New Jersey Herald
MONTAGUE Residents have a First Amendment right to speak on school issues at board meetings and shouldn t fear being sued for doing so, said Board of Education President Barbara Holstein.
To prevent what some have perceived as a chilling effect on public participation, the board voted 5-1 to end its practice of opening the public comment portion of meetings with a warning that those airing grievances could face lawsuits for libel or defamation. There have been other issues with why people coming to the microphone felt they could not do so at times, but nothing like this is read in other districts, Holstein said. Everyone has a First Amendment right to come to that microphone and speak about any agenda item or item of concern pertaining to their school district. Your First Amendment right is exactly that.
New Jersey Herald
MONTAGUE The Board of Education has appointed Krista Mikulski to fill the seat left vacant by Jennifer VanNess s sudden resignation two weeks ago.
Mikulski will have up to 30 days to complete the criminal background check required of all new school board members in New Jersey, at which point she ll be sworn in to serve the remainder of VanNess s term, which expires in April 2022.
VanNess stepped down in protest April 26 after the seven-member board voted to place Superintendent Timothy Capone on paid leave and withdraw its litigation against High Point Regional High School, with which Montague had tried to end its send-receive relationship that has often been testy at best. The relationship, dating back to 2013, appeared to worsen under Capone.
It was the only school district in New Jersey where students attended high school in New York, and the arrangement lasted for 85 years. Now a plan to resume sending students from Montague to Port Jervis High School has collapsed, seven years after the rural K-8 district in New Jersey’s northwestern corner switched to High Point Regional High School in Wantage. The Montague school board has .
Montague, a one-school district serving students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight, petitioned the state education commissioner in December 2019 for approval to end its relationship with High Point Regional, in Wantage, so it could go back to sending students in grades 9-12 to Port Jervis High School in New York.
A subsequent lawsuit by Montague, filed December 2020, accused High Point of bad-faith obstruction of its petition, which was not ruled on and is now a dead issue.
Montague s resolution directs its legal counsel to immediately withdraw the board from the above-referenced actions and cease the performance of any and all actions related to termination of the board s sending-receiving relationship with High Point Regional Board of Education.