Plan would send some Sea Isle students off islandPress of Atlantic City Article By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer, 609-463-6713
Published: Thursday, January 15, 2009
SEA ISLE CITY - You can count next year's graduating eighth-graders on one hand.
A plan presented at a special city Board of Education meeting Wednesday night would send those students and some younger classes to another district.
Board member Barbara Drew, who sits on the Shared Services and Consolidation Committee, outlined a plan to send students from grades five to eight out of the pre-K to 8 district.
Pre-kindergarten to fourth grade would remain at the small Park Road school, which has faced a declining enrollment over the past decade and has fewer than 70 students.
Board member Valere Egnasko called the proposal "a measured step" that offers flexibility in the face of changing state regulations and plans.
Some parents called it a not-so-veiled effort to close the school entirely.
A state-directed effort to regionalize small school districts in the state is ongoing. But that effort is more than a year away from becoming a more solid plan and would still require a referendum.
Closing the city's only school has been a divisive issue in the city and among the school board itself.
The committee's proposal, which will be presented formally at a school board meeting Jan. 20, represents a compromise from earlier ideas to close the school outright.
In Sea Isle City, it's an issue more than two years old.
Executive Cape May County Superintendent Terrence Crowley urged the school board Wednesday to make a decision, one way or the other, to allow for planning and preparations.
"In our view, it's critical you reach this decision quickly," he said. "It's time to make that decision, whatever that decision may be."
Board members said the plan would offer no significant savings for the 2009-2010 school year.
However, it could pave the way for a larger send-receive relationship in the future.
Board member Daniel Tumolo said Ocean City potentially stands to gain a $500,000 in tuition from Sea Isle City next year.
"This is going to happen one way or another," board member Ellen Ramsey said. "And we can write our own destiny now."
One major component of the plan, which remains unresolved, is where the Sea Isle City's fifth to eighth graders will go.
Board member Valere Egnasko and other members have said they see only the Ocean City school district as viable.
But Ocean City would have to accept them.
Sea Isle City's high school students currently attend Ocean City High School.
Sea Isle City has had discussions over the past two years on the possibility of closing its school.
Last year, an effort stalled after the city learned Ocean City was disinclined to accept Sea Isle City's tenured teachers, which would be a legal requirement for a deal.
Drew said the school is not what it was 10 years ago. The population is one-third of what it used to be. And there will be only four eighth-graders next year, she said.
Some board members said the district can't offer its students what a larger district can.
But some parents blamed some board members for the school's situation.
The district recently stopped accepting tuition students and had reduced the hours of some teachers in classes like Spanish and physical education.
Parent Andy Ferrilli, who has three children in the district, opposed the plan. He disagreed with some board members' assessments that Ocean City would provide more educational and extracurricular opportunities than Sea Isle City.
Teachers are more nurturing, class sizes are smaller, and there are plenty of extracurricular opportunities, he said.
E-mail Brian Ianieri:
BIanieri@pressofac.com
