The following letter from the South Orange Maplewood Presidents Council—an organization composed of all PTA, PTO and HSA presidents in the school district, led by an executive board of past presidents—was submitted to officials including Gov. Chris Christie, NJ Education Commissioner Bret Schunder and State Senate President Stephen Sweeney:
May 10, 2010
On behalf of PTAs and HSAs representing the 6,400 families whose children attend the South Orange/Maplewood Public Schools, we urge the Governor and the New Jersey State Legislature to take immediate steps to mitigate the devastating cuts in State aid to our District.
As you may know, our school district is a bit of a conundrum. We are in the DFG I, yet we have five Title 1 schools, and nearly 20% of our enrollment is made up of economically disadvantaged students who have high educational needs and qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. We have comparatively few ratables, and a large portion of the land in our two towns is under the control of tax-exempt entities, including Seton Hall University in South Orange and the South Mountain Reservation in Maplewood. Thus, almost all of the cost of our public schools falls squarely on the shoulders of homeowners.
The 80.9% reduction in our State aid for next year is a heavy blow to our entire school system. The tools the Governor has proposed to offset the cuts are inadequate. Even budgeting for an across-the-board salary freeze and a contribution of 1.5% of employee salary towards health insurance coverage, we have had to eliminate 99 staff positions, almost all of which directly impact classrooms.
The already significant financial burden on our taxpayers has become even heavier. We already pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, and we have seen our property taxes increase even more than anticipated as a direct result of the cuts. Our district schools are turning to their PTAs for a level and type of support never before requested. This in turn means that our families are being asked to pull out their checkbooks for ever larger contributions at the same time that their property taxes have increased and their income tax payments to the State have remained the same. And yet we see even fewer of the dollars we send to Trenton returning to our own community to support our most fundamental obligation – to provide all our children with a thorough and efficient education.
We understand the dire financial straits of our State and the real decisions that need to be made to balance the budget and overcome the accumulated deficit. We also realize that the current structure of school funding and functioning in New Jersey needs to be improved, and that this will necessitate change, sacrifice and creative thinking.
At the same time, we know that cutting State aid by up to 5% of each school district's budget in one year – at a time when health insurance costs have increased by 26% and other cost drivers have also increased – is doing tremendous harm to our schools and to schools across the State. The timing of these cuts meant that painful decisions had to be made about what to cut in a mere matter of days, with no real time allowed for negotiating with the unions or collaborating with neighboring school districts to consolidate costs. The cuts are too deep, and too quick, for school districts to absorb without harming our students' education.
In addition, the Governor's proposed cuts in State aid are disproportionately at the expense of legally mandated services to students with disabilities. As you know, special education has been a chronically underfunded mandate from the federal and State governments. Further reducing the proportion of these services funded by the State puts school districts in an untenable position. We must choose to maintain special education programs at the expense of programs for the student population as a whole, or cut special education services to maintain general programs. Either route puts students across the State at a real risk of harm and sets school districts up with a tremendous potential for legal liability.
In our district, these cuts are having an especially severe impact on our most vulnerable students – those with disabilities and special needs. Our program for disabled preschool students will be scaled back 70% from a full day to the state's minimum legally allowable 2 hours per day. Our inclusion model in the elementary grades will be scaled back significantly, with the elimination of 8 special education teachers. Our paraprofessionals are being outsourced from their current salaried positions with benefits to become low hourly-wage positions with no benefits. The loss of the paraprofessional staff is particularly devastating. Without appropriate paraprofessionals, we may see many more of our students going to expensive out-of-district placements because we are unable to adequately serve them in district. This will in turn increase the financial pressure on our district.
We urge the State Legislature to work with the Governor to find solutions to the State's budget woes that do not affect our children so dramatically. In particular, we urge you to fully fund all our schools at the levels required by the School Funding Reform Act of 2008. If the Governor's proposed level of cuts is deemed necessary and legally defensible, we ask that you phase them in over two years rather than having them all become effective next year. This will provide school districts with adequate time to negotiate with teachers' unions on concessions and restructuring and to consult with neighboring school districts on further ways to share services. It will also provide adequate time for changes to be made on a State-wide level, which is the only way to sustainably effect changes to the way schools operate in New Jersey.
In addition, we urge you to implement some or all of the recommendations our superintendent, Brian Osborne, made in testimony to the State Senate on March 23, 2010, including:
- Eliminate the unfunded mandate on districts to provide aid-in-lieu of transportation;
- Standardize salary guides and pay rates on a regional basis across the State;
- Provide a New Jersey Virtual High School;
- Monitor and control the costs of private bus contractors, eliminating the current monopoly pricing;
- Extend the range of special education services provided by regional educational services commissions.
Most of these changes would not cost the State anything, but would provide much-needed relief to school districts struggling with cost drivers not under their control, strained tax payers who cannot bear ever increasing property taxes, and disappearing State aid.
Exceptional schools, and the quality education they provide to all of our children (including those living under severe economic constraints and those with special needs), have long been a justifiable source of pride for New Jersey and its citizens. They are a resource too valuable to sacrifice to the interests of expediency. Extraordinary challenges such as these call for extraordinary leadership, and we call on our representatives in Trenton to find creative and effective solutions to the current budget crisis – solutions that will not fall onto the backs of our children.
Sincerely,
The South Orange Maplewood Presidents Council
Zaida Pacheco and Jeaniene Brownlee, Presidents of the South Orange Maplewood Presidents Council
Karen Betheil and Jung Lee Masters, Presidents of the Clinton Elementary School PTA
Adrianna Donat and Christina Waldon, Presidents of the Jefferson Elementary School PTA
Karen Kingsley and Suzanne Turner, Presidents of the Marshall Elementary School PTA
Rhonda Wilson-Duncan and Fazeela Gafoor, Presidents of the Seth Boyden Elementary School PTA
Sylvia Cutler and Laura Reichgut, Presidents of the South Mountain Elementary School PTA
Dede Lackey and Jim Lo Stuto, Presidents of the Tuscan Elementary School PTA
Janet Crane and Ann Burke, Presidents of the Maplewood Middle School HSA
Lisa Nolet and Peggy Ledesma, Presidents of the South Orange Middle School HSA
Mary Washington-Nieves and Shelley Weinstock, Presidents of the Columbia High School HSA
Maria Ricardo and Ursula Boehmer, Special Ed PTO Executive Committee Members
