Cape May County has 16 municipal school districts, 13 of which operate one or more schools. The other three, Sea Isle City, Cape May Point and West Wildwood, are inactive and send their students to other towns. We also have two county public school districts. We have all of these school districts with various arrangements among them for shared services, sending and receiving students and school choice. In addition the county has one regional school district serving middle and high school students from Cape May City, West Cape May and Lower Township.
Taxpayers maintain this multitude of schools with school taxes that are in many municipalities the largest single component of the property tax bill. They also do so in the face of declining overall enrollments that have led, under the new state school funding mechanism, to declining state aid. Since 2018 the state policy for gradually ending adjustment aid has resulted in about $24 million less in state aid for county public schools.
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Consolidation is not a topic for school administrators alone
and the decisions are not theirs to make.
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Pandemic funds and a one-year addition to state aid have made it difficult for the average citizen to track the decline in state monies, but a decline there has been.
Loss of dollars equals cuts in staff or reductions in educational programming. It probably also equals increases in property taxes as we try to maintain the same school districts, the same school buildings and as close as possible the same staffing levels.
Isn’t it time to seriously consider consolidation?
Every once in a while some school districts in the county engage in a study of potential consolidation. One such study recently looked at the Woodbine, Dennis Township and Middle Township schools in terms of various scenarios for consolidation. The word from Middle after the study was completed was no thanks.
How many of you attended the Middle Township School District meeting called to explain the study results and gain public input? Oh, that’s right, there was no such meeting where an effort was made to draw in the public and start a dialog on this issue.
We hear that contracts would not align. Of course they wouldn’t. They were not drawn up with consolidation in mind. We hear that seniority issues would come up. Again of course they would. The issues we are given as mitigating against consolidation could have been predicted without a study, so why do one? The answer is we are checking off a box.
The state is pushing consolidation. The state made funds available for a feasibility study. So a feasibility study is done and rejected. The question is what would that study have had to show to be accepted? What are the parameters that would make different school districts favor consolidation? How likely are we to find those parameters with an absence of any downside?
Let’s get to one of the real issues in school consolidation. Who pays?
The issue that has plagued the Lower Cape May Regional School District is that the taxpayers in Cape May, with vastly higher property values, end up paying for more of the tab than they think they should. They don’t send many students and pay a high fee for the few they do send. Why should Cape May property owners have to carry that burden?
Face it. We not only pay a great deal for our schools but those schools, no matter how much we love them, continue to perform at below-average levels compared to the state as a whole.
Could we benefit educationally from consolidation – probably. Could we benefit financially from consolidation – again probably. Could these administrators we pay for, with years of experience in the management of educational organizations, figure out ways to deal with contracts and seniority issues – we should certainly hope so.
Would the towns with the highest property values have to kick in more to educate the county’s young with better opportunities and more efficient organization – undoubtedly yes.
It is time to openly discuss what reorganization of our schools might get us after a period of uncomfortable adjustment. It is time to do the analysis and present it in ways that the general public can understand. It is time to open a public dialog on consolidation with a focus on making our schools better.
Consolidation is not a topic for school administrators alone and the decisions are not theirs to make.
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From the Bible: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
