Council and district to meet with Garden State Coalition of Schools
By: Al Wicklund
JAMESBURG The Borough Council has canceled its Feb. 12 meeting and will join members of the Board of Education at a meeting aimed at getting more money for New Jersey school districts.
Mayor Tony LaMantia said Thursday that he hoped other Jamesburg residents would join the council and board at an "education summit" meeting being held by the Garden State Coalition of Schools at 7:30 p.m. at East Brunswick High School.
The mayor said something has to be done to find a solution to the state’s school-funding problems.
Don Peterson, president of the Jamesburg Board of Education, said the Garden State Coalition will have a number of state legislators at the meeting and will be trying to lay the groundwork for better communication between legislators and people involved in education in New Jersey.
The Jamesburg Board of Education, hit by unpredictable increases in the cost of its special-education program, suffered a budgetary shortfall this school year and was forced to use emergency layoffs of staff members to balance its 2002-2003 budget.
Mr. Peterson said that when the coalition held a summit for New Jersey citizens a couple of years ago it attracted a crowd of 1,200.
"The coalition is hoping to get a much larger crowd on Feb. 12," Mr. Peterson said.
Mayor LaMantia said the showing of Jamesburg parents who went to Trenton in November to picket and bring attention to the shortage of state aid for small school districts was a help.
State Assembywoman Linda Greenstein, who was at Wednesday’s council meeting, got some $30,000 in state funds to save a staff position, and state Sen. Peter Inverso has introduced two bills that, if passed, could bring $160,000 in extra state aid to Jamesburg’s schools and $100,000 to the municipality.
Steve Cook, Sen. Inverso’s chief of staff, who also attended the Borough Council meeting, commended the showing of Jamesburg’s residents in Trenton and said the petitions they brought were sent by the senator to Gov. James McGreevey, who promised his special education counsel would review Jamesburg’s situation.

