By Lois Rogers, Correspondent
With the June 30 deadline looming for a vote on the 2018 fiscal year state budget, Catholic school officials are continuing their efforts to restore spending cuts, which, if approved, would trim $9 million from the nonpublic school budget.
Listening sessions between Catholic school advocates and legislators are being held throughout the Diocese of Trenton and around the state. The sessions focus on proposals that would deny an increase in funds for transportation aid – which has remained flat since fiscal 2007-2008 – reduce aid for school nurses and technology and entirely eliminate funds for security.
One such gathering, on May 22 in Trenton Catholic Academy, Hamilton, brought Linda R. Greenstein, D-14, Senate assistant majority leader, together for a breakfast meeting with representatives from the Trenton Diocese, Mercer County’s Catholic schools and the New Jersey Catholic Conference – the public policy arm of the Catholic Bishops of New Jersey.
During the session, which lasted well over an hour, Greenstein and her chief of staff, Jim Hooker, participated in a discussion with the group on the budgetary factors affecting Catholic schools and sought insight on ways to resolve the situation.
They listened attentively as Dr. George V. Corwell, director of the NJCC’s office of education, and JoAnn Tier, diocesan superintendent of schools, made the case for restoring not only transportation funding but also other non-public school funding that was slashed in Gov. Chris Christie’s spending plan.
Along with Judy Nicastro, diocesan director of school services/school data management; Sister of St. Joseph Dorothy Payne, TCA president; Donald Costantino, principal of Our Lady of Sorrows School, Hamilton, and Anita Usmiani, retired educator and a member of the school board from St. Gregory the Great Academy, Hamilton Square, all offered a reasoned and well-documented argument on the hardships posed by the pending cuts.
Data compiled by Nicastro provided demographics indicating how the scope of such a massive series of cuts in vital areas would affect the 17,134 students and their families from around the four counties of the Diocese.
While describing all of the cuts as being drastic enough to have a negative effect on the schools, Dr. Corwell and the others said the loss of transportation aid consistently emerges as being the most wide-ranging and serious.
With nonpublic school transportation aid frozen at $884 per child since the 2007-2008 school year, parents have been feeling the effect for years, said Dr. Corwell.
That amount, he said, falls short of what is needed by many school systems to negotiate transportation routes for Catholic school students.
He explained that busing-related difficulties are widely regarded as contributing to lower enrollments and subsequent school closings.
Parents who are scrambling to get their children on a bus or carpooling are already feeling the stress, he said. He pointed out that a significant number of public school coordinators have told administrators and parents that the ceiling needs to be raised in order to continue providing transportation.
Nonpublic schools, he noted, have attempted a variety of cost-cutting options to maintain transportation within the ceiling. These include centralized stops, changes in arrival and dismissal times by Catholic schools and mixing public and nonpublic school students on buses.
But a fact sheet Dr. Corwell handed to Greenstein during the listening session made it plain that such efforts have failed to resolve the crisis.
“We have run out of ideas in this regard,” reads the fact sheet in bold type. “This year, we have lost a significant number of Catholic students statewide because of transportation. The only remaining solution is to raise the per-pupil amount.”
A way to accomplish that would be to shift monies already in the proposed budget into the transportation account, he told Greenstein.
Reducing aid for school nurses and technology and eliminating monies for nonpublic school security pose additional problems for an educational system not only recognized for the high success rate of its students, but also the cost savings it translates to for the community at large, those present said.
At each meeting with legislators, Nicastro shared a report she had compiled that detailed the amount of money families save the state by enrolling their children in diocesan Catholic schools. Though the figure varies by district, on average, each student who attends a Catholic school saves taxpayers approximately $20,000. The total district savings, determined by this cost per student multiplied by the number of diocesan students in those resident districts, is estimated at over $186,395,028.
“This is money saved by all taxpayers,” Nicastro stressed during an interview after the meeting. “There is a misconception that what nonpublic schools get is a courtesy.”
Nicastro noted that federal aid to nonpublic schools has a long history in America, having been an integral part of President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 “War on Poverty” and referred to as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
“Nonpublic education plays such a vital role in New Jersey and the nation,” she said. “We have to go to the plate to see it continues. You don’t have to look too far in business, industry, even entertainment to see Catholic school graduates, and you can’t minimize their effect on the country.”
Nicastro continued, “We have to tap into all Catholic school parents. Even though their school might not have an issue now, it might be around the corner. We have to fight for the whole Catholic school system, not just individual schools.”
Costantino offered his own compelling take on the contributions of Catholic schools. Should the Catholic schools not be able to afford transportation, security and having a nurse on the premises, parents would likely look elsewhere.
“We make [education] work,” Constantino said. “But if we can’t offer transportation, nurses and security, what can we do? Giving up is not an option. Help us find a way. This is a place where there is always hope.”
After the May 22 session, Corwell expressed hope that the arguments offered will translate to action.