As a parent of two school-age children – my older son is in second grade and my younger one starts kindergarten this September – I have reached my limit with all that is going on with our school budget (or lack thereof) and would like to have my say. I was among the parents and students who marched in Trenton to voice our discontent with the new state funding. I have circulated and signed countless petitions for a change to the funding formula. None of it seems to have made a difference- at least not yet. I am trying to remain hopeful.
That’s part of the reason I voted against the budget and voted for the three new board members – to send a message. Our school board needs to be proactive not reactive, and I hope the fresh faces and ideas will bring around the changes we so desperately need in Brick.
I’m not an economics major, but somehow closing the Laurelton School and counting on the funds from its proposed sale is not such a smart financial step. Since when was it fiscally responsible to count on money that you don’t have and have no guarantee of getting? If the Laurelton School doesn’t sell, what then? Where are we to get the funds to make up yet another shortfall in the budget?And if the so-far unsuccessful sales of the Civic Center and old Foodtown sites are any indication, commercial real estate in Brick is not quite the hot ticket item it was thought to be.
Another thing I keep hearing about is the study that was done showing Brick’s enrollment has been declining, and will continue to do so because the township is fully developed; therefore, it makes sense to consolidate our elementary and kindergarten students.
I don’t know when this study was conducted, but most of my friends have children who are not even of school age, many of whom were born in the last year, so they wouldn’t be accounted for in the study. In my own neighborhood, I have seen a dramatic change to its dynamic in the last five years.
Many of the older residents have moved out- either to one of the local senior communities or have moved to Florida or other points south. The people buying their houses? Young families. We don’t need to build more homes in Brick to keep our enrollment up.Attrition will take care of that, and the newly married couples and young families moving to Brick for all of its wonderful qualities will maintain our schools’ enrollment levels. Of course enrollment will ebb and flow, but we can’t close our schools, overcrowd the ones we keep open and hope that the numbers don’t increase to the point that our classrooms are so packed that our children don’t get a quality education.
It goes without saying that the Primary Learning Center is a model school of a solid foundation for our children’s education, and it breaks my heart that this truly innovative program will go to the wayside. Our kindergartners will have a shortened school day, very few specials if any, and the other students in the elementary schools will have less available to them as well since some teachers will become “traveling teachers” because they had to give up their rooms to make space for the incoming kindergarten classes.
There has to be a better way, and many of the parents I know feel the same way.We spent money to have a study done about the enrollment. How about having a study done to find a way to keep all of our schools open? There has to be an expert out there that can help us find a solution. Or, maybe we can take a cue from the township administration and start from zero with the budget and justify every single item, every single penny, every single salary. Cut the dead wood – now there’s a novel idea!
Susan Scheideler
Brick