Superintendent Addresses School-aid Cuts

BURLEIGH – Kenyon Kummings, superintendent, Wildwood School District, told the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce at The Shore Club March 21 that there’s a lot of advocacy happening in regards to the state’s reduction in school funding.
Kummings, who is also president of the Cape May County Association of School Administrators, said the association has been working with local legislators, freeholders, etc., on that issue for about three years. “We’ve tried to give everybody a heads up that this was coming down the road for schools, which is going to directly impact students, which directly impacts everything throughout the county,” said Kummings.
Kummings noted that another group called SOS (Save Our Students), of which he is associate chair, has also been active in its attempts to pause the state-aid cuts. The group occupied Trenton during Gov. Murphy’s budget address. They had over 2,000 members there, including parents, teachers, administrators, etc., said Kummings.
“We got a call from the governor’s office while we were outside demonstrating, which I think was important for our students to see an actual impact from collectively advocating, and the governor wanted us to know he knew we were out there and he was looking forward to working with us that day,” he continued.
SOS has 75 school districts involved in it, which is “still not representative of the entire 30 percent of the school districts involved” which would lose state aid, Kummings said.
Kummings, along with Superintendent Christopher Kobik, of Lower Cape May Regional School District, also met with Sen. Robert Andrzejczak (D-1st). “The outcome of that meeting, plus the meetings prior, was a bill that’s going to be posted soon that’s going to ask for a freeze on these aid cuts until we find out really a sense of all these negative outcomes from the cuts in the funding formula, and some of the questionable outcomes of some of the gainers in where some schools that claim to not have the resources to educate their students which are concentrated in central and North Jersey… some of those districts are returning it as tax relief…
“That argument to us is questionable, so we continue to push forward,” continued Kummings.
Vicki Clark, president, Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, expressed concern for the impacts that the cuts could have on the county.
“The schools will have to cut programs, cut teachers, reduce the quality of education for our students,” she said. “We have declining school enrollment, loss of student population, so there will be a loss of jobs. That will have its own impact on our community. We are very concerned about this.”  
Clark urged chamber members to “pay attention to this” and “do whatever we can as a chamber and as citizens of our communities to work on this.”
For those interested in getting involved, Kummings pointed to a letter he wrote (https://bit.ly/2CNhjPh) that includes contact information for legislators, and encouraged chamber members to reach out to those legislators, as well as follow SOS on Twitter @nj_sos.