Primary Learning Center gets budget ax reprieve
School population underestimated in demographic study
BY DANIELLE MEDINA Correspondent
Kindergartners have reason to rejoice. The Primary Learning Center (PLC), which was slated to close at the end of this year, will be open for school in September, after district officials tweaked the 2008-09 budget.

The original $141,104,370 budget, which voters rejected on April 15, called for the closing of the PLC as an early education center and sending kindergartners back to their neighborhood schools.

That move didn't sit well with current Board of Education President Daniel Woska, Vice President Virginia Reinhold and the three candidates who won seats on the board, Vicky Leone, Michael Pifko and Kim Terebush.

"From day one, I thought it wasn't the right thing to do," said Woska, who voted against the budget. "It meant getting rid of the newest building in the district, cutting the kindergarten day by a half-hour and losing services and specials."

After replacing interim SuperintendentMelindoA. Persi withMaryAnn Ceres, Woska said that the new board went through the budget line item by item.

"I think closing the PLC was a quick fix to make up for the budget shortfall," Woska said. "It's easy to say, 'I need $1 million so let's close this school.' It's a lot harder to go through every line item."

Initially, Persi recommended closing Herbertsville and Osbornville schools, but public outcry against that move was too great. So Persi suggested closing the PLC instead.

"But people felt strongly about closing that school too," Woska said. "I really believe that's why voters rejected the budget. It wasn't the tax rate, which was only 10.8 cents. It was the closing of the PLC."

Woska said the biggest cuts to the revised budget are in administrative positions, which will save the district approximately $600,000.

"By not filling the assistant superintendent of curriculum position and its secretary position, we'll save about $175,000," Woska said. "The permanent superintendent we hire will have to be a curriculum person, like [former superintendents] Dr. [Bruce] Normandia and Dr. [Thomas L.] Seidenberger. Right now, there are a lot of other good people handling the job right now."

Woska said the district will generate about $70,000 in revenue from its preschool lottery program, which was lost when the PLC was slated to close. An additional $50,000 is also anticipated from an employee daycare program to be held at empty classrooms at Herbertsville and Osbornville schools.

"The bottom line is we have the money to get to where we need it to be," Woska said.

The revised budget will also reflect the $100,000 that the Township Council requested be shaved off the tax levy at its May 14 meeting.

The school district's budget went to the council for review after it was defeated by voters.

"We were prepared to reduce it by $1.2 million to $1.6 million, but after we analyzed it and found out about the demographic study, cutting more than $100,000 would impact students and programs," Councilman Brian DeLuca said last week.

School district officials said during an April 29 meeting with the Township Council that current enrollment was underestimated by 268 students.

Brick's enrollment for the 2007-08 school year was projected to be 10,341 students, according to a demographic study conducted by Statistical Forecasting, Secaucus.

But as of March 31, the district's enrollment was 10,609 students.

Since the district's original budget was prepared based on the lower number, roughly $2.4 million or $9,000 per student wasn't accounted for.

"That's all of Osbornville School," said Woska. "Usually demographic studies aren't wrong in the first year. They're usually off in the fourth or fifth years."

Assistant Superintendent Walter Hrycenko believes that the downturn in the real estate market, with less people buying and selling homes, has a lot to do with the higher enrollment number.

"Things have stabilized," he said. "In previous years, between Oct. 15 and March 31, we lost between 50 and 100 students. This year we lost 6."

Woska also questioned the demographer's projection that the district's enrollment would decline by 12 percent over the next four years.

"There may not be a lot of new construction in the town, but there are a lot of homes that haven't changed hands yet," he said. "What happens when people like me, who live in decent size homes, sell them to younger families?"

DeLuca said the district may also see additional students coming from St. Thomas Christian Academy, which announced in April that it was cutting its first through eighth-grade classes.

"We just don't know how many more students we'll see from there," he said.