NJ Education Report

Allamuchy Township Public Schools filed a complaint with the state Council on Local Mandates regarding the new Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying legislation, arguing that it’s an unfunded mandate. (Duh.) The Council just ruled that Allamuchy is right, and that the State Legislature blew it when it approved the law and provided no funds to meet the necessary professional development and increased staffing. (Star-Ledger; press release from Assembly Democrats here.)

Either the legislation will need to be recrafted to streamline the plethora of paperwork and manpower necessary for compliance or the State will need to fund it. Stay tuned.

From the Wall Street Journal: unlike more affluent districts, “New Jersey’s poorest school districts were hit hard by the recession and changes in state funding, a one-two punch that led to steep cuts that reached into the classroom, according to a study by Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists.”

Check our NJ Future for a discussion of a proposal in Hunterdon County to regionalize its 30 school districts. More here from Star-Ledger.

Some highly-paid NJ school superintendents, now faced with State-issued salary caps, are moving to greener pastures in New York. (NJ Spotlight)

The Courier-Post examines NJ’s recent grade on the way we train, evaluate, and award tenure public school teachers (a D-) from the National Center on Teacher Quality.

There’s a new advocacy group, Lakewood Unite, with a mission to “monitor inequities and irregularities in the Lakewood School District’s budgeting and procurement process” and “to address the inequities in the Lakewood School District Special Education Program.” (Some back story here.)

The deadline for NJ school boards to move elections to November (and bypass the budget vote on budgets below the 2% cap) is Feb. 17th.