The New Jersey acting Education Commissioner is expected to issue her decision later today regarding the Lakewood School District's ability to properly meet its obligations and provide a "thorough and efficient" (T&E) education to its students.
The expected decision, with potentially enormous ramifications, is the latest step in a long and drawn-out legal battle following the 2014 lawsuit filed by Lakewood High School math teacher Arthur Lang (@lakewoodlawNJ), which claims the state funding formula is unconstitutional.
The state school aid formula determines each district’s needs based on overall public school enrollment and assessed wealth. But Lakewood gets assessed by its roughly 6,000 public school students despite the fact that there are nearly 40,000 private school students.
Because the state mandates that all children living more than 2 miles (2.5 for high school) receive busing, the Lakewood school district must provide busing to roughly 38,000 eligible children who attend private schools. That now costs the district over $24 million annually.
And there are other costs as well, including special education, raising the school district's yearly budget to nearly $204 million, forcing them to borrow $70 million just to meet expenses in the current year and bringing the total debt owed to the state to almost $200 million.
In March, state administrative law Judge Susan Scarola ruled that the district cannot fulfill its constitutional mandate to provide students a "thorough and efficient education," but did not determine that the state funding formula is unconstitutional.
However, in a non-binding decision, Scarola recommended that the state Education Commissioner conduct a needs assessment of the school district's ability to meet its obligations and make "appropriate recommendations to the district." That is the assessment expected Friday.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
