South Brunswick BOE Creates Advocacy Committee To Address Funding Cut Impact

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ – Moving forward with their work in addressing the impacts of funding cuts on the school district, the South Brunswick Board of Education recently voted to form an advocacy committee.

During the BOE meeting held last week, members voted to create the committee to address the impact of NJ’s funding formula on the school district and how it negatively impacts students.

Before the BOE could vote on the consent agenda, Deepa Karthik initiated a discussion to explain to residents why members were taking this step.

“I'm going to express my confidence in the Board of putting together a robust committee for this advocacy work. This is hard work, it's arduous work. It's a long-haul job to be done. And we all must stay invested in this,” Karthik said.

Over the past few months, Board President Lisa Rodgers and Superintendent Scott Feder have been advocating for the school district after the state cut funding.

Sen. Andrew Zwicker also urged the community to be a part of the advocacy so the state legislature could put a systemic long-term solution into place to prevent drastic aid cuts.

Over the summer, Rodgers has been working together to put together two pieces – one is an explanation of what has happened over the past few years and how much money the district lost, along with its impacts; the other is an FAQ for the general public to better understand what all of this means.

All the information will be up on the school district website.

“I want to make sure that there's a dedicated part to the school district website where people can go to better understand what the advocacy committee is,” Rodgers said.

Members of the advocacy group will be involved in writing letters and making phone calls to Trenton on behalf of the school district.

The district has yet to decide how many people will make up the committee.

“We're going to need a lot of people to go to Trenton and speak out and testify in front of the various committees,” Rodgers said. “We want to move on that within the next month.”

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