16 Districts Refile Suit For Funding

Last week, the state Department of Education announced that it would apply for a share of $250 million in preschool development grants from the U.S. Department of Education that can be used to expand preschool and full-day kindergarten. Applications are due Oct. 14.

Hammonton and 15 other rural school districts, most in South Jersey, are also going back to court to see if they can get additional funding promised under the new school funding law passed in 2008. The 16 so-called Bacon districts are named after Rosalie Bacon, one of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit and the first listed in the suit.

A favorable ruling on the case could affect more than just the rural districts.

Susan Cauldwell, executive director of Save Our Schools NJ Community Organizing, said in a statement that everyone is watching the Bacon litigation.

“There are hundreds of other districts across the state that are waiting for the funding due them under the school funding formula, and that are entitled to high-quality preschool under the formula,” she said in a statement on the lawsuit. “The Bacon districts deserve the resources they have been promised, and so do the rest of the districts operating without the funding and preschool they are entitled to by law.”

The districts had originally filed suit claiming they were just as needy as the urban districts in the Abbott vs. Burke lawsuit and should be given the same funding considerations. Only Salem City was awarded that special needs status, but the Department of Education claimed the new 2008 funding formula would meet the other districts’ needs.

The 16 districts in the lawsuit also include Egg Harbor City and Hammonton in Atlantic County; Woodbine in Cape May County; Commercial, Fairfield, Lawrence, Maurice River and Upper Deerfield townships in Cumberland County; Little Egg Harbor Township, Ocean Township, Lakewood and Lakehurst in Ocean County; Clayton in Gloucester County; Quinton in Salem County; and Wallington in Bergen County.

Entire article at
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/education/rural-school-districts-sue-for-funding/article_081254be-46b5-11e4-bd10-17a5ad3428c6.html