Open Public Meeting Act.

Board members reviewed roll call and terms — Michael Dougherty, Faride Hernandez, Vanessa Dorgilles, Jennifer Dahl (vice president) and Edward Graf (president) — before moving into the retreat’s agenda, which emphasized distinguishing governance responsibilities from day‑to‑day administration.

The agenda framed the central exercise as sorting typical board items into three buckets: Board Governance, Administration Management and Shared/Oversight. Example items for the exercise included approving substitute pay rates, committee appointments, budget transfers, invoking the Doctrine of Necessity and conducting the superintendent’s evaluation. The goal was to reduce surprises at public meetings by clarifying which decisions belong to the full board and which should remain at the administrative or committee level.

Committee structure and communication were a key focus. The retreat materials listed committee leads and purposes: Finance/Personnel/Facilities (Edward Graf and Faride Hernandez); Curriculum/Special Education (Jennifer Dahl and Vanessa Dorgilles); negotiations with RBAA (Graf and Dahl) and RBEA (Dorgilles and Graf); Athletic/Activities (Michael Dougherty and Vanessa Dorgilles); and an ad hoc group for policy, safety, security, technology and strategic planning. Participants discussed how committee work should be reported back to the full board to avoid siloing and agreed to develop norms and a consistent reporting template.

A facilitated session centered on strengthening the board‑superintendent partnership through regular, open communication and clearer processes for asking questions without micromanaging. The board aimed to identify three to five concrete governance actions — behaviors, structures or processes rather than new programs — such as monthly governance check‑ins and a standing set of board questions for administrators.

For governance priorities, members worked to establish timelines, monitoring mechanisms and a plan to revisit progress. The retreat set as an objective the selection of one recurring agenda item for governance check‑ins in 2026 and committed to collecting and summarizing individual board commitments for midyear review.

The retreat concluded after a working lunch and a period of reflections. Vanessa Dorgilles moved to adjourn at 1:00 p.m.; Faride Hernandez seconded the motion, and it carried by unanimous voice vote.

The board’s immediate follow‑up actions are to finalize committee reporting norms, codify the standing governance check‑in, and compile the commitments captured during the retreat for a midyear summary.