Officials estimate approximately 2,000 people packed the Lakewood High School auditorium Thursday evening to hear the district’s plans how to proceed following the failure of the referendum last month, which resulted in the loss of courtesy busing for about 10,000 students.
The crowd heard from the Board Counsel and the District’s Transportation Consultant, who described the financial crisis, and the busing crisis which came as a result.
An independent auditor for the board, Dieter Lerch, gave a presentation explaining how the district got into this mess, and proved that the Lakewood school district was shortchanged by the State, even based on the current state-dictated formula.
According to the current formula, Lerch showed, Lakewood should be receiving over $10,000,000 in state aid, but in fact only received approximately $3,600,000.
Following the presentaition, Michael Inzelbuch, the former Board of Education attorney announced he’s representing 20 public and non-public children, and will be suing the State based on the broken brokered agreement they backed out of.
The agreement, known as ‘C2’, was a deal brokered last year between the Board of Education, the Township, the State and the non-public school. Inzelbuch the Township, the private schools and BOE all kept their part of the deal, but the State is responsible for backing out.
A petition paper – in English and Spanish – directed to the 30th District legislators was handed out to attendees, which requests state aid (see photos).
Police were on hand for the meeting, and due to the overflow crowd locked the doors to the building shortly after the meeting began, preventing more people from attending, including some members of the press.
With no change or solution in sight, courtesy busing is set to end on February 26 for approximately 2,500 public school children, and approximately 7,500 non-public school children.
[TLS]
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VIDEO CLIP BELOW:
KPICASA_GALLERY(BOEMeetin21116#)
So what did they discuss? Did they come out with any concrete answers to this problem?
Why the Jewish school schools didn’t send notes informing us about the meeting?
Most public school parents showed up at 6.00 for a meeting starting at 7.30!
The results were no parking spots for ppl that came at 7.30! Buses/shuttle service could have been organized with a little advance notice!
They better fix this problem and I want my daughter to have bus in the afternoon
What is the outcome ?
Good luck with all that..there is NO money..Who is going to pay for bussing if there is no money? the state has no money to give that is why it was cut in the first place..
Looks like the only people interested in the meeting were the hispanics. Where is the rest of the community that the bussing affects? Are they being used to forward the cause for all???
There is no cause of action concerning this brokered deal. What are you going to do, file a mandamus? A writ in lieu? You have no recourse. That State has sovereign immunity and you were all told in September that there was not enough money.
Looks like the Latinos really cared about attending. Got there early to attend.
This meeting was noted in the TLS last month. No reason/excuse for not knowing or attending to voice your opinion.
To above, I ended work at 7.15. Went home. Put my kids to bed. At the meeting by 8.10 only to be denied entrance. Where were you?
Oh my… i hope these don’t get stuck walking in the cold weather I’m so sad for them:-(
No bussing Just ruined my Valentine’s Day
Why would anyone go to this meeting ?! Voicing ur displeasure will not bring a solution. It’s a total waste of time. The Twsp does not have money. Hopefully MI can sue to get some and then maybe they’ll bring it back. Meanwhile, stay home. Don’t go to meetings. You achieve nothing.
Why was the press denied entrance?
Maybe finally Lakewood will realize that they need Michael Inzelbuch back!!!!
INZELBUCH FOR PRESIDENT!!!
No press, but the TLS has all these photos and a video. Think there was a press wolf is sheep’s clothing.
What part of courtesy do people not understand! Pubic money should not support private schools in any way. Hence the word private.
Make arrangements for your children.
So please explain why we continue to beat this subject up. We voted no to this issue, if we wanted the big yellow buses to continue we should have voted yes bottom line. Also Michael is going to sue for what the district doesn’t have money to settle the suit
Interesting that when Inzelbuch was the BOE lawyer, we didn’t have such large problems.
We need Michael!!!
What are the disadvantages of letting the state take over?
Is there a place we can sign the petition online for this that weren’t there?
We voted no because tgey only guaranteed bus for 3 to 4 months. Thats a joke for so,much money for so little in return. Plus we dont trust them. They coyld take the money and turn around and renege on the deal just as they did now
Plain old anti semites. Anti poor and anti spanish speaking.
my kids have not had bus the entire year!
and not courtesy bussing.
we are over 2 miles to school