‘We need to step on the accelerator now,” said Atlantic Highlands resident Ellen O’Dwyer, “with that nuisance and expensive complaint filed against Sea Bright gone, now it is just the funding formula that must be settled. Then finally, it is the people in the three towns who will make the final decision on school regionalization.”
O’Dwyer, a Republican candidate for borough council in her hometown, has a reputation for research, study, and action, in that order. As early as last January, she had addressed the tri-district Boards of Education when there was some discussion of withdrawing the resolution supporting a three-town educational idea.
O’Dwyer believes that the K-12 regionalization with Sea Bright has been delayed too long, and action and compromise are now essential in order to let the people vote in November. The candidate also believes the questions should be on the general election day rather than a separate, more costly special election day a few weeks before.
“With the ‘encumbrance’ lifted, she said, “the funding formula question to finance education should be much easier to finalize with the inclusion of Sea Bright.” Otherwise, without adding Sea Bright, the borough that will bring millions of dollars to the educational system in all three boroughs over the years, “we are all only talking pennies.”
Mediation on the cost sharing portion of the impact on the three towns regionalizing K-12 among attorneys, borough council members and borough administrators is set for later this month, to determine how the funds that including Sea Bright will bring to the other two towns will be split is the only question that needs to be resolved. The boroughs had reached a partial agreement before Oceanport and Shore Regional school districts filed a complaint with the state Commissioner of Education against Sea Bright for leaving their two school districts. Now that that complaint has been dismissed by the state Commissioner, the two boroughs in the current tri-district can get back to deciding cost sharing. Highlands had objected to the cost sharing agreement being “in perpetuity” rather than reviewed at specific times throughout the future.
“Nobody should be signing an agreement in perpetuity,” O’Dwyer said. “Rather, the towns should agree to build in a periodic review and refresh to keep the formula fair and equitable for all parties.” She pointed out that “inputs to the formula change or evolve,” citing the differences that enrolment and equalized valuation allocations make over the years in determining what percentage each municipality should include. She suggested a review every five years at the minimum, with updates and adjustments made to continue the cost sharing on a fair basis for all involved.
With the mediation set for April 20, O’Dwyer said there is still plenty of time for the towns to “come to the table so pre-discussions. “That way they will all be better prepared to sit down with the mediator, with their statistics in hand and their understanding of everything that is involved clearer.”
“The municipalities each must do its part to wrap up this final piece to the proposal to the Commissioner of Education so that we can move to a referendum in November,” O’Dwyer, a research analysist by profession continued, “It is important that the voters give their blessing to proceed on a long-awaited regionalization that will benefit our students with a better education and community-based school experience.”
On the question of school regionalization, O’Dwyer also speaks from personal experience. “I grew up in, and raised my family in a community where we created a regionalized high school and can empathize with the “process” she said, referring to Colts Neck. “But I cannot understand why we keep stalling and, in some cases, moving backwards. Colts Neck is one of the six schools in the Freehold Township secondary school regional district serving students in grades 9 through 12.
