By Janet Bamford

New Jersey's Constitution famously directs the state to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to its children. While the “thorough” part of the equation has been the focus of much attention in the courts and the Legislature, school districts around the state have quietly worked tirelessly to fulfill the “efficient” section of the constitutional mandate.

One way they have done this is through the sharing of necessary services. These shared service programs can take the form of joint purchasing agreements, sharing transportation, insurance coverage, special education classes or even personnel between districts. These practices not only save money, they also help districts by improving service, reducing staff workload, eliminating redundancy, or making available an otherwise unavailable service or product. Shared services is not a new concept; some 97 percent of New Jersey school district report engaging in some type of shared services. But in the current difficult budget environment, such arrangements deserve additional attention.

To advance the awareness and usage of shared services, the New Jersey School Boards Association funded a major study, Shared Services in School Districts, which was released on November 27. The study, which was done by the Institute on Education Law and Policy of Rutgers (IELP)–Newark, identified the extent of shared services in the state and the savings to taxpayers and recommended changes in laws and regulations that could further promote shared services among school districts and local governments. Researchers, led by Brenda Liss, former IELP executive director, also identified 20 successful programs in districts around the state that constitute “best practices” in shared services. The result was an appendix to the main report, entitled Catalogue of Best Practices. Successful out-of-state programs were also identified, as well as technical resources within the state.

“Our intention is for the Catalogue of Best Practices in Shared Services to become a major resource for local school districts in New Jersey,” said Marie S. Bilik, executive director of NJSBA.

These practices are noteworthy for their ingenuity and the cooperative spirit it takes to make such arrangement work. For example, the Verona school district (with 2047 students) and the Caldwell-West Caldwell district (with 2638 students) have shared a single food services director for the past ten years. Several smaller districts share superintendents, including Laurel Springs and Stratford, Avalon and Stone Harbor, Wharton and Mine Hill, Bay Head and Point Pleasant Beach, Toms River Regional and Seaside Heights, Upper Pittsgrove and Alloway and Haledon and Passaic County Manchester Regional High School. Other districts share child study teams.

Below we are highlighting five of those smart, innovative programs from the best practices catalogue. But we’ve only scratched the surface here. For more details on these and descriptions of the other noteworthy shared services programs, go to www.njsba.org/sharedservices/catalogue.

Sharing Banking Services: Bergen County School District Banking Consortium What if your district could—overnight—increase the interest rate it receives on its banking deposits? That was roughly the idea that Dr. Philip H. Nisonoff, assistant superintendent and school business administrator for the Emerson district had. If several districts joined forces to solicit banking services, together several smaller accounts would make up a large account that would qualify for higher interest rates.

In the summer of 2006, a loosely affiliated group of 23 Bergen County boards of education issued a request for proposals for commercial banking services. Five banks submitted bids and a committee of school administrators reviewed the proposals, evaluated them based on a rubric emphasizing financial benefit and customer service, and decided unanimously to award the contract to Commerce Bank. The 23 participating districts suddenly went from being a small fry to being a very big, influential customer. By one estimate, the increase has resulted in combined additional revenues of about $1 million in one year for the 23 districts. The Emerson district, for example, went from receiving an interest rate that equaled 85% of the prevailing Treasury bill rate, to receiving a rate that was .25 above the T-bill rate—and that higher rate is paid on a larger percentage of the district’s account balance.

By December, 2007, the Bergen County School District Banking Consortium had grown to 43 member districts. It’s important to note that the consortium is not a pooled investment, and district funds are not commingled. Each member board of education adopts a resolution authorizing its membership in the consortium and the establishment of the several required school district accounts with Commerce Bank, and each board maintains its own separate accounts and banking agreements. Each member may withdraw at any time, with no liability or penalty assessed by the consortium.

The consortium’s goals are two fold—to maximize interest earnings, and to increase the district’s business office efficiency. The negotiated interest rate on all accounts is based on the collective balances of all the member districts, even though accounts are maintained separately. And because the rate is consistently high, business administrators need not spend time monitoring rates and transferring funds among accounts in order to achieve the highest available rate. Districts have also seen the improved customer service that comes with being a large investor. Even for districts with no local Commerce Bank branch, banking has been made easy; the consortium’s RFP required the bank to agree to provide courier services every two days to any member district where there was no branch within three miles.

Dr. Nisonoff projects a significant further increase in membership in coming months, and reports that he’s had inquiries on the program from universities and municipalities, too. But ironically, the Bergen County consortium has already had a beneficial effect on other, non-member school districts in the state. “One of the neat things about this is that we drove the competitive forces of the government banking industry and shook things up,” he said, “Banks know that all a school district needs to do is pass a resolution and make a few phone calls and it can get higher interest rates, so the banks have been going crazy trying to keep them as customers. Many districts around the state are now getting similar rates to ours.”

Sharing School Business Administrators: Pittsgrove Township School District Sharing a school business administrator, particularly for smaller districts, is not a new concept. Several New Jersey districts currently do this. But Henry Bermann, who has spent 41 years in the Pittsgrove Township School District (25 as board secretary/school business administrator), has taken that concept to a new level. Bermann is also board secretary/ school business administrator for the Salem County Special Services Schools District, and provides business services for nine other districts in six counties. Over the years, he’s served up to 14 districts at a time, and for nine years Bermann also acted as business administrator for two Camden charter schools, for which he still consults.

Here’s how the arrangement works. Each of the districts that Bermann serves has an interlocal agreement with his employer, the Pittsgrove Township Board of Education. Each agreement provides for services to be performed by the school business administrator or “his or her designee.” In most cases, the contracted services include all those required of a school business administrator under Title 18A, and sometimes also include services as a board secretary. Bermann and his staff have provided more limited “clerk of the works” services for specific projects. Each agreement also stipulates that the county superintendent will resolve any disputes between the parties.

Under Henry Bermann’s direction, the staff (which is actually considered part of the Salem County Special Services district) currently includes an assistant who is a CPA and former business administrator in another district, as well as four clerks (3 full time and 1 part time), and three “business officials” who are working toward their certification.

The shared services arrangement produces several types of efficiencies. Only one business staff needs training in any new procedures or regulations. Bermann’s office has standardized procedures for participating districts, so districts need not purchase their own accounting and financial software (or hardware). With one office managing the affairs of several districts, they can also take advantage of bulk purchasing efficiencies. For example, Bermann estimates when he contracts for services to comply with school asbestos regulations, the fact that he is “purchasing” services for several schools at one time drops the per-school price from about $400 per school to approximately $250 per school. Recently, Bermann analyzed the cost savings of the arrangement for one district, Magnolia Borough (K-8), and estimated that if the district were to hire its own business administrator, it would spend an additional $50,000 to $60,000 per year. “In a small district the impact on taxes of saving money is dramatic,” said Bermann, “for Magnolia, that’s 2 or 3 cents on their tax rate.”

Sharing Purchases of School Supplies: 214 New Jersey School Districts The Glen Rock Board of Education is the lead education agency, and Educational Data Services Inc. (EDS) is the administrative agent for a purchasing cooperative consisting of some 214 New Jersey boards.

For a fee, EDS handles compliance with public contracting requirements for the purchase of school supplies and other materials. The fee charged to each member district varies, based on the size of the district and how much it is purchasing.

EDS purchases supplies in nearly every conceivable category, including classroom supplies, office supplies, technology supplies, supplies for art, health, physical education, science, custodial, and library usage. It also can supply maintenance contracts, and used textbooks. (It does not purchase new textbooks because publishers are generally unwilling to engage in competitive bidding for new textbooks.) EDS also negotiates leases and lease-back arrangements for a variety of materials and equipment.

The EDS cooperative offers members significant financial and other benefits associated with bulk purchasing. Prices generally run 20% lower than those in the state contract and 50% lower than retail. Prices generally remain in effect for 12 months at a time, allowing districts to buy small quantities throughout the school year at the initial bulk purchase price. EDS also uses an interactive web-based order system that allows authorized district staff to place orders directly.

The EDS cooperative operates under an interlocal services agreement that includes every member school district as a party. Each participating board adopts a resolution authorizing its district’s membership and agreeing to the terms of the cooperative agreement. Most boards authorize participation for periods of five years.

For information on EDS (www.ed-data.com), contact Alan Wohl, president of Educational Data Services., Inc. at alanw@ed-data.com, or 973-340-8800 ext.18.

Sharing Technology, Custodial and Business Services: Sterling Regional High School District The South Jersey Technology Partnership is an informal arrangement established in 2005, an outgrowth of Sterling Regional High School’s technology center. It is staffed by about 12 full-time and 14 part-time district employees , and provides a variety of computer technology services to 60-70 smaller districts and charter schools, as well as seven municipalities, a housing authority and several non-profit organizations. It actively seeks new clients.

The partnership provides technology expertise, support, services, training, hardware and connectivity to its client districts. The partnership charges 20 percent to 50 percent less than the market rate for labor and 20 percent to 60 percent less than the market rate for materials. All costs for the department are paid from program fees rather than from district funds. Joseph Giambri, the partnership’s administrator, estimates that it has saved its clients approximately $800,000 on billings totaling $6 million since its inception.

Sterling Regional High School also provides a variety of auxiliary custodial and maintenance services for other districts on an as-needed basis. It has an ongoing relationship to provide electrical and HVAC services for Salem County Vocational School; it has provided electricians for Somerdale, Magnolia Borough and Laurel Spring districts and has provided roofing services for North Plainfield in Union County.

The district also partners with Hi-Nella Board of Education to provide business services, shares natural gas purchasing with the Stratford Board of Education, and motor vehicle fuel purchasing with two local police departments. Sterling also shares other personnel services; its substance abuse coordinator provides services to five elementary districts, and the district shares child study team services with other districts.

Sharing Transportation: Sussex County Regional Cooperative
For 12 years, the Sussex County Regional Cooperative has provided transportation services for students who attend school outside their home districts. It was established by 14 Sussex County districts at a time when the county educational services commission was having difficulty providing coordinated transportation for students with disabilities. The cooperative now serves more than 70 districts in Sussex, Morris, Essex, Hunterdon and Warren counties, and provides transportation for students attending vocational schools, nonpublic schools and other programs as well as those with disabilities. Its billings have increased from $300,000 to $400,000 in its first year of operation to $15 million in 2007.

Member boards decrease their transportation costs by at least 50 percent by sharing cooperative routes with other districts. They pay the actual cost of transportation plus a 4% administrative fee, which covers the costs of office staff, supplies, insurance and legal fees. The cooperative has its own board of directors, and employs three office staff members, five drivers and a mechanic. It leases eight handicapped-accessible vans.

Although it was designed to be self-sufficient and nonprofit, for the last two years, the cooperative has generated a small surplus. It is considering using it to purchase a 24-passenger bus that could be reconfigured to accommodate up to seven wheelchairs.

Boards that wish to use a route provided by the cooperative must adopt a resolution to participate in the cooperative’s joint transportation agreement. The resolution serves as an agreement between the board and the cooperative for the provision and coordination of transportation. For more information on the cooperative, go to the organization’s Web site, www.sussexcoop.org.

Janet Bamford is an editor for the New Jersey School Boards Association. She can be reached at jbamford@njsba.org.

In this excerpt, how the court mandated additional programs for children in the Abbott districts

By Deborah Yaffe

In 1990, nine years after the filing of the Abbott v. Burke lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s school funding system, the state Supreme Court issued a two-pronged directive: the state had to equalize per-pupil spending between rich and poor school districts, and it had to determine which additional programs disadvantaged children needed to succeed. This mandated extra help for the disadvantaged, on top of parity spending for regular education, soon earned its own shorthand name: parity plus.

But Democratic and Republican administrations failed to comply, and in its May 1997 Abbott IV decision, the court finally clamped down. The remaining spending gap, something over $200 million, had to be closed within four months. The commissioner of education, then Leo Klagholz, not only had to study the needs of the poor but also had to present his findings to a lower court by year’s end. And he had to devise a plan for solving the glaring facilities problems of poor districts.

The Supreme Court assigned the lower-court hearing—the “remand hearing,” everyone was soon calling it—to a respected appeals court judge, Michael Patrick King. To help sort through the technical education issues at the heart of the proceedings, King hired a consultant—in legal parlance, a “special master”—named Allan Odden, a Wisconsin university professor known both as a researcher and as a policy analyst. Odden is also the author of the state Department of Education’s 2007 Report on the Cost of Education, which the Corzine administration used as a basis for constructing its proposed school funding formula, which was unveiled in December.

In this excerpt from Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools, her new book about the state’s school funding battles, Deborah Yaffe describes the remand hearing and its aftermath.

The remand hearing opened the week before Thanksgiving 1997. Judge Michael Patrick King had divided the proceedings into two parts: first, both sides would present testimony on the supplemental programs Abbott children needed, and then the hearing would move on to urban districts’ facilities needs. The remand hearing was short on dramatics: day after day, state education officials, academic researchers and local school administrators took the stand to explain the latest thinking on, say, preschool education, class size or school-based clinics.

To the Education Law Center (ELC), the Newark-based non-profit that had brought the Abbott suit, the weaknesses in the state’s case were obvious. Although the New Jersey Supreme Court had ordered the state to study what Abbott children needed and which programs would meet those needs, state officials conceded under cross-examination that they had done no detailed needs assessment before recommending programs; they had not even examined whether test scores had risen at the handful of New Jersey schools already using Success for All, the comprehensive school-reform plan the state hoped to introduce in every Abbott district. Instead, the officials said, they had relied on national research and their own professional expertise in deciding which programs would help. To ELC, it seemed clear that the state was once again trying to sidestep the court order in an effort to fit programs into a pre-determined fiscal box.

ELC’s case had problematic aspects, too. A Columbia University sociologist described the virtues of an array of supplemental programs ELC was recommending—preschool, summer school, reduced class size, school-based clinics—but refused to say which would most improve the achievement of low-income kids. “I cannot choose one over the other, because my reading of the research suggests that you need to do each of those things if you want to achieve success,” he insisted under cross-examination. The state’s litigator thought his side had scored a point. Liberal idealism was all very well, but the state had to make hard choices about how best to deploy limited resources, and one of the plaintiffs’ chief witnesses had just refused to choose. That all-or-nothing stubbornness encapsulated the differences between the two sides, he thought.

Special master Allan Odden inadvertently provided the hearing’s most dramatic sideshow. ELC leader David Sciarra had spent the third day of testimony hammering education commissioner Leo Klagholz over the missing needs assessment, but chatting with reporters in the hallway during a break, Odden suggested that omission was insignificant. “We don’t need to catalog the needs of these kids,” Odden said. “It has been done a zillion times.” The reporters seemed to know little about Success for All’s research base, so Odden described the “spectacular” track record of the state’s preferred reform. For good measure, he praised New Jersey’s efforts to link curriculum standards to school funding—efforts embodied in the very law the Supreme Court had partially invalidated in Abbott IV. Odden had said all these things before, in published articles and conference presentations, but when Sciarra saw the next day’s newspapers, he demanded that the judge fire his consultant. “The very integrity of this process has now been tainted by Dr. Odden,” Sciarra said. “He is, in effect, an advocate for the state now.” Judge King was unsympathetic. “Shall we muzzle him, is that your proposal?” he asked sarcastically. Odden stayed on the case, and the issue faded. Behind the scenes, however, Odden apologized to the judge. In retrospect, he realized he should have kept his mouth shut.

Three days before Christmas 1997, the 18-day hearing ended, after testimony by 24 witnesses that filled nearly 3,500 transcript pages. Judge King retired to spend the holidays hashing out alternatives, and soon, he had the help of Odden’s report, which, despite ELC’s fears, steered a middle course between the two proposals. Like the state, Odden recommended that schools adopt a whole-school reform model, preferably Success for All; like ELC, Odden called for two years of full-day preschool, rather than just half a day for 4-year-olds. ELC wanted smaller classes, but Odden doubted they were worth the cost; the state wanted schools out of the health and social services business, but Odden recommended school-based clinics in middle and high schools. The state’s proposal preserved the traditional structure of the school year; Odden, like ELC, recommended summer school. Three weeks into the new year, Judge King issued his report, which largely adopted Odden’s programmatic recommendations and put their cost at $312 million. The state would have to spend another $2.8 billion on facilities, King estimated.

King’s recommendations carried no legal weight until the state Supreme Court ratified them, but Republican legislators nonetheless protested loudly at the price tag. The legislature’s top Republicans wrote directly to the Supreme Court, arguing that King’s expensive recommendations lay beyond the scope of the constitution’s “thorough and efficient” educational guarantee. Preschool, health clinics and all the rest might be good policy, but the courts could not turn policy choices into constitutional mandates. Spending so much on urban districts would inevitably mean short-changing middle-class ones, the legislators warned, not to mention a host of other state priorities, from mass transit to prescription drugs for the elderly.

As he had done for the Abbott IV oral argument, state Attorney General Peter Verniero pored over boxes of documents, mastering the record of the remand hearing. This time, though, he felt more confident about the strength of his case. A nationally known education expert and a respected state appellate judge had accepted the central elements of the state’s proposal: preschool, Success for All and a construction program. Now the state would urge the Supreme Court to respect the power of the executive branch by deferring to the commissioner of education’s proposals. The justices should steer clear of specific mandates, Verniero would argue, to avoid setting in court-ordered concrete programs that might later need to be scrapped. And certainly, the court should not mandate the extras King had called for–summer school, school-based clinics and full-day preschool–since it was unclear whether those programs improved student achievement.

ELC attacked each element of the state’s case, arguing for its expansive vision of full-service “community schools” and against deference to an executive branch with a long history of non-compliance with Abbott. Most crucially, ELC rejected the state’s insistence that only supplemental programs that improved students’ academic achievement were required for T&E. In the 1990 Abbott ruling, describing the deprivation poor children faced, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz had written, “The goal is…to wipe out their disadvantages as much as a school district can, and to give them an educational opportunity that will enable them to use their innate ability.” The court’s marching orders were clear, ELC insisted: schools could not limit their mission to instruction alone. They had to do what they could to improve students’ lives.

Now the justices retired to deliberate, and contentious negotiations over the Abbott V ruling began. As usual, Justice Gary Stein pressed for a more ambitious and prescriptive decision; after decades of state neglect and judicial patience, now was no time for timidity, he thought. Other justices were more cautious. They were not sure the remand hearing record showed that every urban school needed such programs as school-based clinics, and they did not want to put New Jersey’s Supreme Court in the business of running schools. Justice Alan Handler was writing the opinion, and Stein peppered him with suggestions. The two men spent hours in telephone conferences, as Stein pressed his case for a more comprehensive reform package. His colleagues teased Stein about his passion, suggesting that after he retired from the court, he should become education commissioner.

The unanimous Abbott V decision, released on May 21, 1998, did not go as far as Stein had hoped, but it still issued an extraordinarily detailed and prescriptive set of mandates. The court ordered New Jersey to put full-day kindergarten and half-day preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds in place in the Abbott districts by the fall of 1999. It endorsed the state’s plan to institute whole-school reform models, presumptively Success for All, in 300 elementary schools within three years. It ordered the state to pay the full cost of repairing or replacing aging inner-city school buildings, with construction to begin by the spring of 2000. The court did not endorse Judge King’s call to mandate summer school and school-based clinics; instead, it ordered the state to fund those programs and an array of others­—everything from security guards to extra computers—if districts could show they needed them.

The recommendations were sweeping—the preschool mandate alone was the nation’s firs—but the press was most intrigued by two sentences in the opinion. “We anticipate that these reforms will be undertaken and pursued vigorously and in good faith,” Handler had written. “Given those commitments, this decision should be the last major judicial involvement in the long and tortuous history of the State’s extraordinary effort to bring a thorough and efficient education to the children in its poorest school districts.” The New Jersey Supreme Court was surrendering its jurisdiction over the Abbott case, relinquishing to the administrative law courts the job of adjudicating the state’s compliance with the Abbott V orders. The justices wanted, some of them said years later, to make clear that they did not run the schools, and that the commissioner of education was responsible for implementing the programs they had called for. But the press heard a rather different message: the Abbott case was over.

Stein was dismayed. Inside the court, he had argued against surrendering jurisdiction, fearing the move would be interpreted in just this way, as an end to court involvement. Still, he thought such an interpretation misread Abbott V: nothing in the decision precluded the Supreme Court from returning to the Abbott fray if it chose. On his way to Martha’s Vineyard the morning after the decision’s release, Stein dialed the New York Times reporter who had authored that day’s piece–“The court said it was giving up its oversight,” she had written–and asked her, off the record, where she got that from. “That’s not what we meant,” he told her. A few days later, Handler sounded a similar note: during a panel at his 45th Princeton reunion, the author of Abbott V pointed out that the court’s ruling made the commissioner’s proposals into court-ordered remedies, not just executive-branch policy choices. “The courts will always be available if there is an impasse,” Handler added.

Whatever the liberal justices’ gloss, however, Abbott V was widely viewed as a victory for Republican Governor Christie Whitman. The administration had proposed half-day preschool, whole-school reform and a facilities program, and the court had essentially endorsed that proposal. The administration had urged restraint in expanding the schools’ mission to include health and social services, and the court had left decisions about funding those services up to the commissioner. The administration had asked the court to let the executive branch implement the new reforms, and the court had announced it was giving up its jurisdiction. By making most supplemental programs optional, the ruling had taken the pressure off the current budget. The preschool program would be a huge challenge, but it did not have to be in place for a year. School construction would be tremendously expensive, but the legislature had two years to craft a bill. “By not putting a dollar value on it, it gives the Whitman administration tremendous ability to deal with these issues,” a former Republican Senate staffer told reporters. “The heat’s off.”

David Sciarra held his own press conference with his own victory declaration, but he felt humbled by the work that lay ahead. The state had just a few years to enroll thousands of children in preschool, to start hundreds of troubled schools on the road to comprehensive reform, to launch a multi-billion-dollar school construction program. How could ELC influence events when it had no working relationship with the Whitman administration? All Sciarra could think was how hard everything was going to be.

Deborah Yaffe is the author of Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools (Rutgers University Press, 2007). She has worked as a reporter for the Asbury Park Press, the Jersey Journal, the Recorder of San Francisco, and the Gannett state bureau in Trenton. More information about her and the book is available at www.deborahyaffe.com.

A board member from a middle-income district lays out his district’s financial situation, after years of enrollment grow and flat funding

By Roger Butler

There are more than 600 public school districts in New Jersey and probably 300 would consider themselves to be “middle-class” districts, comprised mostly of hard-working parents from households where both parents must work in order to provide their children with a great education and a safe environment. But it is becoming harder and harder to make ends meet for these districts. They can be fairly considered to be “stuck in the middle.”

School funding has remained “flat” over the past five years. (The slight increase that was distributed last year was little consolation for those growing middle-income districts.) We are always expected to just “pull up our boot straps,” cut this program or expense or do without that, or raise property taxes just to keep our heads above water and maintain the programs that we have. I am here to report that the middle districts are reaching the breaking point.

I’ll use the example of my district, Burlington Township. We are located in South Jersey, not too far from the Delaware River. We’re about ten miles northeast of Philadelphia, about twenty miles south of Trenton and fifteen miles north of Camden.

Our district consists of grades Pre-K through 12 with an approximate enrollment of 4200 pupils. The district is extremely proud of its tradition of financial accountability and cost efficiency. According to the NJ Department of Education March 2007 Comparative Spending Guide, the Burlington Township School District ranked second lowest in per pupil spending of 104 total school districts in the 3500-plus student group category.

Our district has seen tremendous growth in the last 15 years. In 1992, our district had approximately 1,500 students. By 1997, our enrollment was close to 2,900 and currently we have 4,272 students. Since 1996, our township has grown from approximately 10,000 residents to over 20,000.

Why is this significant? During the time of our greatest enrollment growth, our school funding has been essentially “flat.” There were adjustments in 1997 and 1998, when the school funding formula in effect at the time was actually used. Incredibly, there was no adjustment for the previous enrollment growth we had experienced in years past. So the aid that we qualified for exceeded the existing “cap,” or the state-allowed budget growth, and we were not able to accept the full funding due to us. Therefore, even though we received additional aid at that time, we still had to make budget cuts.

Remember that the primary reason New Jersey passed the state income tax law in the 1970’s was to fund education. How do you explain to the township residents—whose population has nearly doubled in the last ten years—that the income tax they’ve paid hasn’t returned to their district and their children?

In 2000, our percentage of state aid was 48 percent and our local portion was 52 percent. Since that time our enrollment has increased, we have opened a new elementary and middle school, as well as additions to the high school and our existing elementary school. Over that same time period, our state aid has gone down to 30 percent and our local “property tax” portion has increased to 70 percent. The net impact of an 18 percent shift of costs to our taxpayers, just to keep our programs operable has been dramatic. Add this to four defeated budgets (one lost by a mere 17 votes) and it is inevitable that soon there will be an impact on the educational programs we can offer.

How have we coped with the decreased state aid and increased budget pressures? You name it, we’ve tried it! Like many districts in our situation, we have wrung every inefficiency imaginable out of the system. We now subcontract for our maintenance, our busing, and our cafeteria services. We have joined a consortium to manage our energy costs. We have refinanced debt. That well is drying up as a source of future budget savings. We are left with the prospect of eliminating or reducing programs. In last year’s budget, we had to reduce and restructure our pre-K program and charge a fee because we receive no state funding, despite the fact that pre-K is a program that has been proven to help children learn, and is fully funded and mandated in at least 30 districts. If an educational program is good and worthy of funding for some children, why not all children? How do you tell your residents that if they want their children to go to a school district pre-K program, they’ll have to pay extra property taxes?

When we built our new schools, we were able to provide the space necessary to bring most of our special needs students back into the district, which has resulted in savings. At the same time, however, the number of special needs students in our district has increased at an alarming rate. There is no additional state funding for these kids but plenty of mandated services. When our special education costs rise, the money to pay for them must be reallocated from the base, and other programs get reduced or eliminated. Over the last couple of years, this shift has resulted in over $2.5 million being reallocated from our already over tapped-out “regular education” base budget.

As is the case with every school district in America, we are labor-intensive. In most districts, including ours, 80 percent to 85 percent of the budget is spent for salaries, leaving only 15 percent to 20 percent in operating expenses. There aren’t “wiggle-room” cuts to be found anymore. Further cuts will need to be made in personnel or operations.

Our district is proud of the many outstanding teachers and staff in its schools, as is every district throughout this state. It is through their hard work, dedication, and skills that students learn and achieve. We believe that the teaching and support staff is the most important component of the educational system.

Keeping this in mind, our district just completed a new contract with our teachers and support staff. We thought that the guidelines provided by Assembly bills A-1 and A-4 (particularly the provision limiting local school budget property tax levy increases to 4 percent) last spring, would help set the table for a fiscally sound and fair contract settlement.

It should also be noted that the board used many of these guidelines in negotiations with our superintendent, assistant superintendents, principals, supervisors and all board office support staff. Merit pay and medical contributions agreements were included in our settlements.

However, negotiations between Burlington Township Board of Education and the Burlington Township Education Association, representing teachers, secretaries, aides, paraprofessionals and instructional assistants; dragged out into one of the longest unsettled contracts in the state of New Jersey. The lengthy negotiations were characterized by many meetings with a mediator assigned by the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC). The negotiations culminated with specific recommendations from a PERC-assigned Fact Finder.

Our negotiating position to the Fact Finder invoked the guidelines outlined in Assembly Bills A-1 and A-4 that emphasize financial accountability and cost efficiency for school districts. We were very mindful of the rising cost of health benefits and the annual tax levy growth limitation of 4 percent.

Staying within the above parameters, the Board’s offer through the PERC assigned Fact Finder was as follows: 4 percent salary increases for all employees and employees would make an annual employee medical benefit contribution of $200. There was also a suggestion for minor increases in health benefit co-pays.

The union’s position to the Fact Finder was that it would accept teacher salary increases of 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent over three years. Support staff increases were requested in excess of 7 percent in each year, stating these increases would bring salaries up to prevailing county averages. Their position was to not include employee medical benefit contributions in the agreement.

The board stressed implications of Assembly Bills A-1 and A-4 to the assigned Fact Finder. Any future costs in excess of the 4 percent tax growth limitation would have to be made up by a reciprocal cut in existing programs.

After analyzing the information from both sides, the Fact Finder recommended salary increases of 5.07 percent, 5.11 percent, and 5.29 percent over the three years of the contract; and support staff salary increases of 5.57 percent, 5.61 percent, and 5.79 percent. The Fact Finder did not recommend employee contributions to health benefit costs. The Fact Finder wrote that these percentage increases were reflective of the Burlington County averages. We were able to agree with the union on salary increases slightly below the recommendation of the Fact Finder.

Now we find ourselves in familiar territory. Once again, we are “stuck in the middle.”

In order to meet the budget criteria established by law, we will be forced to drastically cut existing programs to pay for the salary increases recommended by the Fact Finder. Remember, these cuts will be made from one of the most efficient school districts in the entire state. Our already-lean school district will become severely under-resourced.

All districts—not only those “stuck in the middle”—have to communicate the following urgent recommendations to their legislators:

1. Address the procedures of the Public Employment Relations Commission and the policy of labor contract settlement recommendations that are not in line with the cost-of-living index and not in line with state school budget guidelines.
   
   
2. Build efficiency into the 4 percent tax growth limitation. A 4 percent increase for an inefficient school district is not equitable to the 4 percent increase for the efficient school district. The universal 4 percent tax growth limitation is increasing the spending gap between inefficient and efficient districts.
   
   
3. Any new school funding formula must be supported by a stable, dedicated funding source.
   
   
4. A new school funding formula must be developed for the 2008-09 school year. The Legislature has avoided its responsibility in this area for too long. It has resulted in unequal property tax rates throughout New Jersey communities and exacerbated differences in program offerings among school districts.
   
   
5. The new school funding formula must reflect student enrollment changes that have taken place over the last six years. During this time of “flat funding,” school districts with increasing enrollment have been forced to place an undue burden on the local property taxpayers.
   
   
6. The new school funding formula must reflect and reward school district efficiency. New Jersey school districts that have proven to be efficient should be entitled to additional funding when compared to districts that have little concern for taxpayer money.

The plight of the “middle income district” is becoming one of crisis proportion. There are no quick fixes. We are all hard-working people who only want a safe place to live and an excellent education for our children. But we are also over-taxed. It’s sad to think that the only way to fix this problem is to leave the state.

My message to fellow school board members, parents and residents of this state is this: our voices need to be heard in Trenton. We have the numbers to make an impact; let us use those numbers on behalf of New Jersey’s schoolchildren.

Roger Butler has been a member of the Burlington Township school board for nine years, is a past president of that board and is the current chairman of the board’s finance committee. He is also chairman of NJSBA’s School Finance Committee. Butler has worked in state government for 27 years; 20 of those have been in budgeting and accounting. He can be reached at RButler@burltwpsch.org.

A district’s most precious resource is its employees. Hiring practices should cast a wide net.

By Pete Barone and Todd Lawrence

Of the many responsibilities facing school leaders in New Jersey today from balancing budgets to meeting No Child Left Behind mandates, none is more critical to the success of a district than the search for and retention of the most qualified educators to fill open positions.

Hiring the right person for the job is a challenge in any field, but it’s particularly critical in education where research demonstrates, and an NJSBA sample board policy emphasizes, that “the quality of the professional staff in large part determines the quality of the education offered to district pupils.” School administrators are responsible for “locating and recruiting the best-qualified candidates…” School board members play a vital role in this process by approving job descriptions, affirming employment, determining salary guides and benefits and appointing qualified candidates based on the chief school administrator’s recommendations.

A school district’s approach to hiring and retaining top level and successful educators can benefit from a “Think Globally, Act Locally” approach. The phrase, coined in the late 60’s or early 70’s at the birth of the environmental movement, refers to the argument that global environmental problems can turn into action only by starting at the local level. Today it is commonly applied to a range of societal concerns from outsourcing American jobs to lawsuits to advances in medicine.

Tactics developed from this vantage point will help districts find qualified candidates, make the application process more effective, streamline resume screening, structure interviews that provide a true picture of each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses; hone in on the top applicants for the position and ultimately hire and retain the right person for the job. The same basic principles apply, whether hiring a new bus driver, special education teacher or school principal.

Think Globally Last fall, two prestigious publications better known for their coverage of economic and business issues—The Economist and The Wall Street Journal—referred to a report on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) that identified the common denominator among countries with the highest student achievement. The report, by consulting firm McKinsey & Company, found that contrary to some popularly held notions, more money, extended hours in class or studying and smaller class size do not help students meet higher standards. Rather, according to McKinsey, three factors spell success:

• Get the best teachers
  
  
• Get the best out of teachers
  
  
• Step in when pupils start to fall behind

According to The Economist, “That may not sound exactly ‘first-of-its-kind’: schools surely do all this already? Actually, they don’t. If these ideas were really taken seriously, they would change education radically.”

Act Locally As school leaders, you have an opportunity to “change education radically” by acting locally. And, rather than focusing solely on getting the best teachers, it’s smart for a district to get the best educators at every level by implementing an effective hiring process.

Begin by taking a candid and realistic look at your district today. Start with the basics. Is it urban, rural or suburban? Is it a pre-K-8 or a regional high school district? Has new development changed the fabric of the community in recent years, in turn affecting the school system? What are the current needs and achievement levels of students? Understanding your district’s needs is essential to guiding the search for qualified candidates. The perfect candidate for an affluent suburban community may not be ideal in an urban setting and vice versa.

Cast the Recruiting Net Wide—and Aim High “Think Globally” and creatively during the recruitment process and cast a wide net. New Jersey has many excellent colleges and universities known for undergraduate and graduate education programs that turn out some of the top educators in the nation. But schools in other states offer stellar education majors as well. According to US News and World Report, some of the best schools for education-related majors are Teachers College at Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University & University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to strong education programs, look for schools that offer teacher certification for specific high demand majors such as mathematics, science, technology and world languages. Other high demand areas include Child Study Team related positions such as speech language therapists, school psychologists, social workers, learning disability teacher consultants, occupational therapists and physical therapists.

Districts may also have to look far and wide for special education teachers and administrators due to expanded funding and government mandates that have led to record demand and competition in that area.

Your district will benefit from recruiting from a diverse candidate pool in terms of colleges attended; post-graduate experience; majors; life experience and even age.

According to Carole Knopp Morris, former superintendent of Manasquan Public Schools and recently appointed Monmouth Executive County Superintendent, her district was able to cast the recruiting net wide by using an online recruiting site. “We were able to get a more complete response from individuals nationwide…for that matter, worldwide, through the Web sites,” said Morris. “In the past we were limited to ads in newspapers, which are very localized. The sites broadened our pool of qualified candidates and applicants from out-of-state can respond immediately to postings on the sites.”

Remember to “aim high.” Students at every level, in every district statewide deserve the best and your district can meet high standards from a qualified candidate pool. Hiring the right person for the job is a challenge in any field, but it’s particularly critical in education.

The Economist stated it simply, “Begin by hiring the best.” Studies cited in that publication as well as in a 2004 article in Harvard Education Letter support that directive. Researchers in Dallas and Tennessee found that if students with average ability were assigned to teachers ranked in the top fifth of the profession, they excelled to the top 10% in terms of achievement. Conversely, if teachers ranked in the bottom fifth in their field taught students at the same level, those students sank to the bottom as well.

Today’s Recruiting Toolbox Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com and other general employment Web sites have dramatically changed the job search landscape. Similarly, for-profit and not-for-profit sites geared toward specific careers from law to science to education have become valuable tools for both employers and candidates. The Web sites of professional associations often include job postings from their member organizations and resumes from prescreened candidates.

In New Jersey, there are two Web sites that focus exclusively on education. They post job openings, candidates’ resumes and job search and recruiting tips for a range of positions from one-to-one aides for students with special needs to superintendents. NJSchoolJobs.com was launched in 1999 by two educators and NJHire is the New Jersey Department of Education’s Web site.

Good job sites offer districts unlimited space for advertising with a wide range of services that can be customized to fit a district’s needs. They also offer immediate postings and application acceptance. Candidates can easily find openings in their specialty because the site’s search function is detailed and well organized. Many sites offer a central location for a vast array of information from licensing contacts, educational organizations, college contacts, resume databases and school district information.

Jackson Township School District Human Resources Director John Lamela takes full advantage of the breadth of services offered on New Jersey’s education job sites, which he says have “revolutionized the recruiting and hiring process in education.”

Candidates who are less web-savvy turn to the perennial tried and true method for job searches—the “Help Wanted” sections of their local daily (especially the Sunday edition) and weekly newspapers to round out their search.

Newspaper advertising is particularly valuable when a district is attempting to secure local candidates for easily filled positions. It may also be beneficial in attracting candidates who have been out of the education field for a while, those who are changing careers and retirees who wish to re-enter education. As one local superintendent once told us, “If I could hire a good Latin teacher, I could care less if he or she is computer literate.”

Finally, sending a representative to select job fairs at area colleges and universities gives districts a chance to screen some top notch, fresh out of school candidates. And don’t forget to mine local community colleges for positions within the district that don’t require certification. Students who have completed an associate’s degree may plan to complete their bachelor’s degree at an area four-year college and have the potential to be a valuable asset as a teacher or administrator someday.

Follow the Tracks Traditionally resumes are received via regular mail, email or fax in a district’s central office. Often a district representative contacts the candidate to let them know the resume was received and resumes are typically copied and distributed for review by a human resources administrator or committee.

Jackson Township’s Lamela is particularly enthusiastic about a system that allows districts like Jackson, which use the AppliTrack online software system for recruitment and application management, to link directly to NJSchoolJobs.com. “I create job descriptions and postings through AppliTrack,”said Lamela, “which are saved and posted immediately on the job site. Potential candidates can view postings on the site that are linked directly to the district’s application on the NJSchoolJobs.com, which looks like the Jackson Township Web site.”

Systems such as AppliTrack can also eliminate the need to manually file all applications. Every administrator or committee member involved in the process can simultaneously view the entire pool of applicants to quickly screen applicants that meet the district’s criteria for the opening. The program also generates automatic acknowledgement of receipt of an application.

The Almost Perfect Fit Anyone hiring educators needs to carefully consider the culture of the community, the district and the culture of the specific school that is seeking to hire. While it is sometimes difficult to determine on paper whether or not a candidate is the “perfect” fit, look for cues to success or red flags for failure as early as in the first round of resume screening. For instance, a teacher or administrator who excelled in a large, suburban high school may be challenged in a small, rural preK-8 district.

It’s important that those hiring look for qualities that go beyond subject matter knowledge. This may be particularly important for alternative track teachers with professional experience who are entering the classroom for the first time. According to Martin Haberman, a distinguished professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, “How much teachers know is valuable, but it only matters if you can relate to kids. If just knowing stuff was all that matters, college professors could teach middle school kids.”

Finally, as an administrator or board member, sometimes you must trust your instincts and experience with the school and community. You know the staff and students well and sometimes despite what’s on paper and how well or poorly the interview process went, you know if a candidate is a perfect fit or will be a miserable failure.

Pete Barone and Todd Lawrence are the co-founders of NJSchoolJobs.com. Barone retired from the Little Egg Harbor Township school district after 31 years as a science teacher; Lawrence has been a health and physical education teacher in the same district for 14 years. The two can be reached at look@njschooljobs.com.

Cathy Moncrief, NJSBA’s School Board Member of the Year, has served children as a board member, teacher, administrator and parent

By Janet Bamford

Children are at the center of Cathy Moncrief’s life, whether she is chairing a meeting as president of the Lindenwold Board of Education, at her post as a world language supervisor in the Washington Township school district in Gloucester County or spending time with her two grown daughters (both teachers) and her grandchildren.

It was this focus, and the extraordinary service she has provided to children that prompted the New Jersey School Boards Association to name Moncrief as 2007 Board Member of the Year and honor her in a ceremony at the opening general session of Workshop in October. She was chosen out of more than 4,800 elected school board members in New Jersey and is the third such honoree since the program’s inception in 2005. Nominations for the award could be made by other board members, superintendents, business officials, school district staff or the community; an independent panel from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association judged the nominations.

Cathy Moncrief is a 17 year veteran of the Lindenwold Board of Education in Camden County, a district that encompasses about 2400 students, and is home to one high school, a middle school and two elementary schools. Moncrief has been board president for 12 years. Prior to becoming a world language supervisor, she spent 30 years as a Spanish teacher.

“Cathy exemplifies the very nature of community service through service on a school board,” says Kevin E. Ciak, NJSBA president. “She is a tireless public servant who works without pay or benefits for the betterment of children in her community, and throughout the state.”

Cathy Moncrief has been active in several NJSBA programs, serving on the Board of Directors, on the Urban Boards Committee and as her district’s representative to the Re-Inventing High Schools State Summit. She chaired the Special Education Committee, which pushed hard for the extraordinary aid bill for special education. She also testified several times on behalf of the Special Education Committee and served on two NJDOE task forces on Special Ed.

Moncrief earned the Master Board Member designation through NJSBA’s Board Member Academy, one of only 179 board members statewide to have achieved that rank since the program was created 15 years ago.

Recently School Leader magazine sat down with Moncrief to talk about her biggest challenges as a board member, what she wished she’d known as a new member, the unique joys and the frustrations of being a school board member, and more.

How did you get involved with the school board?

I got involved 17 years ago. There were a lot of issues in the district at that time. The district was in bad financial shape. Someone on the board had moved away and some people came to me and asked if I’d consider being on the school board. I had coached softball in town for 10 years, and I knew a lot of parents and kids. Also, not long before, there had been an incident where two kids were killed on the highway while going to school and I helped organize a citizens group that encouraged the borough to provide busing for kids who had to cross that highway. I think that gave people the idea that I was interested in children and their welfare.

What is your school district like?

It’s a highly transient district, which provides some challenges, because we’re always trying to test new students, place them correctly and bring them up to speed as quickly as possible when they move into the district. Our students are wonderful. They are bright, articulate and caring. Our community cares very much about kids, and even though many people struggle financially, they care tremendously about education.

What was it like joining the board and what do you wish you had known at the beginning?

It was an immediate fit for me to be on a school board. That’s not to say it was an easy situation. There was a huge learning curve. I thought that because I was an educator, it wouldn’t be so difficult, but I had so much to learn. I don’t think there was any one thing that you could have told me then. It was just a whole different level of understanding. The one area I required a great deal of training in was in budgets and I got it.

But being on a board gives you a different perspective. It completes the circle; I’ve been a teacher and an administrator and a parent and a board member.

What took you by surprise when you began on a board?

I guess I was surprised how difficult it was, how much work it was, and how much there was to learn. Every decision you make has important consequences and I take that very seriously.

What has helped you as a board member over the years?

I’ve had the very good fortune of having an excellent board here and we work very well together. We are all independent, we all gather information in the appropriate way and we make our decisions based on that information. We have differences but it is never contentious and we always approach our differences in a very professional manner.

What are some of the big challenges you’ve faced over the years as a board member?

The biggest one has to be the dissolution of the regional district we were part of and the creation of this district. We went from being a K-6 district to being a Pre-K -12 district.

We passed a referendum to build the high school, and we developed six years of program—the academic, the athletic, and the extracurricular program—everything.

Why did the board decide to do that? What triggered the dissolution?

We broke apart the existing regional district. Lower Camden County Regional District was a 7-12 district, and each of the contributing districts reconfigured their district based on what worked for them. Some sent their high school students to different high schools, but we wanted a community high school here. We felt we could better meet the needs of our children in our own town.

There had been discontent over time, and a new high school needed to be built in the southern part of the district that we would have to fund, but that our students would never attend, so it was time to re-evaluate. All the towns, their mayors, their town councils and the schools boards came together to craft this over a period of two years. We did 2 studies here in Lindenwold. There was a financial study done as a part of the regional dissolution process, but we also undertook an educational study so we could evaluate whether we were going to be able to provide for our students in a way that was economically feasible and educationally sound. We were able to ascertain that we could do the job more economically in a better educational setting and have a building here for the use of the community. The mayor and council were an integral part of the process and we could not have accomplished this without them.

What accomplishments of your board are you most proud?

It still gives me a thrill every time I drive into the high school parking lot and I see the building and the kids and the programs. It gives me a very deep sense of pride that our community cared deeply enough about our children to vote not just for the dissolution but for the funding for this building and the programs we have.

We have also instituted some innovative programs. We recently put a freshman seminar program in place that came about as a result of being involved in the Re-Inventing High Schools program. There are many components of the program. We teach the 12 pillars of character, and encourage students to take responsibility, to be positive citizens and to do their academic work. If a student is failing courses by the middle of the marking period, they’re automatically put into a 9th period class to help the student in that subject area. That has cut the failure rate for courses dramatically.

We’ve also dropped our lower level classes in the high school. We believe we should challenge every student, and that each one should be subjected to the rigor and relevance of these more challenging courses. That doesn’t mean we don’t have support in place to help the students who need it, but we encourage our students to strive to do their best.

What has inspired you to stay on a school board for 17 years?

It’s my passion. It’s connected to what I do for a living. I love this town and this community. I have also had the tremendous good fortune to work with a group of dedicated people on the board and with administrators who are leading this district in the right direction. We also have a very positive relationship with our mayor and council.

What has been frustrating about being a board member?

I work with terrific board members, so it’s not frustrating very often, but I suppose what’s frustrating are the unfunded mandates from both the federal and the state governments, and the fact that school boards have so many more rules and regulations than other municipal groups. Sometimes the regulations serve to complicate the process and they can get in the way of good decisions.

What challenges do you think school boards across the state are facing in the near future?

You can’t have any conversation without mentioning No Child Left Behind.

I think No Child Left Behind in its purest form is wonderful. We want all our children to succeed and we don’t want any of our children left behind. But the problem is with the methods, their constraints and consequences.

I also think the funding formula is of grave concern, depending on how that is crafted. It is becoming more and more difficult to provide the necessary programs for our students. The over reliance on property taxes is burdening our communities and our citizens. I can only hope that an equitable formula is created.

What advice would you give someone who had just joined a school board?

The first thing they need to do is get as much training as they can—not just the beginning training, but other programs as well. All of the time spent in training is worthwhile.

It’s also important to speak with other board members who have been on boards for a long time. In the Camden County association, we used to have a mentoring program. It isn’t active now but I would like it to start up again. The county association would call those of us who volunteer and give us a “mentee” who was not from our own district. The new board members could call us with questions or to ask advice. It’s nice to know you have someone to call and great to get a non-biased opinion. I know when I was first on a board, I was totally intimidated, and I don’t intimidate easily!

What makes for a successful school board?

A successful board is one that has learned exactly what its role should be. It’s to set policy and to see that the school district is well run, but not to run the district. There are two mistakes boards make and they’re at either end of the spectrum. One is to over-manage and micro-mange everything, and the other is to have too much of a hands-off, laissez faire attitude. The successful board is one that is in the middle, one that is very well informed of what’s going on in the district, but leaves it to the superintendent and staff to run the district.

An over-involved board oversteps its position. You have to use the chain of command and insist that everyone else do so, too. If someone calls me or emails me with a problem, it’s not for me to call the principal. I’d call my superintendent and say, “Gerri, this is what I’ve heard, can you check it out and get back to me.” You don’t get involved in the minutiae of the district. But by the same token, you don’t take a hands-off attitude.

We want to pretty much know everything that is going on, and to know when there are any issues. I call it the grocery store syndrome- I don’t want to walk into the grocery store and hear what’s happening in my district. I want to know before I go in there.

What has been the high point of your seventeen years of service as a board member?

I love knowing I have an impact on children’s lives, and that we’re giving them the best start we can give them in life. I guess if I were to pick the best moment, it would be the day we had the grand opening of the new high school. We had a big celebration and the mayor and the council, our Assemblyman and Senator, the board administrator, staff and community all came together to celebrate. It was a good time to thank everyone for all they’d done to facilitate the dissolution and the building of the school. It was also special for me because my entire family was there to celebrate with me. It remains, for me, a very special day.

Janet Bamford is an editor for the New Jersey School Boards Association. She can be reached at jbamford@njsba.org.