Shifting students will keep
district at peak efficiency
John C. Jennings
Shifting students will keep
district at peak efficiency
As a regional high school district, we are more diversified and offer many unique programs that a single-town district with a fraction of our student population would not be able to offer. As a district educating almost 10,000 students, we also have experienced significant population growth because of the attractiveness and relative affordability of our area.
We live in a world that relies on global communication and international cooperation that are touchstones to progress. We need to bear in mind that public education and pitting one town against another doesn’t serve the democratic principles or the best interests of our young adults to acquire the highest quality public education possible.
In certain cases, the Freehold Regional High School District has to make tough (but fair) decisions, and modifying student attendance areas is one of those cases. The Board of Education and administration have spent well over a year compiling and discussing means to allocate students to all the district’s high schools to avoid overcrowding at Manalapan, Marlboro and Howell high schools.
The time has come to recognize that our regional strength, and flexibility to compromise after extensive public dialogues is essential to maintain and improve our public regional education system. Expanded learning centers, academies and tolerance for change are not always easy to accomplish successfully. Compared to most 9-12 grade school districts in New Jersey, our regional district on a per-student basis sees terrific value that many taxpayers, including those who don’t bother to vote or vote against a budget, would say is downright silly to give up.
We have many well-intentioned individuals, parents and officials who do not hesitate to make issues over the subtle distinctions between high school test scores, over the potential psychological trouble of being sent out of town to a "different" high school within the regional district, and even in inequities of funding schools. We claim to have moved beyond the "racial overtones" of the redistricting fiasco from 1998, but still we see plenty of people who just don’t get the regional concept.
A regional district does not guarantee that a child goes to his or her hometown school. In fact, Englishtown and Farming-dale do not have a high school within their municipal borders. The district provides significant expansive programs at a much lower cost than if each town were to go it alone. Instead of tearing the district apart, there needs to be a proactive campaign to highlight the advantages of the district.
Are some towns asking us to lose millions of dollars of state aid? The state and courts have consistently upheld the need for funding "thorough and efficient" public education.
Freehold Borough, as the county seat, has more developed public properties than the other district towns that reduce the borough’s property tax base. Monmouth County government serves the entire district and 45 other municipalities. Howell has county and state parks as well as the Manasquan Reservoir that serves a much larger region than just Howell residents that reduces the potential tax base.
Should wealthier towns complain and agree that taxes are unfairly assessed?
If taxes were based on present-day property value and net worth of households rather than assessed valuations, and comparisons were made to personal in-come and wealth, many people may be shocked as to who is paying the most toward our students’ education.
Superintendent of Schools James Wasser’s timeline allowed ample input and the board granted an extension to fully consider what has been presented to them by board-appointed committees, ad hoc municipal committees, public dialogues, the public and professionals. The administration’s plan presented in May can be easily refined to address future student growth rather than just rely on aging "actual existing student enrollments."
The board is expected to make a decision not to overcrowd any facility, to make the best use of all our high schools and ensure the best quality of education for all students regardless of the town they live in. Most, if not all students in our area have friends in multiple towns.
They go to regional shopping centers, movie theaters in more than one town and participate in sports at fields or ice rinks in other towns than just their hometown. They participate in gymnastics, karate, music programs, Scouting or religious activities, dance studios, etc., in many cases outside their "hometown."
Therefore, it is in the best interests of all students not to imperil the quality of education and safety of our schools by modifying attendance areas to prevent overcrowding.
We can do this by recognizing that an occasional class may have more than 30 students due to the logistics, number of classes, number of students requiring the class, and class periods during the day. However, accepting an exception does not become a "cause celebre" to say that we want to tolerate this on a regular basis.
The district can make stronger efforts to improve distance-learning classes to allow more students exposure to more courses without having to transport students between schools.
Only by diligently working together can we continue to improve the overall excellence of the regional district and maintain a thorough-and-efficient educational system. The board needs to support a plan to reallocate approximately 700 future students to less-crowded schools for the class of 2007.
Besides the parents watching and staying involved, the silent majority of those taxpayers without a direct connection to the school system will be watching to see that a truly regional district acts responsibly.
John C. Jennings is a resident of Freehold Township. Students from Howell attend the six schools in the Freehold Regional High School District.