Senator Vin Gopal (LD-11) served as guest speaker during the New Jersey School Boards Association’s Legislative Committee meeting, which was held virtually on Saturday, Dec. 6.
The meeting began with Dr. Timothy Purnell, executive director and CEO of the NJSBA, serving as pro tem in the absence of Bernadette Dalesandro, Vice President of Legislation and Resolutions, who was away due to a family emergency. Dr. Purnell welcomed attendees and NJSBA team members and highlighted an email sent to members last week inviting input on New Jersey’s school funding law.
Newly elected NJSBA President Michael Jacobs emphasized the importance of advocacy and thanked members for their dedication and commitment to the state’s 1.4 million students.
NJSBA’s senior director of advocacy, Jonathan Pushman, then moderated a conversation with Gopal, who currently serves as chair of the Senate Education Committee. Gopal opened the discussion by expressing regret about moving school board elections to November, noting it had made elections more political. He followed up by outlining his priorities for the lame-duck session, including school funding reform and charter school transparency measures. He specifically discussed his school funding legislation, S-3917, which was passed by the Senate and approved by the Assembly Education Committee earlier this about his school funding legislation, S-3917, which has been passed by the Senate and was approved by the Assembly Education Committee earlier in the week. As currently written, the bill would make several changes to school funding, including adding limits on how much state aid a district could lose from one year to the next and permanently switching special education to be funded based upon actual enrollment rather than a statewide average rate. Gopal also addressed concerns about healthcare costs for school employees and discussed his newly introduced bill, S-4861, which would establish a process for mandated district consolidation without voter approval.
Legislative committee members asked questions about controlling healthcare costs, addressing enrollment challenges in small districts, including senior citizen stabilization aid in school funding bills, and concerns about state aid reductions for districts with environmental restrictions, such as the Highlands region.
Before leaving the meeting, Gopal committed to attending Workshop 2026!
Governmental Relations Update
The remainder of the meeting was dedicated to a rundown of pending legislation of interest to school districts. Harrison Silver, NJSBA’s legislative advocate, provided several updates, noting slow activity over the summer but increased activity post-Election Day. Before delving into recent developments, Silver congratulated Jonathan Pushman, who was recently appointed to Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill’s education transition team.
A brief description of the bills presented is as follows:
- A-1675/S-2078: Extends membership in TPAF to 10 years after discontinuance of service and to 15 years for those who were laid off or had 10 or more years of continuous service upon voluntary termination (signed by governor).
- S-2335/S-3096/A-3871: Requires districts to include instruction on Latino and Hispanic American history for grades K-12 as part of NJSLS in social studies (signed by governor).
- S-3776/A-5779: Establishes Chronic Absenteeism Task Force (conditional veto).
- A-5847/S-4608: Extends deadline for completion of school district’s annual audit for 2024-2025 school year (conditional veto).
- A-3323/S-3713: Requires pay for extracurricular activities to be included in compensation for TPAF purposes (absolute veto).
- S-3917/A-5310: SFRA Reform: special education funding, reduction adjustment aid, Special Education Funding Review Task Force.
- A-5966/S-4885: SFRA Reform: school aid notices, district budgets, funding portal, local share calculations.
- S-4861: Requires executive county superintendent of schools to establish a consolidation plan to combine school districts in county into regional school districts (posted for discussion only).
- S-3915: Would require municipalities to share PILOT payments with school districts.
- S-4713 and S-4716: Charter school reform requiring transparency, accountability, and oversight.
- S-3195: Would have prohibited “food service businesses” (including schools) from providing single-use utensils and condiments to customers, but as of 12/8, schools are exempted.
- A-4882/S-3695: Requires cell phone and social media guidelines to be developed by DOE and policy to be adopted by each school district.
The meeting ended with the approval of the Association’s Advocacy Agenda and Action Plan for 2026-2027, which outlines key priorities for the coming legislative session. The agenda, updated biennially and reflecting input from previous meetings and prior legislative achievements, includes priorities such as student achievement, school funding and finance, special education, staffing and labor relations, transportation, student health and well-being, facilities, and governance and operations. The agenda was approved and will be presented to NJSBA’s executive committee before the end of the calendar year and shared at the first Board of Directors meeting in January for final approval.
Additionally, Pushman noted a new civilityinitiative to be launched in 2026 by Ray Pinney, NJSBA’s Chief Member Engagement Officer. Pinney emphasized the need to promote civility at board meetings, noting that NJSBA is partnering with the Eagleton Institute to provide boards of education with resources to improve discourse.
Finally, the committee recognized departing members for their long-term contributions, including Jill Fischman of the Bloomfield Board of Education and Bob Carlson of the Wallkill Valley Regional Board of Education.
The next meeting will take place virtually on March 14, 2026.
To view the full text of any of the bills summarized above, please visit the New Jersey Legislature’s website.
