East Brunswick Redistricting Public Presentation Coming In November

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — East Brunswick school officials say a long-awaited redistricting plan won't come before the public until at least November, as the district works through demographic data, school utilization and busing logistics ahead of a target implementation date of September 2027.

Superintendent Evelyn Mamman and School Business Administrator Joseph Crotchfelt gave the district's Board of Education an update on the redistricting process during a meeting on Sept. 10.

Mamman said the district commissioned a demographic study earlier this year but held off on drawing new boundaries until it finished a strategic plan to guide the process.

"Our goal here isn't just to move boundaries, right? Because that's emotional," Mamman said. "Our goal was not just to kind of move boundaries or manage buildings. If the goal is to create something that's sustainable over time ... the core values that we now have must be the lens within which we do the work."

Crotchfelt said he has been meeting weekly with the district's transportation department to align demographic projections with current bus routes, school utilization and special education placements. He said the district is also reviewing its criteria for bus stops, in coordination with police, as part of the process.

"It's not just do it based off of data. It's how we think, and how do we do this so it is sustainable over years to come?" Crotchfelt said. He added that finances "can't be the only driving factor," saying a plan built solely around cost savings "will not be what's best for students" or families.

Crotchfelt said he expects to share preliminary information with the board in October, using student registration data from an Oct. 15 snapshot, followed by a public presentation in November. Mamman said the district hopes to bring a fuller plan to the community in early 2027 after additional fine-tuning.

Board member Anna Braun said the district's last large-scale redistricting predates the Reagan administration.

"If it was easy to do a redistricting, it would have been done before now, because the last time a redistricting was done, Ronald Reagan was in his first term as the 40th president," Braun said. "We're not going to wait another 40 years to make these kind of decisions. We're doing it now."

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