By Chris Rotolo
HIGHLANDS – A unanimous decision by the governing boards of the Henry Hudson Tri-District has set a course toward regionalization, but for now, the plan will not include students from the nearby borough of Sea Bright.
During a special Jan. 31 Tri-District voting meeting, members of the Atlantic Highlands, Highlands and Henry Hudson Regional School boards of education unanimously adopted a resolution to file a petition with the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, Angelica Allen-McMillan, for the formation of a new, comprehensive school district that would serve students in pre-K through grade 12. The resolution established a two-step process that would initially allow for limited regionalization for Highlands and Atlantic Highlands.
Step two would come at a later date, when other interested sending areas, including Sea Bright, would potentially have access to the new regional district.
Tri-District attorney Jonathan Busch was adamant that pending litigation against the borough of Sea Bright filed by the Shore Regional High School District and Oceanport School District in June 2022 had significantly delayed the progress of a regionalization plan that incorporated Sea Bright students. Sea Bright currently sends approximately 50 students to Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, and Maple Place Middle School and Wolf Hill Elementary School in Oceanport.
“We’re hoping that an application with the (three Tri-District schools) will be seen more favorably by the commissioner than one that includes the rigmarole of Sea Bright,” Busch said. “The question is, How do we move forward? Because these boards want regionalization, and not just amongst themselves, but a future that includes Sea Bright.”
The results of a feasibility study commissioned by the Tri-District stated that the inclusion of Sea Bright students in a new regionalized district “would indeed provide immediate benefit to taxpayers in Atlantic Highlands and Highlands.”
During the public comment session, former Sea Bright council member Charlie Rooney wondered what had changed since the summer, when the Tri-District appeared poised to move forward with the Sea Bright community, a partnership he said would yield the two Bayshore communities about $15 million in tax levy relief over a 10-year period, according to the feasibility study.
Busch clarified that those monies would not be a revenue to the district, but rather a redistribution of tax dollars. Busch added that, if the petition for this limited regionalized district was approved by the commissioner’s office, Atlantic Highlands and Highlands would realize a combined total of $404,000 in annual tax savings as a result of efficiency measures that would reduce the triplication of operational efforts among the three schools.
Rooney said the three communities seemed to reach a consensus in July about a 50/50 tax levy allocation based upon equalized property value (50 percent) and pupil enrollment (50 percent), but the formula was open to further negotiation.
“We were at the finish line. All we needed was for Highlands and Atlantic Highlands to get together and tweak the formula, if necessary,” Rooney said. “The reason the process has been slowed down isn’t because of litigation. There isn’t much of a case. The process has slowed because our original petition (for regionalization) hasn’t been perfected. They’re waiting for you to negotiate the (tax levy allocation) formula.”
Busch disputed Rooney’s claim regarding the pending litigation, stating that any litigation involving multiple school districts could take a number of years to be resolved, a notion that prompted the boards to move forward with the regionalization process in hopes of creating a regionalized landing place for Sea Bright when the time comes.
“Our boards are doing their best to regionalize,” Busch said, “but regionalizing with Sea Bright is impossible right now. Regionalizing amongst the three Tri-District schools is a step we can take immediately, until the Sea Bright situation is resolved.”
Atlantic Highlands resident Mark Fisher asked if excluding Sea Bright from the regionalization plan would leave the Tri-District with an application worthy of a blessing from the commissioner’s office.
“What are the advantages without Sea Bright that would cause the commissioner to take notice of our (application)?” Fisher said. “Just five months ago we were 95% of the way there, and all of a sudden these three boards seem hellbent on keeping other districts’ students and tax dollars out of our schools. It’s mind-boggling to me.”
According to Henry Hudson Tri-District Superintendent Tara Beam, if the commissioner’s office approves the application for a limited regionalization district, the boards of education hope to put a referendum for regionalization before Atlantic Highlands and Highlands voters in September.
“If that referendum is successful, we would then have a limited amount of time to implement the regionalization of our three schools, and would immediately move forward with the condensing of our boards,” said Beam, explaining that three separate boards of education with 25 total members would be reduced to a single body of nine members. “We would start 2024 as a regional district.”
Beam said that, ultimately, what the Tri-District is permitted to do in regard to regionalization is the decision of the commissioner’s office.
“What we can do depends on what the commissioner allows us to do. Our hope is that the commissioner will hear this part of our plan, and allow us to proceed with the regionalization of our three schools, while the Sea Bright piece is worked out,” Beam said. “We want to put this on the ballot in September.”
The article originally appeared in the February 2 – 8, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
