Parents critical of proposed redistricting plan 5 percent of the district population could move to different schools BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer Sixth-graders Stephanie Belbey and Danielle Burns, best friends since Belbey moved to Iselin Middle School last year, may have to split up due to the proposed school-redistricting plan. Belbey, under the proposed plan, would have to finish her seventh- and eighth-grade years at Fords Middle School, while Burns would have to stay at Iselin Middle School. "I think it's not fair," said Belbey, who addressed the Board of Education and the administration with Burns at a special meeting about the proposed school-redistricting plan on May 9. "Danielle was the first friend I met at Iselin Middle School. We want to finish here; I don't want to go to a new school." Belbey and Burns presented the board with 135 signatures from students at Iselin Middle School opposing the proposed school-redistricting plan. More than 300 parents and their children packed the Avenel Middle School cafeteria to voice their concerns about the proposed plan to the board and administration. Many parents were angry and confused about the proposed plan, and many expressed concerns that the plan was a done deal. Parents in the parent-teacher organizations and other parents expressed anger that they were not given notice about the meeting until they found out by word of mouth. The meeting left many students and parents in tears. Board of Education member Judy Leidner questioned parts of the proposed plan and said she felt the community as well as the board should have been involved in some part of the proposed plan. The administration worked with the board's Policy and Planning Committee, along with New York-based consultant group Ross Haber Associates Inc., which they hired in November 2006, to help them conduct a school redistricting plan. Leidner said that besides the board's Policy and Planning Committee, the other board members received the proposed plan on May 2. "This is an emotional issue," said Leidner, who received applause from the audience of parents and their children. "My youngest son is a high school senior at JFK High School [in Iselin], but if my kids were young, I would be right out there with those parents." Leidner questioned why, under the proposed plan, a certain number of students would be moving out of Indiana Avenue School No. 18 in Iselin to Lynn Crest School No. 22 in Colonia, and the same number of students would be moving out of school No. 22 to Port Reading School No. 9. "Yes, it provides some relief to school Number 18, but school Number 22 is left with the same level of students minus three. How does that provide relief for school Number 22?" asked Leidner. Assistant Superintendent Lois Rotella said the committee and Ross Haber Associates looked at a five-year projection plan for the proposed plan, and Superintendent Vincent Smith assured the parents and their children that the proposed plan was not "etched in stone" and the meeting was to get the parents' comments on the proposed plan. "We will look at requests and add them," said Smith. "We looked at the young students and the students at the high school level. We felt that we should not redistrict at the high school level because the students are set in their various club programs and are solidified, and we felt it was the right thing to do to look at the younger students starting in kindergarten. We understand that this plan is very emotional and it certainly will not please everybody, but we believe the plan expresses the needs of the district." Dr. Ross Haber, founder of Ross Haber Associates, presented the proposed redistricting plan through PowerPoint slides. Haber's company consists of education and transportation professionals who utilize the Geographic Information System (GIS) computer software to do demographic, redistricting and transportation studies to help the township's administration and the Policy and Planning Committee with their redistricting plan for the school district. The guidelines for the proposed plan are to maximize the use of each school building based upon the renovations and additions that will be available for the 2007-08 school year. The additions to schools were made possible through a the $86 million bond referendum passed in 2004. The goals are to achieve balanced enrollments through realignment of attendance zones based on building capacity; to move as few students as possible in achieving this balance;: to keep neighborhoods intact and, where possible, move students as intact groups; to reduce the number of non-contiguous attendance zones; and to reduce travel time as much as possible. "There will still be disruption to some children," said Haber. "But we believe that we reduced the number of noncontiguous attendance zones and moved a large group of children from one area so they move with familiar faces." There are 16 elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools in the Woodbridge Township School District, which consists of approximately 14,000 students. The plan proposes that 95 percent of the students in the district school will not be moved. Only 5 percent would be affected by the plan, or approximately 540 to 700 students. Incoming kindergarten students will be assigned based on the new attendance zones. Though the administration said the proposed plan would affect only 5 percent of the students, parents argued that the numbers presented and the impact that the plan would have on the parents and children were misleading. "They only showed some of the facts," said Sergio Ghiano, whose youngest son, Robert, is in the fourth grade and would have to move from the Indiana Avenue School No. 18 to the Lynn Crest School No. 22 in Colonia under the proposed plan. "For example, 90 of the 500 students at school Number 18 would move to school Number 22. That is almost 20 percent of the school. That is a big deal." Schools that would not be affected under the proposed plan include Mawbey Street School No. 1; Avenel Street School No. 4 and 5; Menlo Park Terrace School No. 19; Oak Ridge Heights School No. 21 in Colonia; Kennedy Park School No. 24 in Iselin; Robert Mascenik School No. 26 in Iselin; Pennsylvania Avenue School No. 27 in Colonia; Avenel, Colonia, and Woodbridge Middle Schools; and Colonia High School. Michele Kutcher of Hopelawn, who has a daughter in first grade at Port Reading School No. 9, said she had concerns for her daughter's future, when, under the proposed plan, she would go to JFK High School in Iselin. Under the proposed plan, her daughter would move to Lafayette Estates School No. 25 in Fords. "They say this plan would reduce travel time on a bus. When she is ready for high school, how does traveling from Hopelawn to JFK High School in Iselin reduce travel time on a bus?" asked Kutcher. Under the proposed plan, 123 middle school students (grades six to eight) who live in the Menlo Park Terrace apartments would move from Iselin Middle School to Fords Middle School. "Talking about emotions, these kids are at the age, 13 years old, where emotions are real high," said Krista Sweeney, who has a daughter in seventh grade and is one of the students living in the Menlo Park Terrace apartments. "These kids went to school with the same kids since first grade, and now you move them away just for one year - their graduation year - where they don't know anybody. These poor kids who played in the band and chorus and now they have to go to another school and start all over again. It's very, very sad." Eric Ferraris said he and his wife, Melissa, did their research when they moved into Port Reading from Sayreville 13 years ago. "We did not see any provisional problems; we said that this is where we are going to live and this is where our children would go to school," said Ferraris to the board. "Now you are telling me we have a problem. Where were the parent focus groups involved with proposing this plan?" The superintendent said the administration thought they knew the feelings of the parents when they were working on the plan; however, parents disagreed. Maria Pierson of Hopelawn said the proposed plan loses the feeling of respect among teachers and principals. "I have a son in the 10th grade at Woodbridge High School and I want my daughter, who is in seventh grade, to also go to Woodbridge High School," said Pierson. "However, she will go to JFK High School, which she does not mind, but I do because you lose the teachers and the principal who knows my son, to a high school where no one knows anybody." Sharon Hanley said she is not about to split up her three young children, a son who is a fourth-grade special education student at Lynn Crest School No. 22 in Colonia, and two more children in the first grade and second grade at the school. Under the proposed plan, Hanley's fourth-grade son would stay at the Lynn Crest School, but her two other children would move to another school. "It's not fair to split them up," said Hanley. "If they are in different schools and some emergency happens, I have to rush to two different schools. You should take that into consideration." The board said they would take Hanley's situation into consideration. Jessica Voluz and Dylan Walsh - both seventh-graders at Iselin Middle School - and Stephanie Belbey, who is in the sixth grade at Iselin Middle School, said they would boycott going to Fords Middle School next year if the proposed plan is put into place. "It's not fair," they said. "They don't know us." The Policy and Planning Committee met with the school's administration on May 15 to discuss the public input from the special meeting for the proposed school redistricting plan. The next Board of Education meeting will be held 7 p.m. May 17 in the cafeteria of the Avenel Middle School. The entire PowerPoint slide is on the township school district's Web site at www.woodbridge.k12.nj.us.