By Chris Neidenberg / Reporter

EAST RUTHERFORD (Nov. 19, 2009) — At least one member of the Becton Regional School Board has openly called for endorsing withdrawal from the New Jersey School Boards Association. Yet the advocacy group’s top spokesman insisted history shows the district has been well-served by the association.

Trustee Lawrence Bongiovanni recently said publicly that it was time for the nine-member board, which runs the high school serving Carlstadt and East Rutherford, to cut ties with the group. The act would require state legislative approval.

Becton and every other state public school board, covering some 567 municipalities, must be members. The school boards association is the state’s officially recognized organization advocating on behalf of school boards. It addresses issues including labor, state aid and state mandates. Becton pays annual dues of $6,612 to be part of the lobbying group.

Also frustrated with the board are its two more senior members, Vice President Jerome Winston and Trustee Joe Morris, the latter a veteran educator and charter member upon Becton’s creation in 1971.

Morris stated recently that it seems as though the organization spends more time working for initiatives Becton has opposed over the years. He suggested that the association did not strongly fight against the state’s Accountability Act.

The law created an initiative called NJQSAC (New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum). To meet the mandates, even the most seasoned board members must spend hours taking new courses to attain certification. Previously, an NJSBA spokesman told The Leader that it tried fighting the mandate and helped remove some requirements.

“The fact of the matter is they don’t do anything for us,” Bongiovanni charged at the board’s Nov. 4 work session. “I would drop the school boards association.”

Bongiovanni would like Becton to ditch the NJSBA for a smaller group of districts, called Dollars and $ense.

The group initially formed in 2002 with board members and administrators from three northern Bergen County districts: Demarest, Ramsey and Ridgewood.

Today, it has 29 members, including Jersey City, Matawan and Trenton. Its executive director is Richard Snyder, a Ramsey board member.

The organization’s Web site describes the group as “grassroots” to “identify issues and craft solutions facing school districts today.”

Despite Bongiovanni’s desire, Snyder told The Leader Dollars & $ense is not working at cross purposes with the state association and has no desire to break from it. In fact, Snyder noted that he serves on the NJSBA Board of Directors

Board President Bruce Young said he would not support an official resolution letting Becton leave the association.

Still, he said he understood other members’ concerns that it has not been forceful enough in trying to advocate on Becton’s behalf. That is, in terms of fighting training mandates and securing suburban districts more aid.

“I personally don’t feel the association pushes hard enough to get more of the kind of state financial assistance we so badly need,” Young said, speaking after the board’s Nov. 11 meeting.

Winston, who like Morris has been a fixture on the Becton board, recently hammered away at his attending an NJSBA-sponsored seminar in Atlantic City, which he essentially branded as useless.

Though the NJSBA is comprised of boards, which internally might differ on issues, Frank Belluscio, its director of communications, said the diverse array of boards has much more in common than some members may realize.

“All boards have to negotiate with labor unions,” he pointed out. “All have to meet state requirements to provide students a quality education.”

“The state Legislature only recognizes our association as the official lobbying arm advocating on behalf of all school boards in this state,” added Belluscio. “And we are the only board lobbying organization with the standing to challenge positions taken before the Legislature by the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.”

He cited Becton’s ability to send one delegate to NJSBA’s biannual Delegate Assembly, as part of a “democratic process” giving each board one vote regardless of size, on policy resolutions debated among the rank and file.

When it comes to funding issues, Belluscio claimed NJSBA has been in the forefront fighting in three areas: advocating full state and federal funding for special education; serving as the “prime mover of legislation” that has increased the level of state support to local school districts for high-cost special education placements; and supporting increased state debt service aid.

As a result of the latter effort, he claimed, the state now provides support for 40 percent of eligible school construction and renovation costs in all districts — regardless of their wealth — helping many districts in Bergen County who were ineligible previously.

Additionally, Belluscio said NJSBA lobbied hard for approved legislation that gives voters in regional school districts a final say in consolidating on a K-12 basis. This, even though Young has expressed the view that the state might still try and ultimately force the arrangement.

Belluscio also cited NJSBA services aimed at trying to help member systems save money, such as via Becton’s participation in the association’s Alliance for Competitive Energy Services, an energy-buying cooperative.

According to the spokesman, Becton will save $39,960 in electricity costs over the next two years through this NJSBA-sponsored service.

Snyder said Becton is more than welcome to turn to Dollars and $ense for guidance in matters such as financial policy. Yet he still cited the state association as vital. “Becton may need us because, as a smaller group, we can give them the kind of attention the association, with over 600 districts, cannot,” he explained in a phone interview.

In a later e-mail, Snyder lauded the state association’s training programs. “There are no elected officials that are as well-trained as school board members,” he wrote. “We need to be taught about the business and legal interests of the school district, and that responsibility falls on NJSBA.”

Yet, because of its size and many responsibilities, the official added, “Looking out for the children of this state, particularly in light of recent legislation, is a cumbersome task” for the NJSBA, demanding that smaller groups step in and assure “policy is clearly stated and applied.”

“We give ourselves one task, and that is to advocate,” Snyder explained. “Because we are professional educators, we dedicate ourselves to this one task and can go full tilt addressing specific issues. That makes us appealing to some.”

On the issue of training, particularly having to travel some distance to workshops, a sore point with Morris and Winston, Belluscio asserted that, for all mandated courses, NJSBA uses North Jersey sites. “We are currently assessing the need for an additional set of training programs in northern New Jersey this school year,” he said, adding NJSBA would be happy to visit Becton and address any board concerns.

Becton Interim Superintendent of Schools Paul Saxton insisted that he “strongly supports” NJSBA’s position as the leading advocate on all school district issues. He expressed some concern over a proliferation of smaller subgroups — such as Dollars and $ense.

“School Boards is a great organization,” he said. “My main concern is having all these splinter groups could adversely impact it.”