If you’re a full-time resident of the state of New Jersey, your local school district likely needs your help.
Over spring break, I paid a visit to Mainland Regional, my old high school, which is regarded as one of the better public schools in Atlantic County. It’s not uncommon to hear of parents who move to the Mainland community just for the school system. An outside observer might assume that now is a great time to be a student at Mainland. Administrators are proposing a new rotating schedule that will allow for longer classes and enable extracurricular meetings during lunch. Contracts have just been awarded for a major renovation of the school’s decrepit facilities, and the construction should begin soon. Teachers and students all ought to be excited given these circumstances. But the changes sweeping Mainland belie the harsh reality that administrators are facing their worst budgetary challenges ever this year.
The school budget has always been an issue at Mainland. In New Jersey, school boards send their budgets to voters to approve every April. Taxpayers in the Mainland community, particularly those who don’t have children but still benefit from the quality of the schools with high property values, see the budget as the only tax they can vote down without considering its importance. Despite major efforts by concerned parents and students — myself included — to promote the Mainland budget, it didn’t pass once while I went to school there. As a result, the school board was forced to defer needed improvements and increase class sizes beyond ideal capacity. Aside from the referendum that paid for the renovation project, the community has never given Mainland a penny voluntarily.
This was an unfortunate but relatively acceptable state of affairs for years. Though the school fell behind technologically and was unable to hire all the teachers it wanted, those losses were hardly catastrophic — the blow of the failed budgets was blunted in years past by state aid. Now, Governor Chris Christie’s 2011 state aid cuts and budget surplus freezes have changed everything. In the wake of $2.2 million in lost surplus and state aid, Mainland administrators have taken voluntary pay freezes. The teachers’ union, long the bane of skeptical taxpayers, is considering concessions on compensation it would never have accepted in the past. But even so, benefit cuts and salary freezes will not close the budget gap the school faces. About 20 teachers and staff members have already been laid off, resulting in massive increases in class sizes for next year. If the budget fails, more will likely lose their jobs in a school that is already appreciably understaffed.
I am not writing this column to criticize Christie’s decision to cut the state aid. There are clear benefits to the cuts: The state budget needs to be trimmed, and it’s probably a good thing that schools are taking a hard look at excesses that have long been accepted because such self-examination was not necessary. But it is essential that Princetonians from New Jersey are aware of the dire straits the state’s schools are in, because we are in a position to make a difference to our communities.
For many students, it makes a lot of sense to register to vote in Princeton as opposed to back home. We are here for most of the year, and some of us live too far away to go home to vote. In New Jersey this year, though, local school budget votes are more important than ever. If you live in this state, you owe it to your school district to be informed about the situation back home. How is your school going to handle the cuts in state aid? Does your district need every penny of the property tax increase it might be proposing? If not, that’s fantastic. Don’t bother with the budget election if your school isn’t doing its part to trim all the fat. But if your school district is anything like mine, this is a crisis. Register to vote in your district rather than in Princeton by March 30 if you haven’t already. Mail in your absentee ballot application before the April 13 deadline so that you can receive your ballot before the budget elections. And, of course, make sure to mail your ballot in by Election Day on April 20.
Princetonians who hail from New Jersey have an important opportunity next month. We would be wise to make use of it.
Jacob Reses is a freshman from Linwood, N.J. He can be reached at jreses@princeton.edu.
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