District Reconfiguration
  • Mrs. Howe’s Remarks
    October 14, 2024 BOE Meeting


    Reconfiguration Update:

    Before I provide the Board with an update on the reconfiguration plans, I would like to take a step back to remind everyone of how we got here and provide some background information for those community members who may not know of our district’s fight for fair funding. It is important to remember that funding for schools comes from state revenues such as income and sales tax that community members, like all of you, pay. It is critical that we do everything possible to ensure that Jefferson receives its fair share of funding from that pool of funding.

    Back in 2008, New Jersey developed the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA) as a result of legal battles on state funding and created a formula to more fairly distribute state aid. Governor Christie took office and froze the amount of funding districts received from state aid. Those amounts remained frozen for eight years. During that time, some districts saw increases in their enrollment and other districts saw decreases in their enrollment. The districts that had an increase in enrollment did not receive any additional state aid during that time and became what would later be called underfunded schools. The districts that had declining enrollment during that time with the same amount of state aid, like Jefferson, would later be called overfunded.

    In 2018, the Senate passed a piece of legislation called Senate Bill 2, or S-2. This legislation took money from the overfunded districts and gave it to the underfunded districts. Although that is a simplistic explanation, that is essentially what happened. Overfunded districts’ state aid was reduced by a percentage of the excess aid over a period of seven years. Through all of these state aid reductions, we have made as little impact as possible to our student programs.

    In 2019, a group of superintendents and business administrators joined together to try to bring awareness of the crisis we were about to face to the attention of legislators and Governor Murphy. Jefferson joined the group called Save Our Students (SOS). We worked together to engage our communities in letter-writing campaigns, calls to the Governor’s Office, and meetings with legislators – all to no avail. A small group of members, that included me, met with a senior cabinet member of Governor Murphy’s administration to ask for a pause in the roll-out of S-2 or at least provide districts with a longer runway for the cuts. She told us that Governor Murphy had no intention of changing S-2 in any way and we needed to find another way to fund our district schools.

    Since no one has the full picture of how our schools are funded, the district joined a group OPRA request for the funding formula. The request was denied as the NJDOE said the formula was proprietary. We then filed a lawsuit against the NJDOE, for which we prevailed, however, the NJDOE was only required to provide the data from the formula, not the formula itself. Based on the data provided by the NJDOE, an algorithm could not be determined. To this day, a key part of the formula that generates Equalization Aid, the very funds that provide our public schools with taxpayer money for our children, remains a mystery.

    Unfortunately, shortly after, everything shut down because of Covid. Our SOS group lost steam, however, I continued the fight on behalf of our schools. I have testified at the Senate and Assembly Budget and Appropriation Committee meetings more than once. Mrs. Giacchi and I have sent letters to every Senator and Member of the Assembly in the entire state. The executive administration met with Mayor Wilsusen and local legislators to bring awareness of the devastating impact of S-2 and the Highlands Act. The Highlands Act compounds the effects of S-2 with the protection of 88% of Jefferson Township land. If the Township cannot build communities and businesses, it cannot expand. The lack of expansion concentrates the tax burden on a smaller group of homeowners and businesses and this then contributes to the decrease in our enrollment which further reduces the amount of State aid. SFRA treats all school districts as equal – this is just not the case.

    I have personally written Governor Murphy on at least six occasions, not once receiving even an acknowledgment of my correspondence. The Commissioner of Education has stated that school districts similar to ours need to make cuts to our programs and offerings, reducing our budget to only items necessary to provide a thorough and efficient education. It was actually suggested that districts take away some of the very programs and activities that provide our students with an enriching school experience. We have reached out to the media to bring awareness to our concerns, and finally, after six years, we were picked up by Channel 12. That created a wave of responses with other networks, like CBS, and news sources picking up our story.

    Our budget responses throughout this time have been appropriate:

    • Reduced central office staff, administrative staff, and support staff throughout the years.
    • We have made reductions to instructional staff through retirements and reductions in force to right-size based on the declining enrollment.
    • We have already closed two school buildings, Drummond School and Milton School.
    • We apply for every grant opportunity, even though we know in advance we will not qualify – we leave no stone unturned.
    • We prepared for facility improvements with the 2018 referendum, knowing that funds to make major improvements may not be available.
    • Each year we submit our budget to the County Office of Education and the NJDOE. Neither organization has found that we can make improvements in the way we spend our money.

    Despite the above adjustments, I am proud to have been a part of the following accomplishments:

    • We fought for Preschool Expansion Aid to bring a robust and rigorous program to our 3- and 4-year-olds. For the current school year, this resulted in additional revenue of $3.9 million from the state’s central pool of funding for schools.
    • Initiated and continued to support a 1:1 laptop program for students in K-12 (fortunately, ARP funds were able to be utilized to support this effort).
    • Maintain the infrastructure needed for NJSLA testing.
    • Implemented full-day kindergarten.
    • Made significant revisions to the district curricula to align to standards and best practices including the ELA and Math Workshop Model, Next Generation Science Standards, and Wilson Fundations.
    • Increased the offering of Advanced Placement courses – we have an available AP course as our highest level for all courses we offer and we very recently added AP Seminar, AP Research, and AP Capstone.
    • Provided PSATs to sophomores and juniors at no cost.
    • Implemented a visitor management system and installed retention vestibules in buildings bolstering security in our buildings.
    • Added six armed security officers to our staff, one in each of our schools.
    • Installed additional cameras for better coverage of buildings and buses.
    • Upgraded the transportation fleet by purchasing buses as well as external stop cameras and three-point seat belts.
    • Continued shared services agreements with the Township.
    • Refurbished the HS auditorium.
    • Worked with a fund-sharing company to have a scoreboard funded for the HS athletic complex through sponsorships from local businesses and organizations.
    • Completed roofing projects.
    • Improved HVAC systems with ARP funds.
    • Passed a referendum and completed all work.

    Moving forward…I have asked, and will continue to ask, for the following:

    • Cut aid proportionally to mirror the decline in student enrollment. Jefferson’s enrollment decreased by 29%, yet our state aid has been reduced by 60%.
    • Explain proprietary geographic cost adjustments and unknown wealth and income factors that determine the local fair share. The NJDOE has said that Jefferson can pay more for education since the average salary and home value have increased. I believe that most of New Jersey taxpayers’ salaries and home values have increased over the years. Additionally, the percentage of students on free or reduced lunch in Jefferson has increased over the years.
    • Fund special education aid based on actual enrollment. The current formula assumes a district’s special education population aligns with the state average of 15.9%. Our actual special education population is closer to 20%.
    • Increase the base per-pupil cost. The figure is grossly underestimated given inflation and additional costs incurred by school districts today compared to 15 years ago when the formula was first developed. This in no way can provide for a thorough and efficient education.
    • Increase the amount provided for extraordinary aid.
    • And lastly, provide impact aid to districts affected by the Highlands and Pinelands Acts.

    To the community…I, like you, am upset that another school building in Jefferson is closing. I, like you, am angered by the lack of state aid and the necessary responses to those cuts. I understand your anger and ask for your partnership in expressing your dissatisfaction with the lack of funding to the legislators of our State. They are the ones who can take action to clean up this mess by acting on the multitude of simple recommendations that have been thoroughly spelled out by me and others.

    Now, moving along to the plans for reconfiguration. I would like to let the Board and community know that Mrs. Giacchi and I met with the Executive County Superintendent and the Executive County Business Official regarding the closing of Cozy Lake School. They had both been involved in a reconfiguration of their respective former districts and were confident that we were on the right track. Additionally, I know there has been some discussion that the district is starting all over with the move of fourth grade into the Middle School. I want to assure you that the feedback from the fifth-grade stakeholders committee will be applied to both fourth-grade and fifth-grade. We are committed to keeping age-appropriate activities and experiences for all of our students. Fourth and fifth graders will still be fourth and fifth graders.

    I caution the community who are listening to the plans being communicated tonight to realize these are the plans we have in place with the information we currently have. With the funding formula being so volatile, and not getting our state aid figures until late February/early March, plans can change.

    As of today, the reconfiguration plans include the following:

    • All self-contained special education classes will be housed in the Briggs and Stanlick Schools.
    • The Lake Hopatcong students in PreK-K will attend Briggs and the Lake Hopatcong students in grades 1-3 will attend Stanlick. Oak Ridge students in PreK-3 will attend White Rock.
    • All students in grades 4-8 will attend the Middle School. Fourth- and fifth-grade students will have an elementary experience and sixth- through eighth-grade students will have the middle school experience.
    • High School will continue to house grades 9-12.
    • Central office staff will be relocated to an open school building. The BOE requested that the Cozy Lake School be removed from the list of options for central office relocation.

    We now turn our attention to bussing for the students. The task force is investigating separating the transportation for grades 4-7 and grades 8-12. However, this is not certain at this time. With our transportation routing software, which has the ability to assign students to buses at an address level, we will continue to do our best to ensure bus routes are as efficient as possible, all the while ensuring our students do not ride on a bus for excessive lengths of time.

    The Reconfiguration Committee has developed an extensive task list and has worked to align that task list with the existing BOE committee structure. The committee chairs will provide monthly updates during BOE meetings, starting this evening.

    Lastly, it is important that the community receives accurate information on reconfiguration directly from me, the Board of Education, or the district’s website. These are your trusted sources of information and updates. Please refrain from taking to social media to address concerns. Reaching out directly to me, to administration, or to the board is the best way to receive correct, up-to-date information.

    Thank you.