JACKSON – School officials recently filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against the State of New Jersey, the New Jersey Department of Education, and the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, challenging what the district believes is a systemic and unconstitutional underfunding of the Jackson School District.
“For years, the state has failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide Jackson students with proper funding to support a ‘thorough and efficient education, as required under Article VIII, Section IV of the New Jersey Constitution,” School Board Attorney Marc Zitomer said in a statement.
“This ongoing deprivation of $22.4 million over seven years forced the district to eliminate 285 staff positions, curtail academic and extracurricular programs, and sell Rosenauer Elementary School. For the 2025-2026 school year, the prolonged and drastic funding cuts compelled the district to implement a district-wide reconfiguration that merges high schools, merges middle schools and requires the closing of Christa McAuliffe Middle School next year in order to get it ready for sale,” the statement continued.
There are an additional 100 positions to be cut for next year, bringing the total positions lost to 385, the district stated. Despite years of officials and lawmakers advocating for more aid, the state has not corrected these issues, district officials said.
“The district’s position is that rather than offering constructive solutions, the state has repeatedly deflected responsibility, despite widespread public acknowledgement that our fiscal challenges stem from a revenue shortfall, not mismanagement or overspending,” Zitomer added.
“Somewhere along the way, the formula became broken and the state has refused to address it to account for the unique circumstances in Jackson,” Jackson Board of Education President Tina Kas said. “We worked closely with our county office, our fiscal monitor and representatives from the state Department of Education.”
Kas added, “we pleaded for the state to intervene. Yet, we were offered no changes other than an acknowledgement that the formula may need to be ‘tweaked’ in the future. Our students are suffering. We cannot wait.”
The district’s 2025–2026 budget is projected to be $40.5 million below the state’s own definition of adequacy. The lawsuit contends that this funding gap impacts the district’s ability to fulfill its constitutional mandate to provide all students with a quality public education.
Central to the legal complaint is the assertion that New Jersey’s school funding formula fails to account for Jackson’s unique demographic obligations – most notably, the significant financial burden associated with transporting and providing aid-in-lieu payments for a rapidly growing population of non-public school students eligible to receive transportation.
The number of such non-public students currently exceeds 6,400 and is expected to surpass 8,000 in the coming school year, which is more than the current public school enrollment of 7,393. Additionally, the lawsuit argues that the state’s rejection of Jackson’s application for emergency stabilization aid – while approving similar requests from other districts – constitutes discriminatory, arbitrary, and capricious treatment in violation of constitutional equal protection principles.
Over the years, school officials have gathered support from other school districts that have experienced similar state aid cuts such as nearby Plumsted, Brick and Toms River townships.
Twelfth District Assemblyman Alex Sauickie has also advocated for a restructuring of the S-2 school aid funding formula that has left certain districts in the state without proper funding. He has testified on behalf of Jackson’s school district stating the funding formula has unfairly hurt the district.
The Jackson Times reached out to the office of New Jersey Department of Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer and the Department of Education for comment. “The New Jersey Department of Education cannot comment on matters involving pending litigation,” New Jersey Department of Education Department Spokesperson/Public Information Officer Mike Yaple said.
