Culmination of Bergen LEADS Seminar Year

The Bergen LEADS Class of 2011 will celebrate completion of their seminar year on Tuesday, June 14.  The culminating event will be a Public Forum on the Future of Education, which will be held at Bergen Community College from 3-5 PM, followed by graduation festivities.

Since the first Bergen LEADS monthly seminar last September, a recurrent theme running through every debate, presentation and site visit is that the current economic situation is forcing every provider of service at all levels of government to find ways to cut expenses and end duplication of services.

For their class project, Bergen LEADS participants were charged with researching the education system of 73 local school districts and exploring solutions to streamline the system, maintain standards, and ultimately ease the tax burden on Bergen County residents.  Teams will present ideas around four main topic areas at the Forum: 

• Opportunity for Change through cooperation. Intriguing opportunities that school districts have been unable to implement because of a lack of personnel and/or expertise, coupled with intriguing ideas for substantive change.
• Expanding use of technology to enhance learning.  Many school systems offer online and distance learning opportunities; learn about the costs and benefits of gearing this system up to scale.
• Delivery of Special Education.  Special education is complex and costly for local school districts to provide. The team will discuss a service delivery model based upon multi-district consortiums.  
• Consolidation.  A look at the potential cost savings if school districts in Bergen County shared district administrators (business managers, purchasing departments, human resources, transportation coordinators, etc...).

The Forum is open to the public free of charge.  For more information about Bergen LEADS, and to register for the Forum, email amissey@bergenvolunteers.org or call 201-489-9454. ext. 119.

Graduation festivities are reserved for class members and other invited guests.