A proposal to create a pilot county school district, which would result in turning local school boards into advisory panels, passed in the Assembly on Monday by a vote of 46-33.

The bill, A-8, would organize a 5-year pilot county administrative school district, with the goal to evaluate the administrative and educational effectiveness of the county school district model.

The state Senate is scheduled to vote on A-8 and its Senate counterpart, S-49, on Dec. 14.

Governance at Issue Appearing before the Joint Legislative Committee on Consolidation and Shared Services last week, Mike Vrancik, NJSBA director of governmental relations, expressed concern about the impact of the pilot program on educational services, as well as the inability of school districts in the affected county to return to local governance if the experiment failed.

Selection Within 180 days of enactment of the bill, the state commissioner of education would approach a county board of freeholders with recommendations to create a pilot district.

County freeholder boards could also apply for the pilot.

Under the bill, 11 of New Jersey’s 21 counties would be eligible to participate: Atlantic, Cape May, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Morris, Ocean, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren. The bill excludes counties of the first class – a designation determined by overall population and density – and those counties with two or more Abbott districts.

Dissolving Districts Under A-8/S-49, local districts under the jurisdiction of the new county pilot school district could vote to dissolve. Their superintendents, district-level administrators or supervisory personnel positions also would be eliminated.

Appointed Board At the beginning of the pilot project, the freeholder director, or county executive, would appoint a four-member county school board. No more than two members of the board could be from the same political party, and each of the four would be initially appointed either to a 1-year, 2-year, 3-year or 4-year term.

The governor also would appoint a chief school administrator for the selected county school district for a contract of three to five years duration.