Regionalization Under Scrutiny
Not only local residents but residents all over New Jersey are watching the results of the court decision on the school regionalization issue for Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Henry Hudson Regional schools. Eyes
The following is an article written by award winning journalist Rob Jennings for the NJ Advance Media for NJ.com.
Jennings, who holds degrees in political science and communications and has appeared on both NJ. Com and Star Ledger pages, concentrates a large part of his reportorial excellence on education in New Jersey as well as politics and government. He has received first place awards from the NJ Press Association, the NJ Society of Professional Journalists and contributed to a series on the state’s pension crisis which was a finalist for the Investigative Reporters & Editors Medal
NJ Advance NJ.com is a digital news content provider and website in New Jersey owned by Advance Publications. In 2012, it was recognized as the largest provider of digital news in the state at the time. Six years later, it was reported to have an average of 12.1 million unique monthly visitors consuming a total of 70 million page views per month.
Highlands Council President Joann Olszewski’s suit she filed earlier this month as both a member of the governing body and a private citizen is being held Monday, June 23, in Freehold before Superior Court Judge Gregory L. Aquaviva.
Jersey Shore town is being blocked from joining newly-merged school district, lawsuit says
By Rob Jennings | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
An impending merger of three school districts in Monmouth County has led to a dispute involving students in a nearby town not included in the realignment.
Voters in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands, which both have K-6 schools, approved a referendum in September to disband and join the Henry Hudson Regional School District next month. Both Highlands and Atlantic Highlands were already sending their students in grades 7 to 12 to Henry Hudson Regional High School.ng riots sent to mainland France for detention
However, the initial merger plan also included sending students from nearby Sea Bright into the newly-merged Henry Hudson Regional School District. Sea Bright disbanded its school district years ago and currently sends its students to Oceanport and Shore Regional school districts.
The plan to include Sea Bright students in the newly-merged school district didn’t happen because Oceanport and Shore Regional challenged the plan, according to the lawsuit filed by a Highlands official June 10 in Monmouth County Superior Court.
Though the 2023 referendum did not include Sea Bright, the borough could have voted in the future to join Henry Hudson Regional, the lawsuit states.
However, the Henry Hudson Regional school board held a joint special meeting May 28 with the school boards for Highlands and Atlantic Highlands in May to adopt a legal settlement that created multiple hurdles for Sea Bright to join their newly-merged district.
Sea Bright, among other conditions, would first need to reactivate its dormant school district, though there is no process for doing so under state law.
“It is clear that the conditions of the purported settlement agreement are designed to exclude Sea Bright from the new all-purpose Henry Hudson Regional School District and to prevent the voters in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands from ever considering adding Sea Bright as a constituent of Henry Hudson Regional,” wrote Vito A. Gagliardi, attorney for the plaintiff, Highlands Borough Council President Jo-Anne Olszewski.
Olszewski alleges the settlement agreement violated the Open Public Meetings Act because it was not specified in the meeting agenda and the terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Sea Bright is not a plaintiff in Olszewski’s lawsuit. The lawsuit names the school boards for the Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Henry Hudson Regional as defendants.
Officials at the three school boards did not respond to requests to comment. Sea Bright’s business administrator also did not respond to a request to comment.
A Superior Court hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Monday in Freehold.
In the summer of 2022, several local boards — including the borough councils in Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Sea Bright and the school boards involved in the proposed merger — adopted resolutions in support of expanding Henry Hudson Regional and including Sea Bright.
In response, the school boards for Oceanport and Shore Regional asked the state education commissioner to block Sea Bright’s bid to withdraw. Plans for the referendum proceeded in the three school districts, but without Sea Bright.
On Sept. 22, 2023, four days before voters approved the referendum, Angelica Allen-McMillan — then the state’s acting education commissioner — ruled Sea Bright was entitled under state law to withdraw from Oceanport and Shore Regional and seek to join Henry Hudson Regional.
Weeks later, Oceanport and Shore Regional filed an appeal with the state appellate court that named the school boards in Atlantic Highlands, Highlands and Henry Hudson Regional as defendants, in addition to the Borough of Sea Bright, Borough of Highlands and Borough of Atlantic Highlands. The appeal is still pending.
“It has become known that Oceanport and Shore Regional would agree to dismiss Defendants from the appeal in exchange for a series of conditions which would make it nearly impossible for Sea Bright ever to join the new Henry Hudson Regional School District, or, perhaps more importantly, for the voters in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands to vote on a referendum to consider this important issue,” Olszewski’s lawsuit says.
New Jersey, which is home to about 600 school districts, has few regionalized districts compared to many other states. Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that gave districts financial incentives to study consolidation, including combining into county-wide or regional school districts.
In April, voters in Seaside Heights rejected a ballot question that would have dissolved the town’s small K-6 grade district by authorizing a merger with the much larger Toms River Regional School District.
Lawsuits are last ditch attempts to accomplish the righting of wrong. When filed prematurely they are divisive and expensive. When the expense is not borne by the litigant but the taxpayers, the taxpayers are robbed.