Update On Public School Re-Registration Project

Students from Englewood of all ethnic background attend a total of 45 different private and parochial schools in state and out of state. The billion-dollar question is how many Englewood resident students attend our public schools. According to the census, there are 4375 students ages 5 to 17 in the entire city. If we estimate that 50% do not attend the public schools, the school enrollment should be about 2190 students plus the 118 students who will attend pre-kindergarten this year. If our Board of Education and the superintendent truly respect the Englewood students, there will be no over crowding in the middle school and in the lower grades. And teachers can devote more attention to each student as class sizes become smaller. Once again, the Board should take the school population re-registration very seriously.

It is our opinion that our public school system should follow districts like Fort Lee and hire retired policemen to be in charge of centralized registration instead of having students register in each individual school. About 50% of the student registrations in our public schools have not been audited. The EHOA Board has not forgotten our goal: to provide thorough and efficient education exclusively to the students who live Englewood. The re-registration project remains unfinished and we continue this effort by speaking in all public school board meetings about this issue. Trustee Larry Lubin, with board approval, is conducting an audit of students in the special education category. He is working with Charles Ferraioli, CPA, RMA, MBA (an independent auditor). We hope that his work will not stop there and will continue into the categories of affidavit and non-affidavit host. At the school board meeting September 13^th, Mr. Lubin discussed the need to complete the re-registration of students; other board members tabled the discussion by asking for a week to consider his request. We are blessed to have Mr. Lubin on the school board, and hope he will continue there for a long time.

At the end of August 2000, Mr. Charles Ferraioli, CPA, reported interim conclusions of the audit he did on 1,525 students. This audit began in February 2000. At that time there were 600 students who that did not present the proper documentation of residency or did not respond at all to the audit request. Unfortunately, his audit was disregarded by the superintendent and appointed board. Now, we hope that Board President David Matthews and the elected members of the board will allow Mr. Ferraioli and Mr. Lubin to continue this work. This is an extremely serious issue. We still are not aware of the exact number of out of district special educational students who have not presented the proper documentation to qualify as a resident of Englewood. But, there are enough students in this particular group for the Board of Education to be very concerned and press for Mr. Ferraioli to continue. Barbara Berger is in charge of the special education department and it is her responsibility to fully cooperate with the board. However, the special educational department seems to be submerged in an ocean of confusion. This is troublesome to us because special education is a priority here, as it is in every district. Unfortunately, we know of parents who are homeowners and taxpayers in Englewood who do have children with special needs and they are having a very hard time obtaining proper and lawful services for their children. Out of district special education is always the highest tuition expense in all public school districts. Tuition could cost about $40 thousand dollars per student in some cases. Our aim is that taxpayers’ educational dollars go only to Englewood students, including those students whose parents are illegal immigrants but live in our city. This is the law.

At the public school meeting on August 23, 2001 the school budget was amended. The budget for the 2001 - 2002 school year is $45,049, 954.02. About $15 million dollars of this budget are provided by the State and Federal funds.

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