Board
candidates line up for seats in three districts 2/18/06
There are three candidates for the Buena Regional district
re-election. All three are Buena Vista residents: Barbara Caselli, Lynda
Gazzara and Brett Aretz.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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Buena Regional still waiting for additional state funding 2/24/06
BUENA VISTA TOWNSHIP — While the Buena Regional School
District waits an extra three months for the state to develop a plan that will
eventually decide its additional funding status, school officials are lamenting
the time lost.
Buena Regional was one of several districts ruled to have special-needs status
by an administrative law judge after an eight-year legal battle. Yet Buena
Regional has yet to see any new money.
Superintendent Diane DeGiacomo said that with the funding, her district could
plan for more Advanced Placement courses, smaller classes and special education
programs, among a host of other options she said her school district needs.
Lucille Davy, the acting commissioner of education, applied for and received a
90-day extension for a special-needs assessment of the districts this month.
“I understand it's a new commissioner and she needs time,” DeGiacomo said. “But
this has been delayed for far too long.”
What makes Buena Regional unique is that the past four school budgets have been
rejected by voters, resulting in the municipality making cuts in the $500,000 to
$700,000 range from the district's budgets, DeGiacomo said.
But she said she doesn't blame the taxpayers for the school system's financial
troubles.
“A lot of it, I think, has to do with people's ability to pay for our budgets,”
she said. “But at some point the people do need to take a stand for the school
system here, especially as the state isn't coming through more and more.”
For the upcoming school budget, Buena Regional Business Administrator Tom
Kearney said the bottom line can increase by only 2.5 or 4.04 percent from last
year's. Any spending adjustments that the district will apply for will have to
be taken on by taxpayers, he said.
Taking everything into consideration, making a budget without cuts is almost
impossible, he said.
Kearney also pointed out that when some employees left their jobs, 14 positions
weren't replaced due to financial constraints.
In the meantime, DeGiacomo said that her students lack spring sports at the
middle school level, that there should be additional security guards, and that
some textbooks are becoming outdated.
“It sounds repetitive, but this is a case where the real losers here are the
students,” said school board President David Anderson.
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DOE wants more time,
information 2/21/05
The Buena Regional School District says it needs the extra
dollars to upgrade it curriculum and to relieve the mounting property tax burden
on its homeowners. The state says it needs extra time.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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State association
rewards 'shocked' Buena Regional advisor 2/20/06
The New Jersey Association of Student Council's advisor of the
year is Barbara Meyrick of Buena Regional High School. Meyrick was chosen
for the honor based on a letter of recommendation written by Lauren Blose, a
Buena Regional senior and Student Council president.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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St.
Augustine Prep raising funds to build bigger facility 2/11/06
— St. Augustine Prep is hoping to undergo its largest expansion
in the school's 47-year history.
School parents and administrators are in the middle of a capital campaign that
would help fund construction of a 100,000-square-foot educational complex that
would house five science labs, an eight-lane swimming pool and a 40-seat chapel,
among other facilities.
The estimated cost for the building is $22 million, said Paul Rodio, director of
development at the school.
President Paul Galetto said he hopes to collect $5 million from the capital
campaign, which will go public after the May groundbreaking. The rest of the
money will be from taking out a mortgage and from low-interest loans, since the
school is tax-exempt.
Galetto said one of the main reasons for the addition was to keep a standard of
education while addressing spiking enrollment in the past years. He also noted
that increasing the size of the campus and school doesn't take away from
students' and parents' feelings of being a part of a small community.
“This will help lower class sizes from 16 to 14, and will give students more of
an offering for advanced placement classes,” he said in an interview Friday.
In 1999, St. Augustine's enrollment was 235 students. Now they get at least 300
applications each year, and enrollment is at 550 students. Galetto projected
that figure to be at 635 in upcoming years.
Rodio said the building could be in use by September 2007.
The initial cost of the project was about $15 million, but it rose with
construction and inflation costs.
The facility would also include new offices for administrators, a 1,500-seat
gymnasium and a computer lab.
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State delays
poor, rural districts' needs plan 2/2/06
— Plans for a state needs-assessment for 17 poor, rural school
districts have been delayed three more months.
The state Board of Education on Wednesday agreed to give acting Education
Comm-issioner Lucille Davy 90 days to develop a plan to do needs-assessments in
the poor, rural school districts that had sued to get more state aid. The state
board last month agreed that the state school-funding law did not adequately
address their needs, and ordered the commissioner to come up with a
needs-assessment plan by Feb. 1.
Davy said they may be done before 90 days, but that the original 30 days was not
enough time.
“We will do it sooner if we can,” she said.
Frederick Jacob, the attorney for the districts, most of which are in southern
New Jersey, said he was disappointed, but not too surprised at the delay. When a
reporter called him about the ruling, the first thing he said was, “How long did
they give her?”
He said he knows the plan takes time, but that the commissioner has known of the
state board's intentions since last June and the department could have been more
ready for the decision last month.
Jacob has already filed an appeal with the Appellate Division to try to get more
immediate relief for his districts. He said he also plans to ask the state
Supreme Court to intervene, but he cannot do that until April, after all of the
briefs have been filed on the appeal.
“The Supreme Court did intervene on the Abbott case,” he said, referring to the
Abbott v. Burke lawsuit filed on behalf of urban children that has resulted in
billions of dollars in additional state aid for 31 urban school districts. “I
have high hopes they will do the same for us.”
Jacob filed suit on behalf of the 17 rural districts in 1997. After years of
court hearings, only one district, Salem, was recommended for special-needs
status similar to the urban Abbott districts.
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New school worries Buena Reg.
2/1/06
Buena Regional School District officials fear they could lose more than 100
high-schoolers and money needed to balance their budget with a new charter
school.
For complete details go to:
www.thedailyjournal.com
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