‘Super’ Superintendent, County Pilot Stalled

Bills that would create 21 “super” executive county superintendents and require the commissioner of education to develop a plan to pilot a single county administrative school district for five years stalled in the state Senate.

The super county superintendent bill (A-4/S-10) – or CORE package – may come up for a Senate vote on Thursday, Jan. 25. The proposal would affect every school district.

Call to Action Both the county pilot plan and the CORE bill were initially placed on the Senate’s agenda for Monday, Jan. 22. Last Thursday, NJSBA issued an advisory to all school board members urging them to contact their senators and express opposition to the proposals.

The county pilot district bill was pulled from the Senate agenda; the Senate took no action on the "super" county superintendent measure, due to lack of support.

Consolidation In addition to creating 21 executive county superintendents with sweeping powers over local school district budgets and staffing, the CORE bill would result in the elimination of send-all (non-operating) school districts and require ballot questions on consolidating all school systems into K-12 units. While the Assembly version would change the date of school board member elections to November, the Senate version does not reflect that change.