The current initiatives to drive consoloidation of K-6 and K-8 school districts into K-12 districts is controlled by the CORE Act that was signed into law by Gov. John Corzine.   In doing so, he essentially rewrote the job description and title for 21 County Superintendents, now known as Executive County Superintendents.   By March 2010, and with taxpayer money, each of these leaders must propose a plan to eliminate all school districts that are not K-12 and approximately 3,000 – 5,000 students.  In Monmouth County, the first step is to conduct feasibility studies to try and prove that forced consolidation of schools will provide property tax relief. Carol Morris, the Monmouth County representative, recently designated the Avon, Bradley Beach, Belmar,Lake Como, Spring Lake, Spring Lake Heights, Sea Girt, Manasquan and Brielle school districts as a “cluster” to be considered for regionalization.

Links to the Legislation

More Information

For a condensed overview of the CORE Act and it's implications, you can read an article entitled No Surprise: The State Wants Only K-12 Districts written by Frank Belluscio, Director of Communications for the NJ School Boards Association.  This article was originally published in The School Leader, an NJSBA publication, in January 2009.  This article can be viewed here:

http://www.njsba.org/school-leader/janfeb09.html#surprise

The article can also be viewed, saved and printed from a PDF file here:

Full Article PDF