Deborah Jacobs of ACLU-NJ
The headline “ACLU off target on Rocky Hill regarding immigration tactic,” in your Sept. 12 edition, misleads readers. If Rocky Hill parents called the number listed by the Department of Education to register their children for school, they would have received the same misinformation that the ACLU received: that a driver’s license was required to enroll.
So while it may seem like a “gotcha” for the ACLU, there is nothing to be “gotten.” If a parent from Rocky Hill tried to enroll her children, that parent would have been asked for information that could deter children who are legally allowed to enroll. The Department of Education incorrectly listed Rocky Hill’s information, but that doesn’t change the effect on Rocky Hill’s families.
What actually happened – that the ACLU-NJ went by incorrect Department of Education information and identified Rocky Hill as an offending district – is not actually news.
The real news is this: One in four school districts, including another district in Somerset County, asks for information they are not allowed to ask for. If the Princeton Packet is looking to get to the bottom of the school district switch-up, it should investigate why the Department of Education directed calls for two Somerset school districts to a school district in Bergen County – the school district that requested driver’s licenses.
There is much more at stake for students in New Jersey than trying to catch the ACLU-NJ in a mistake it did not make.
Deborah Jacobs,
Executive Director
ACLU-NJ

