WEST MILFORD — West Milford Superintendent of Schools Dr. James McLaughlin has recommended that the board of education reject the New Jersey Department of Education's proposed changes on how the state determines funding for public schools.
McLaughlin wants the board to approve a resolution requesting that state legislators reject the Department of Education's proposed changes, which would determine the amount of aid to public schools based on the average daily attendance of children.
McLaughlin made the recommendation at the May 14 workshop meeting.
The state Department of Education recommendations came from findings in the Education Funding Report (www.nj.gov/education/stateaid/1213/report.pdf), prepared by Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. The current school funding law, the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, determines state funding based on the number of students enrolled.
According to a press release by the office of Governor Chris Christie in February of 2012, only 10 states in the nation- Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, South Dakota, and West Virginia - use a single-day count to measure student enrollment. The other 40 states use other measures of student enrollment, including average daily attendance measures or multiple days over the course of the school year.
The New Jersey Department of Education has set an average daily attendance rate of 96 percent as a minimum for school districts to avoid the loss of school aid for the 2013-2014 school year. That amounts to a child being absent from school no more than seven days in one school year. The West Milford resolution refers to the 96 percent attendance level as “an arbitrary standard” to apply to all New Jersey schools, and states that it is contrary to the history of funding and the School Funding Reform Act of 2008. The resolution states, … “New Jersey school districts must staff, equip, feed, and transport our children based upon the enrollment of students, and we do not send teachers home, or stop the buses, or turn off the lights, or sell their textbooks when a child is absent for health or other family reasons…” and “…the recommendation of the Department of Education to penalize districts by reducing school aid when a district cannot demonstrate an average daily attendance in excess of 96 percent simply shifts the burden to support a thorough and efficient education to the local taxpayer…”.
The resolution continues, saying that the DOE recommendation to provide school funding based upon the attendance of children is contrary to current law and “fails to recognize that districts provide staff and resources for an adequate public education for all ‘enrolled’ resident children in their school district…”
The resolution concludes with a request to legislators to reject the recommendation of the Department of Education to fund the public schools of the state based upon attendance and “to comply with our current school funding law which provides state support based upon the enrollment of resident school children.”
The Board of Education will vote on the resolution at its May 21 meeting.
What do you think of the Department of Education's recommendation? Go to westmilfordmessenger.com and tell us.