Everything changes at the Bayonne/Jersey City border, or the North Bergen/Union City border, or even the border between Kearny and Harrison.
Students living in so-called Abbott “special needs” urban districts like Jersey City or Union City get full state aide as devised in a bipartisan agreement forged in 2008. But step over the border into Bayonne, North Bergen, or Kearny, and it is a different story.
In fact, in Bayonne, schools get $4,700 less in state aid per student than that agreement said they ought to, and of 200 school districts around the state, Bayonne is owed the most, followed by North Bergen, with Kearny fourth in that list.
In an attempt to get the state to live up to funding promises it made under that bi-partisan formula developed three years ago, more than 9,500 letters have been written by Bayonne students and more than 15,000 parents have signed a petition in a campaign called “Bayonne Kids Count, Too.”
“Sixty percent of our children get free or reduced cost lunch.” – Leo Smith
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Bayonne school officials have teamed up with certain local school districts – including North Bergen – to make their case that the state has shortchanged them by failing to live up to a bi-partisan funding formula developed under the state’s 2008 school funding law.
The law has given money to other towns in the county due to factors including the socio-economic status of all of the town’s children. But Bayonne and North Bergen, which have some of the same urban issues, did not qualify the way neighboring towns did.
What students said
Students listed in their letters what they thought the funding should be used for, and the list included new textbooks, up-to-date-technology (such as laptop computers and iPads), programs that would better prepare students for college, lab materials, field trips, microscopes, after school programs, funding for Rainbow (a bereavement program), new playgrounds, air-conditioning, new roofs for schools, and new library books.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Patricia McGeehan said the letters have been sent to four legislators – State Sen. Sandra Cunningham, Assemblyman Jason ODonnell, State Senate President Steve Sweeney, and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver – as well as to Gov. Christie and State Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. Though the schools have received some replies, the governor’s office and the education commissioner have remained silent on the issue – even though the commissioner issued a statement on the achievement gap in the state, which affects tens of thousands of children.
“We have been doing more with less,” said Bayonne Business Administrator Leo Smith. “We have reduced our achievement gap so that we are ninth lowest in the state. While we have done more with less. Eventually you do less with less.”
Dr. McGeehan said instead of rewarding the school district for its achievements, the state is holding back aid needed to maintain the school district.
“We should be getting a Best Practice award,” she said.
More kids
Assistant Superintendent Robert Craig said the number of students in the school district is increasing.
“Last year, we had 200 more students than the year before,” he said.
McGeehan said the district has seen an increase every year since 2000.
Smith said that while Jersey City and other Abbott districts, which are determined by the state to be underfunded, should get the aid they deserve, so should other cities like Bayonne, which do not have the Abbott distinction but were seen as in need of aid under the 2008 formula.
“Sixty percent of our children get free or reduced cost lunch,” he said, noting that this is the criteria the state uses for determining children in need.
Rosalie Moran, director of assessment for Title One programs in Bayonne – which deal with some of the neediest students in the district – said Hudson County has three school districts that lost the most aid, while at the same time the county has Abbott districts in place.
Smith asked how towns that are right next to each other can have such a gap in aid.
McGeehan said students from Bayonne will be going to Trenton shortly to observe a legislative session and will perhaps be able to get some response from legislators about the campaign to restore the aid.
Smith said that Sweeney had worked out an agreement prior to the passing of the state budget last June that would fully fund the 200 underfunded districts, but Christie removed the aid from the budget.
McGeehan said that the school district is currently in the middle of developing its budget for the next school year, and restoring aid owed to the district would help solve many of the district’s needs.