Tales of Two Boards: In 'Good' N.J. District, Board Tries to Find Its Way
Seated at folding tables at the front of the room, members of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township Board of Education look out on a sea of empty chairs.
It is a Monday night, and the board has scheduled a public hearing to discuss next year's budget. But of the school district's 50,000 residents, only 5 are in the audience: a P.T.A. president; a prospective student teacher and her boyfriend; Harold F. Gantert, who is himself running for the board of education; and a stringer for The Star Ledger in Newark.
The pattern is a familiar one. Although citizens sometimes turn out in force to fight school closings or cuts in the sports program, most board meetings attract fewer than a dozen people, including a handful of what the board...
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