Do you want to know where the Lacey Township Board of Education is allocating your hard-earned tax dollars?  Do you want to want full transparency of the discussions and details of negotiations that currently take place in private behind closed doors?  Do want to understand the motions being voted on?  Are you sick and tired of the decisions being isolated to the hands of only 3 people for the entire town without even the rest of the Board Members being made privy to the info presented and withheld?  Then NOW is your chance to join together as a community and demand that ALL of our Board Of Ed meetings take place in a public setting!

Our Board of Education currently has 3 committees composed of 3 board members each, including Finance & Operations, Policy and Curriculum. During public board meetings, members of the board often comment that they will address concerns raised at these respective committee meetings. However, the public has had no transparency as to what is taking place at these meetings, as these committee meetings are held behind closed doors, excluding the public from participating. The public can only view meeting agendas and must resort to filing OPRA requests in order to obtain the minutes of these committee meetings, which may not tell the full story. Allowing the public to attend these meetings is crucial to ensuring that parent concerns are being addressed by the board committees.

Neighboring towns in Ocean County have had open committee meetings and invite the community to observe their performance so the public is well-informed and can offer informed feedback. There is no reason why Lacey can't do the same. For example, Toms River has 3x as many residents as Lacey and still has public committee meetings which run smoothly and there is much more public participation. 

By signing this petition, you will show your support to encourage the board to amend their bylaws in order to make all committee meetings open to the public. We will deliver signatures to the board at a future meeting.  Thank you for showing your support!