BOE Pushes for Cap on Private School Contracts

Brick's Board of Education passed a resolution calling on the state to impose a 2 percent cap on the cost of sending students to out-of-district, private schools.

In certain cases where a student is severely disabled and cannot be properly taught in the district, school officials will arrange for the student to be sent to a private school that can handle the child's disabilities. The cost of sending students to private facilities, including transportation costs, varies wildly, sometimes approaching the six-figure range.

But a new state law capping public school districts' year-to-year expenditure increases at 2 percent has left some districts scrambling to be able to fit the private school tuition – which they are legally bound to provide for families of disabled children who require such services – into their budgets.

"Some of these go up four or five percent every year," said Brick Schools Superintendent Walter Hrycenko. "We want them to be somewhat equitable to what we have to deal with."

The resolution, which will be forwarded to local legislators' offices, the county executive superintendent and the New Jersey School Boards Association, requests that the state "impose the same two percent cap on these tuition costs that weigh heavily on the financial position of school districts."

The resolution passed unanimously at the board's Oct. 20 meeting.