Dear New Jersey Department of Education,

Please accept this electronic request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form or use a particular software platform to submit my request per NJSA 47:1A-5(f), which states that an email from a requestor including all of the information required on the adopted form shall suffice in place of a completed form as a valid government record request.

I HAVE NOT been convicted of any indictable offense under the laws of New Jersey, any other state, or the United States.

I WILL NOT use the requested government records for a commercial purpose.

I AM NOT seeking records in connection with a legal proceeding.

Records requested:

1. All Preschool Education Aid (PEA) applications submitted by the Highland Park
Borough School District for school years 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026, and
2026-2027, including all attachments and budget workbooks.

2. The district's Preschool Program Plan and all annual updates on file for
2024-2025, 2025-2026, and 2026-2027, including any narrative describing the
district's procedures for recruitment, enrollment, and placement of eligible
resident children.

3. Any corrective action plan submitted by the district under N.J.A.C.
6A:13A-2.3(c), or written confirmation that no such plan is on file.

4. The district's reported preschool enrollment counts, and any projected-
enrollment or "universe" figures the Department maintains for the district's
preschool program, for 2023-2024 through 2026-2027.

5. All award, approval, or final-obligation determination letters issued by the
Department to the district regarding Preschool Education Aid for 2023-2024
through 2026-2027.

6. Any preschool program monitoring, self-assessment, or program-review records
for the district.

7. All correspondence between the Highland Park Borough School District and the
Division of Early Childhood Services regarding preschool enrollment, capacity,
expansion, waitlists, or the Preschool Program Plan, from January 1, 2022 to
the present.

My preferred delivery method for response(s) to this request is by E-mail as attachments. Please confirm you have received this request. If you are not the custodian of records, please forward my request to that person and provide their email address to me for future reference.

Yours faithfully,

Anonymous

Dear OPRA Custodian,
As requested, here is a clarification for item 7

All correspondence (including emails, letters, memoranda, and reports) sent or received by any of the individuals listed below, between January 1, 2022 and the date of this request, regarding any of the following subjects relating to the Highland Park Borough School District's preschool program: (a) preschool enrollment numbers, projections, or shortfalls; (b) preschool capacity, classrooms, or expansion plans; (c) preschool waitlists or admission practices; (d) the district's three-year Preschool Program Plan under N.J.A.C. 6A:13A-3.1; (e) any corrective action plan under N.J.A.C. 6A:13A-2.3(c); or (f) the district's Preschool Education Aid application(s) and award(s).
Senders/recipients on the Highland Park Borough School District side:

Dr. Kristina Susca, Superintendent (current)
Dr. Kristina Nicosia, former Superintendent
Denise M. DeRosa, Business Administrator and Board Secretary
Megan McNally, Principal, Irving Primary School
Michele Rodrigues, Director of Curriculum & Instruction
Anna Vargas, Pre-K- PIC, Irving Primary School
Christine Gappa, Pre-K- PIRS, Irving Primary School

Senders/recipients on the NJDOE side:

Katrina T. McCombs, Assistant Commissioner, Division of Early Childhood Services (July 1, 2025 to present)
Cary Booker, former Assistant Commissioner, Division of Early Childhood Services (through June 30, 2025)
Dr. Lily Laux, Acting Commissioner of Education (February 4, 2026 to present)
Kevin Dehmer, former Commissioner of Education (through January 2026)
Any staff in the Division of Early Childhood Services assigned to monitor, review, or correspond with the Highland Park Borough School District regarding Preschool Education Aid or the Preschool Program Plan
Any NJDOE field service representative or county-level staff assigned to Middlesex County preschool programs

The date range of January 1, 2022 through the present is necessary because it spans the period immediately before, during, and after the Highland Park Borough School District's transition from ECPA/ELLI partial funding (FY22-23) to full Preschool Education Aid funding (FY23-24 onward, with PEA revenue increasing from approximately $227,000 to a proposed $1.63 million), and is necessary to capture the full implementation trajectory under N.J.A.C. 6A:13A, including any three-year program plan and corrective action plan submissions and reviews.

Yours sincerely,

Anonymous

Dear Ms. Larkins,

Thank you for your July 15 response and for making the responsive records available. You noted that I should reply if I am unable to download them for any reason, so I am writing to let you know that I cannot access the MOVEit Cloud package, and to ask for an alternative method of delivery.

The problem is on the platform side, not yours. This request was filed through OPRAmachine, a public records platform that publishes all correspondence on a request to a public webpage. To prevent spam harvesting, the platform automatically masks email addresses anywhere they appear in the text of a message. As a result, the MOVEit Cloud notification I received displays the username field as "[OPRA #92122 email]" rather than the actual address. I therefore have the temporary password but not the username and thus have no way to sign in to retrieve the records. I have attempted to reach the platform's administrators about the masking and have not received a response.

With that in mind, I would be grateful if you could provide the records by one of the following methods, in order of preference:

By email attachment. If the total volume exceeds your system's size limit, I am happy to receive the records split across as many separate emails as necessary. Please feel free to send them in batches; there is no need to keep it to a single message.

If email delivery is not workable, please send the MOVEit username to me as a file attachment rather than in the body of the message — for example, in a PDF or as a screenshot image. Text in the body of an email is masked automatically, but an attached image will come through intact, and that alone would let me log in and download the package myself. In your existing receipts, the email is partially redacted as well.

Any of these would resolve the issue. I appreciate your patience and your assistance, and I acknowledge the extension of the due date to July 23, 2026 for any additional responsive records.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely
OPRA Request C255495

Dear Ms Larkins,

Thank you for your assistance, I was able to access the site and download the records. I look forward to the results of the additional search for responsive records.

Yours sincerely,

Anonymous

Dear Ms. Larkins,

Thank you. To resolve the burden concern under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(g) while keeping
the specificity you requested, I am narrowing my June 11, 2026 clarification as
follows — (a) limiting the Highland Park side to the superintendent, the business
administrator, and the Irving Primary School principal / preschool program
administrator (including anyone serving in that role on an interim or permanent
basis), (b) limiting the NJDOE side to the Division of Early Childhood Services,
(c) adding a list of search terms, and (d) tightening the date range

• Highland Park side: Dr. Kristina Susca, Superintendent; Denise M. DeRosa,
Business Administrator / Board Secretary; Megan McNally (Principal, Irving
Primary School, during her tenure); and any individual who has served — on a
permanent, acting, or interim basis — as Principal of Irving Primary School

• NJDOE side — Division of Early Childhood Services only: Katrina T. McCombs,
Assistant Commissioner; Cary Booker, former Assistant Commissioner; Kerryn
Brown, Office of Preschool Education (Highland Park's assigned liaison); and any
other DECS / Office of Preschool Education staff assigned to monitor, review, or
correspond with Highland Park regarding Preschool Education Aid or the Preschool
Program Plan.

• Date range: January 1, 2023 to the present.

• Limited to messages containing any of the terms: "waitlist," "wait list,"
"corrective action," "universe," "90 percent," "90%," "capacity," "expansion,"
"facilities," "modular," "social worker," "contract," "contracting," "provider,"
or "Head Start".

If a keyword search still returns an unreasonable volume, I am glad to narrow
further — for example, to Megan McNally and Kerryn Brown, the two custodians most
central to the program.

Please let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Anonymous