East Brunswick’s Board of Education on September 10 approved a change to how the district handles reports of harassment, intimidation and bullying. Principals may now screen a report at the outset and decide whether it falls within the legal definition of HIB before a formal investigation begins.
As Eyes on EB reported the day before the vote, the agenda described the change in a single sentence and gave no reason for it. At the meeting, the district supplied one. Superintendent Dr. Evelyn Mamman said the change would spare principals and staff from spending time on full investigations of reports that clearly do not meet the legal standard. The board’s attorney said state law allows it.
The explanation came in response to extended questioning from board member Louis Figueroa, a former principal. He raised concerns about the pressure the change could put on principals and asked how students would still be heard. He then voted for the policy.
What the board approved
Policy 5512, the district’s HIB policy, moves Section G from what its policy service calls “Option 1 — Investigate All Reports” to “Option 2 — Principal’s Preliminary Determination.” The change was one of nine items approved together in a single roll-call vote. The others were two policies on first reading, four other policies on second reading, the August 20 minutes and a revised school calendar. Under the agenda, policies approved on second reading take effect immediately.
The policy text presented for adoption says that “prior to initiating an investigation,” the principal or a designee, “in consultation with the Anti-Bullying Specialist,” determines whether a report, “assuming all facts are presented as true,” falls within the state’s legal definition of HIB. If it does not, the incident is handled under the district’s Code of Student Conduct.
The safeguards described in the earlier article are in that text:
- The HIB 338 form must still be completed and sent to the superintendent.
- The superintendent may order a full investigation anyway.
- Parents receive formal notice of a decision not to investigate.
- A parent can appeal that decision to the board and then to the state Commissioner of Education.
The motion carried. Board Vice President Wilbur Pan was not called in the roll call. The individual votes will be confirmed against the official minutes when they are posted.
Why the superintendent says she restored it
Mamman said the preliminary determination is standard. The model policy East Brunswick uses, from the Strauss Esmay service, and most other districts’ policies include it, she said. East Brunswick’s version did not.
“We took that out. All I did was put that back in,” she said. (video, 1:54:30)
Principals would still complete the state form, she said: “so they still fill out the form 338.” When a report plainly does not meet the definition but still involves misbehavior, “it falls under the code of conduct,” and “counseling is still a part of it.”
Her main argument was about time. “We do not want them spending all that time and resources,” she said. The principal “should have the power right there to determine” that a report is a code-of-conduct matter, “instead of wasting resources and time to go through an investigation that I know is going to be unfounded.” When a case is less clear — “if it’s a complex one” — the principal can still send it to a full investigation, she said. (video, 2:02:04)
She said the test itself does not change. If a report meets the legal criteria, “then it triggers an [HIB], same as before.” If it does not, “then there’s an alternative handling.” That, she said, is “the job of a principal anyway,” and requiring a full investigation of every report “doesn’t take into account the principal’s expertise.” “I believe that this makes it more efficient,” she said. (video, 2:00:03)
Mamman said the decision would not rest with the principal alone. “It doesn’t mean the principal is doing it by themselves,” she said, and she reviews the reports herself: “I still have to see it all.” She added that the district’s anti-bullying coordinator “was very much in favor of this.”
Asked by another board member whether principals had weighed in, Mamman said the proposal was shared with those it affects before it reached the board, and “they were fine with it.” (video, 2:06:03)
Eyes on EB has not independently confirmed when, or whether, an earlier version of the district’s policy included the preliminary determination.
The legal authority, and parents’ appeal rights
Figueroa had directed part of his question to the board’s attorney. The attorney pointed to state law. “The legislature actually amended the law to permit this discretion,” he said. That matches the 2022 amendment to New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act described in Eyes on EB’s earlier article. (video, 1:56:47)
“In the districts that have it, it actually works out very well,” he said. On Figueroa’s concern about exposure for principals, he said he had not seen any principal “subjected to any type of liability,” in part “because parents still have the right to appeal it.” The option, he said, lets a licensed principal “make a judgment call.” In cases that are plainly code-of-conduct matters, the district’s investigators can then turn to “other ones” that need them.
The attorney, identified on the dais nameplate as board attorney Matthew Giacobbe, was not on camera while speaking. He is identified here by the question directed to him and the content of his answer.
A former principal’s questions
Figueroa raised the issue before the vote and returned to it several times over roughly fifteen minutes.
His first question was about risk. “Are we putting our administration at any legal risk,” he asked, “or even a principal who is non-tenured being pressured by a community member to either go forward with an [HIB] or not go forward with an [HIB]?” He noted that investigating every report brings support with it: “you do have counseling that comes from that.” (video, 1:53:34)
Asked to explain his concern, he drew on his own experience. Many reports, he said, “are not very clear-cut.”
“Speaking as a former principal,” he said, “if there was someone who didn’t like me as a principal or didn’t like the way I ran a building,” a disputed determination could escalate. “If the next step is going right to the board,” he said, “that puts that principal technically at risk,” particularly “if the board is continuing to review a certain particular principal.” He was especially concerned about a non-tenured principal “trying to do the right thing.” (video, 1:58:47)
He acknowledged the cost of the current approach. “Now I know that does take time and resources, but what comes out of that is a student assistance specialist spending time with the child or with children involved in that,” he said. Investigating everything, he said, “also allows the principal to be a part of that process” without putting all the weight on the principal to make the determination. “If I was still a principal, I would make sure I investigated everything,” he said.
Figueroa remained unconvinced. “I understand what you’re saying. I’m just not agreeing with you,” he said. (video, 2:01:26)
Figueroa then turned to how the new process would work in practice. “So are the students being interviewed still by the student assistance specialist,” he asked. Mamman answered: “Absolutely.” Figueroa asked whether “it goes to the principal with all that information,” and Mamman said the principal “makes the predetermination” based on “all that information that has been given to him.” (video, 2:03:25)
Figueroa said the policy, as he read it, could give a different impression: “it almost seems like the principal gets a piece of paper.” But if “all of the interview information is coming to the principal,” he said, “then it’s really not any different than it used to be, other than” — and, in quick back-and-forth, “a tad different.” Mamman later described the change the same way: “It’s a tad different.” (video, 2:05:03)
His last concern was about staff. He wanted to be sure the district was not putting “professional staff out there in a situation where they’re having to make a determination that later could have a legal or a professional consequence on them.” (video, 2:07:36)
When his name was called in the roll call, Figueroa voted yes: “based on information given tonight, I would say yes.” (video, 2:11:04)
Eyes on EB attended the meeting, and in our observation Figueroa did a good job asking thoughtful questions about the policy.
An open question about timing
The meeting explanation and the policy text do not line up neatly on one point, and residents may want the district to clarify it.
The policy describes the preliminary determination as a screen made “prior to initiating an investigation” and “assuming all facts are presented as true.” In other words, it is a decision about whether the reported conduct fits the definition, taken at face value. It is not a finding about what happened. The policy text does not describe students being interviewed before that decision.
At the meeting, Mamman agreed that students are “absolutely” still interviewed by student assistance specialists and that the principal makes the determination with that information. Elsewhere in the discussion, she described the new option as letting a principal decide whether the district needs to “go through the full-blown” process — to “bring kids in, interview, that type of stuff.”
Those descriptions may be reconcilable. Some initial information gathering could come before the formal investigation the policy describes, for example. But the recording does not establish when student interviews happen relative to the preliminary determination. Eyes on EB has not asked the district and draws no conclusion about it here. It is a reasonable question for parents whose children are involved in a report.
What the vote did not address
Eyes on EB’s earlier article raised a narrower question: once some reports are screened out before investigation, will the district show how many were screened out alongside the HIB statistics it presents publicly, so year-to-year comparisons remain meaningful? That question was not discussed at the September 10 meeting. Later in the evening, the board accepted its routine report of confirmed HIB incidents for August 21 through September 10 without discussion.
How we reported this. This article is based on the district’s official recording of the September 10, 2026 Board of Education meeting, the meeting agenda and policy text, and Eyes on EB’s September 9 article and underlying research. Quotations were checked word-for-word against multiple transcriptions of the meeting audio, and speakers were confirmed using the video and meeting context. Where transcripts disagreed or a speaker could not be confirmed, we paraphrased without attribution. Official minutes had not been posted when this article was written. Eyes on EB attended the meeting; the observation about Figueroa’s questioning is the publisher’s own. Eyes on EB did not contact the district for this article.
