Choosing your own (public) school
posted by Loki on Nov.24.2009 at 4:04 pm
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The Star Ledger
When Myriam Bindas of Phillipsburg was looking for schools for her children a few years ago, she was surprised to find she had a choice of public school districts.
After many phone calls, she had stumbled onto the state’s Interdistrict Public School Choice Program, and her 8-year-old daughter has attended public school two towns away in Bloomsbury for the past two years.
“Sometimes when I tell people, they say how is that possible,” Bindas said. “Almost nobody knows about it.”
There was much talk during the recent governor’s race about giving parents options on where to send their children to school. There was little mention, however, of the program New Jersey has had for nine years that enables about 900 students each year to attend public school tuition-free in a district other than their own.
But the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program could gain popularity in coming months. Gov.-elect Chris Christie thinks the choice program should be expanded, his spokeswoman Maria Comella said in an e-mail. And there are bills pending in the Legislature to make the pilot program permanent and broaden it beyond the 15 districts now participating.
“I think it’s important in discussions of school choice to look at what’s working and what we already have,” said Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex), who co-sponsored the legislation with Assemblywoman Joan Voss (D-Bergen). State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer) sponsored the Senate version, which was approved yesterday by the state education committee.
The New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, supported the original school choice program but it now worries the new legislation would greatly increase the number of students that could participate in each district. The original program limited the number of kids who could move.
“The concern we have is … if enough kids were to move out of a district in one grade or school … it could lead to a cut in services or programs for kids left behind,” said NJEA spokesman Steven Baker. “It was never intended to harm the students who were not taking advantage of the program.”
In 2000, New Jersey became one of more than 20 states to offer a form of interdistrict school choice. The state’s program started as a five-year pilot project with 10 districts. In the first few years, the program grew to 15, with no more than one district per county. The goal had been to expand to one district in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. But the program was not reauthorized in 2005 and has quietly continued in its pilot form since then.
The participating districts have a varied number of seats available for choice students: In Bloomsbury it’s 22; Folsom in Atlantic County has about 162 while there are about 257 in a high school in Englewood, according to state figures.
Several of the state’s more-populous counties, such as Essex and Middlesex, have no districts involved.
Students must apply and can attend the choice schools tuition-free. They also receive reimbursement from the choice district for transportation, which totals about $800 per student in Bloomsbury annually.
The state spends $8.9 million on the program — primarily reallocated state aid that would have gone to the sending districts.
While most choice districts say the program has been successful — and a Rutgers study of the project three years ago agreed — one district is dropping out of the program after this year. Belvidere will graduate its last choice student in the spring and will no longer participate for financial reasons, said Superintendent Dirk Swaneveld.
“It was sold to districts as a way of bringing additional revenue into the district, and that never happened,” he said. “The kids we have gotten have been great. That hasn’t been a problem.”
But other districts, and parents, praise the program.
Mine Hill has opened its doors to out-of-district students since 2000 and has 49 choice students from nearby towns in Morris and Sussex counties.
“It helps us provide comprehensive programs,” said Interim Superintendent Ernest Palestis. “We have class sizes that are appropriate. It is a small district, and this helps round out our classes without overcrowding.”
In Bloomsbury, a pre-K- to eighth-grade district of about 150 students in Hunterdon County, most of the students come from Phillipsburg in Warren County.
“We liked the small atmosphere, the small-town feel and the small classrooms,” said Maria Halloran of Phillipsburg, whose two sons attend Bloomsbury schools.
The district accepts students on a space-available basis provided it feels it can meet the needs of the child, said Bloomsbury Chief School Administrator Michael Slattery. In some cases that has meant accepting one student but not a sibling, he said. Once students are accepted they generally stay through eighth grade.
Bloomsbury students attend Phillipsburg High School, so it is a natural fit for the two districts, Slattery said.
“We receive tremendous word of mouth from our parents,” he said.
For information on the state’s interdistrict school choice program visit: http://www.state.nj.us/education/choice/
Kristen Alloway may be reached at kalloway@starledger.com.
©2009 Star Ledger