to involuntary movement
of high school students
Residents remain opposed
to involuntary movement
of high school students
By karl vilacoba
Staff Writer
Although the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education cast a final vote on the redistricting of students beginning in September 2003, the hisses and comments of upset members of the public sounded more like the bell after the first round of a prize fight. Round two, an uncertain future, awaits.
Voting on Sept. 9 during a meeting held at Freehold Township High School, the board made its decision to reassign several hundred students who will be freshmen a year from now. Students who live in certain areas of Marlboro, Manalapan, Howell and Farmingdale will be affected by the decision.
"Now we go to court," one member of the public shouted after the board’s vote.
"You can kiss your budget next year goodbye," another member of the public said.
Several Marlboro residents who are opposed to the involuntary redistricting of students at a time when they do not believe it is necessary, said before and after the board’s vote that they viewed its result as a foregone conclusion. Still, many came out with last-ditch hopes of persuading the board members to oppose the redistricting plan.
In a nine-point voting system, board members voted 6.7 points in favor to 2.3 points opposed on a student attendance area plan that had been proposed by Superintendent of Schools James Wasser. Seven members of the board voted for the plan; two board members voted against it.
"The outcome was nothing unexpected," Marlboro Councilman Barry Denkensohn said afterward. "They didn’t listen to us before and they didn’t listen to us tonight."
That feeling was echoed by former FRHSD board member Howard Tilis, who told the board he felt public calls for alternative plans to alleviate school overcrowding were ignored. Tilis said discrepant demographic numbers used to formulate the plan and the small number of Marlboro students who would actually be moved to Colts Neck High School were reasons to vote against the plan.
Public comment during the meeting ranged from upset parents to grammar school students distressed about a scholastic future without the children they grew up with. Others told the board they understood the difficulty of the decision and thanked them for their careful consideration.
Among the plan’s objectors, a few key words were common to the speakers. Several called the redistricting plan a "Band-Aid" over a long-term wound. Also popular was "parity," a word many objectors said was being used by the board but not applied across the district towns in concept.
During the meeting, each board member was presented with a stack of petitions that included 2,413 signatures from registered Marlboro voters. The three issues presented on the petition are a re-examination of the board’s vote apportionment, a change in the FRHSD taxation formula, and opposition to involuntary redistricting.
The signature drive was organized by Marlboro’s Advisory Committee on Education (ACE), a group of concerned residents and public officials co-chaired by Denkensohn and Mayor Matthew Scannapieco. That body has retained the legal services of Riker, Danzig, Scherer and Perretti to represent the community on any FRHSD-related issues.
During the wee hours of Friday morning, the council emerged from closed session to pass a resolution by a 4-0 vote authorizing the firm "to commence any and all legal actions necessary to reapportion the FRHSD and to invalidate the Sept. 9, 2002, vote by the FRHSD to redistrict."
Marlboro was successful with a similar lawsuit in 1998, when U.S. District Court Judge Alfred M. Wolin changed the FRHSD voting apportionment to the system that is used today.
A cameraman videotaped the Sept. 9 FRHSD proceedings for the township’s use in any possible future litigation.
Manalapan Mayor Rebecca Aaronson and Deputy Mayor William Scherer also proclaimed their opposition to involuntary redistricting, citing overwhelming popular opinion in the township. Scherer at one point suggested Manalapan might align with Marlboro in any future litigation.
"The issue now goes to another level," Scannapieco said after the FRHSD meeting. "We believe the board acted arbitrarily and capriciously."
Scannapieco said he was displeased with the board’s "bait-and-switch tactics" of encouraging district voters to back a recent referendum on expanding district school buildings, including Marlboro High School, but not using the space to solve overcrowding.
In late July, Scannapieco sent a letter to the board calling for a district-wide referendum on whether to change the FRHSD tax apportionment method. Also signed by Kovalski, the letter argued it is unfair for Marlboro residents to pay almost 25 percent of the total tax revenues while sending approximately 22 percent of the students to district schools.
Attorney Lance Kalik, representing the ACE committee, followed a month later with a letter to Monmouth County Superintendent of Schools Michael Maddaluna calling for reapportionment of the board’s voting system to account for 2000 census figures.
"According to our calculations, the fluctuations in population have caused the current apportionment of votes on the FRHSD to be disproportionate to the relative populations of the representative districts. Indeed, the maximum population deviation of the current vote distribution exceeds what is permitted by the constitutional principle of ‘one person, one vote,’ " Kalik wrote.
Denkensohn said neither letter from Marlboro has received any response.