Save Our Schools "Legislative Day"

Good Afternoon,

An organization called Save Our Schools is a group dedicated to bringing legislative attention to the 193 districts that are faced with ongoing state aid cuts as a result of S2. As you are aware, the impact of state aid cuts on New Egypt has been substantive and over the next three years it is anticipated to get progressively deeper. This week SOS has organized what they are calling "Legislative Day" on 3/24. If you would like your voice heard, please use the link below. After clicking on the link, you will simply need to complete the fields to the right of the screen: name, address, zip code and email. Then you will click on the “start writing” icon which will automatically populate a letter that you can send to all designated elected officials. The volume of phone calls and electronic messages is critical and what is needed to make an impression.

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/our-children-need-your-help?source=direct_link&   

The letter that will populate is below for your review as well the phone numbers of elected officials, if you opt to make calls as well. Please let our elected officials know that you support our community and our public schools and expect the same support from them.  

Thank you,
Michelle Halperin-Krain
Acting Superintendent


Governor’s Office: 1-609-292-6000
Senate President Sweeny:  (856) 251-9801 (West Deptford), (856) 339-0808 (Salem)
Assembly Speaker Coughlin's: (732) 855-7441

    As a result of S2/A2 legislation signed into law in June 2018, school districts that educate approximately half a million children are facing devastating state aid cuts. Some districts are being forced to absorb multi-million dollar cuts in successive years. This includes public school districts of every size and socioeconomic makeup, in rural, urban, and suburban communities.
    S2/A2 was enacted to assist a group of public school districts that had been underfunded for years. Those districts should be fully funded but not at the expense of hundreds of thousands of other children – especially during a pandemic.
    Every school district in the state has been forced to take on new and unexpected costs for PPE, air filtration, closing the digital divide, and many other needs. The hundreds of districts negatively impacted by S2/A2 do not have enough funding to cover those expenses while maintaining needed programs. They will have to dismantle academic and extra-curricular offerings for hundreds of thousands of children, which is not fair or right!  
Therefore, I am requesting that you:
• Pause funding cuts to S2 districts during the pandemic and make sure federal relief funds supplement rather than supplant state aid
• Review and update the 13-year-old School Funding Reform Act (SFRA). The commissioner’s constitutionally required periodic review of the funding formula has not occurred; this is necessary to ensure the formula can keep pace with changing needs. And, we have asked for a pause to study the impacts. However, as we enter year four of this seven-year law, we do not need a study to know this is harming students.
• Extend the S2 timeline from the current 7 years to 15 years – if the proposed school district consolidation plan allows S2 districts to extend the cuts 8 more years, surely New Jersey can afford the extension for all S2 districts  
• Enact legislation to enable districts that are negatively impacted by S2, and are under adequacy and below their fair share, to exceed the 2% tax levy
• Continue to increase funding to the previously underfunded districts that S2/A2 was intended to aid, but do so with new funding allocations.
   New Jersey's Constitution requires the Legislature to "provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years." (N.J. Const., art. 8, § IV, ¶ 1). Therefore, you have a responsibility to ensure that districts are not crippled by insufficient state aid.    
   Our state’s exceptional public schools, literally first in the nation, are a point of pride and build strong communities.  As a state, we have made the choice to invest in our children, in our future and theirs. I support my community and our public schools and expect – demand - the same support from our elected officials.  
   The future of every New Jersey child cannot and should not wait. I look forward to your immediate action.

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