More bad news in yesterday’s APP:
State warns Interlaken board: Send students to Asbury Park schools only or face penalties
The Board of Education came under fire from borough residents this week for sending 15 Interlaken children to the West Long Branch and Shore Regional High School districts this school year under a contract not approved by the state Department of Education.
Residents at a board meeting Monday night said their greatest concern was not getting enough information from the five-member board in light of a recent letter from a state education official saying the board faces sanctions if it does not stop.
Interlaken, which has about 65 school-aged children, is one of several districts that by law are a sending districts to the Asbury Park city schools. Parents in recent decades have sent their children to private schools instead, and most commonly cite Asbury Park being designated as a failing school district as the reason why.
But this school year the Interlaken board, which has no operating school of its own, has sent 15 students to the West Long Branch and Shore Regional schools under sending-receiving contracts. About half of those students are children of current Interlaken board members.
Joseph F. Passiment Jr., the interim executive Monmouth County superintendent, wrote the board March 12 that it ignored a directive last August that said the district was sending the children on a sending-receiving basis that was not approved by the state commissioner and that contract had to be rescinded.
“The Interlaken Board of Education as well as the boards of education of West Long Branch and Shore Regional ignored the directive and continued to establish a sending-receiving relationship under a tuition contract basis for the 2011-2012 school year,” Passiment wrote.
He said that in order for the state not to impose sanctions against Interlaken, the board now must pass a resolution voiding the current sending-receiving relationship with the West Long Branch and Shore Regional school districts and pass another resolution stating that any student who continues in those schools in the coming year will do so through an individual parent-paid tuition program to be set up between the West Long Branch and Shore Regional schools and the parents.
What the people of Interlaken don’t understand is that their children are here on this earth not for themselves, but for Asbury Park. Asbury Park needs them. Why are they being so selfish?
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