Article originally publsihed September 25, 2023 on NJ.com

Link to Original Article by Rob Jennings

Voters in Monmouth County will decide this week whether to merge three school districts into one.

New Jersey, which is home to about 600 school districts, has few regionalized districts compared to many other states. Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that gave districts financial incentives to study consolidation, including combining into county-wide or regional school districts.

Supporters say combining local school districts could save money and reduce school taxes for homeowners. But, some districts have resisted mergers because they do not want to give up local control of their schools and worry students will not be able to attend their neighborhood schools in regional districts.

Some school districts have already combined. In 2017, the Elmer school district was absorbed by Pittsgrove in Salem County, adding Elmer’s 240 students to Pittsgrove’s 1,600 students, after years of debate.

If approved by voters in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands this week, the school boards in both districts would be disbanded in July 2024, according to a description available on the districts’ websites. All three school districts would be overseen by the Henry Hudson Regional School District school board.

The grades K-6 school districts in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands would join the grades 7-12 Henry Hudson Regional School District, which already serves both municipalities, under the proposal on Tuesday’s ballot.

The regionalization ballot proposal is the first in New Jersey since 2013, when voters in Hunterdon County approved merging four school districts into the South Hunterdon Regional School District, according to the New Jersey Boards Association.

“The topic of regionalizing these three schools has been a decades-long debate, mostly on whether or not the current structures are efficient in running schools,” Beams said at a Sept. 12 community forum.

“The most efficient model, for a child, is that there is a system that they go through, from pre-K or kindergarten, all the way up to 12th grade, and there’s some continuity in those services, regardless of whether you’re in a large district or small district — that you have a team of administrators and educational experts that are making decisions that look at a child’s journey from pre-K all the way through 12th,” Beams said.

In advocating for the change, officials predicted a reduction in taxes stemming from consolidating some services and a boost in state aid that is available to school districts opting to regionalize, according to a proposal overview from the school districts.

The overview acknowledges that approval would result in “some loss of autonomy,” due to dissolving Atlantic Highlands and the Highlands school boards, and that some staff members might be relocated or transferred “although this is expected to be very minor.”

The new regional board “will need to commit effort and resources to assume control of the educational facilities, engage with existing vendors and contractors, restructure contracts, and the collective bargaining agreements with the employees’ unions,” the overview states.

If approved, the current board members in the three districts — along with any elected in November — would continue through June, officials said. Then, an interim regional board consisting of three members from each current board would be seated, leading up to the election of a new board in November 2024.

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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.