Sherrill’s School District Consolidation Plan Draws Sharp Criticism
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — Toms River, Brick and Jackson could be forced to consolidate school districts under Governor Mikie Sherrill’s new proposal. Sunday night, Sherrill unveiled her plan to force school districts across New Jersey to consolidate, a move that would make conditions much worse for many school districts in northern Ocean County.
One such move could see Jackson, Toms River, Brick and other Ocean County municipalities involved in a countywide forced merger under Governor Mikie Sherrill.
Sherrill said her plan to drive down the costs of education means eliminating districts such as Jackson, Toms River, Brick and Lakewood, and merging them together, creating would could be called the Greater Lakewood Regional School District.
While Sherrill did not specifically mention towns by name, she repeatedly said that countywide consolidation would be mandated, meaning taxpayers in Lacey, Toms River, Jackson, Berkeley and others would be communally funding districts like Lakewood.
In other parts of the state, an Essex County consolidation would see towns like Bloomfield and Belleville merging with Newark.
For residents of those towns currently being forced to sell schools, cut programs and fire teachers under Governor Phil Murphy, that is an apocalyptic scenario.
In reality, the move is nothing more than an NJEA-sponsored power play to consolidate legislative powers and to concentrate school board powers in larger domains so the union will have an easier time controlling curriculum, policy, and worker contracts. There would be fewer bargaining units.
Mikie Sherrill, on Sunday, showed her cards, and it appears she’s holding a couple of jokers. One of those jokers is New Jersey State Senator Vin Vopal who took immediately to social media to cheer on Sherrill’s radical plan.
The other is the NJEA.
One person not buying the plan was Jack Ciattarelli.
Jack Ciattarelli said what makes New Jersey great is the idea of “home rule,” where each town will decide its own fate and operate its own school district.
Ciattarelli said while there could be some cost savings in consolidation, he was adamant that if any school districts wanted to consolidate, under home rule, it is up to those districts to chart their path, not Trenton.
He said he would not force any districts to consolidate, as Sherrill said she would.
Worse, in Ocean County, where the Democrats’ flawed funding formula has decimated schools in Toms River and Jackson, those districts could be forced to merge with a district like Lakewood, where private schools and flawed funding have driven up costs to the point where the district is in extreme dire financial straits.
It’s not just Sherrill that wants this. Vin Gopal, a prominent Murphy-aligned Democrat at the Jersey Shore, is now acting as Sherrill’s wingman in the forced consolidation.
“Jack Ciattrelli is 100% wrong on not mandating consolidation and shared services of government agencies—New Jersey has too much government. We need compulsory consolidation. Another area Mikie Sherrill is 100% right on. 565 towns and 600 school districts. We need mandatory shared services to lower costs for NJ residents,” Gopal said.
Gopal is the chairman of the powerful Senate Education Committee in New Jersey and serves as a political henchman, paid for by the NJEA.
Gopal has sat idly as districts across the Jersey Shore sell schools, cut teachers, consolidate, and downsize, while districts like Newark continue to get more funding, new schools, and hundred-thousand-dollar parties, despite being among the lowest ranked districts in New Jersey.
Gopal has ignored multiple requests from towns like Jackson and Toms River to help them through the current S2 funding crisis in the region.
The consolidation of school districts would further entrench the NJEA power base for a complete takeover of the state’s educational system. With the NJEA calling the shots, it could drop New Jersey from 12th to even lower in the national rankings.
Ciattarelli pointed out that it was a bad idea. Under decades of Democrat control, New Jersey has gone from America’s second-best education system to 12th.
He was skeptical of the plan announced at Sunday’s debate by Sherrill and immediately rejected it, saying instead he will fix the broken school funding formula and raise the educational bar to bring New Jersey back to the top of the educational stack in the U.S.
