Superintendent Would Like Changes To, Funding for Anti-Bullying Law

Fair Lawn superintendent Bruce Watson said he couldn't agree more with the , because it constitutes an unfunded mandate.

"Clearly the determination is right on the mark, it is an unfunded mandate," said Watson, who last month . "All districts have suffered from the additional time it takes for taking your personnel out of the job they normally do and giving them an extra responsibility that's very time consuming and very paper-driven."

The state's Council on Local Mandates issued the judgment last Friday after hearing a case brought by the Allamuchy School District, which argued the anti-bullying law was an unfunded mandate that diverted resources from other areas because it required schools to spend more time on training, paperwork, investigations and hearings. 

The ruling doesn't go into effect for 60 days, which leaves state legislators time to come up with a remedy to save the law.

"We need to fix it by either getting rid of things in the law that impose that unfunded mandate or by funding that unfunded mandate," Gov. Chris Christie said during a Monday press conference. "I am willing to discuss that with the legislature from both sides."

Watson said ideally he'd like to see legislators change the law slightly to make it more manageable and realistic for school districts to tackle, while providing some money as well.

"The people who drew up the law aren’t school people and they really don't know what goes on inside [a school building]," he said. "On a lot of things that are well intended they don’t ask educators' opinion...That needs to change."

Although Allamuchy contended it spent about $20,000 this school year to comply with the law, the total cost to fund the law statewide isn't known. NJ Spotlight reported Tuesday that a 2011 analysis by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services couldn't put a price tag on the law, because each district handles its responsibilities differently.

Last month, Watson said the  between consulting with the school board attorney and doling out overtime to workers for training sessions.

If legislators can't find funding for the law and it's removed from the books, Watson said the faculty, staff and administrators performing additional investigations and anti-bullying paperwork would return to their primary roles.

"Now I have people working extra time to do their orginal job plus these added responsibilities," he said. "[If the law went away] they would go back and be more effective and more efficient in doing the job that they were doing before."