{"id":15074,"date":"2019-08-09T04:56:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T08:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=15074"},"modified":"2019-08-09T04:56:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T08:56:21","slug":"amidst-uncertainty-brick-school-board-allows-donation-of-new-playground-to-herbertsville-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2019\/08\/amidst-uncertainty-brick-school-board-allows-donation-of-new-playground-to-herbertsville-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Amidst Uncertainty, Brick School Board Allows Donation of New Playground to Herbertsville School"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Herbertsville<\/a>

Herbertsville Elementary School (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the next several years, as Brick Township\u2019s school system will gradually lose $23 million in state funding, schools may be subject to closure or \u201creconfiguration,\u201d officials said, as the Board of Education considered the acceptance of a $38,000 playground for Herbertsville Elementary School Thursday night.<\/p>\n

The board ultimately approved the playground, which was the result of multiple years of fundraising efforts by parents and students, some of whom have already moved on to middle school. The years-long effort to fund a new playground brought dozens of Herbertsville residents and members of the school\u2019s PTA to the board meeting, urging the seven-member body to approve the playground. The PTA had previously been told by officials that the playground may not have been allowed to be built because of the uncertainty of the school operating after the 2019-20 school year due to the district\u2019s declining financial health.<\/p>\n

School officials had also apparently advised the PTA that about $6,000 should be left in an escrow account to be saved in case the playground equipment needed to be moved in the future, but that path was not favored by the school community. Parents took Thursday\u2019s meeting as an opportunity not only to lobby for the playground donation to be accepted, but to speak in opposition to the school facing closure. Some parents even said they moved to their current neighborhood specifically so their children could attend Herbertsville School, which has long been considered one of the district\u2019s most highly-regarded schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have pinched our pennies, baked, borrowed, auctioned and begged,\u201d said Herbertsville parent Brenn Swanson, of the fundraising effort. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey over four years for a small school like this to come up with this money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parents said the school community at Herbertsville is particularly close \u2013 \u201cthe small school with the big heart\u201d \u2013 as one described it. The dedication to the playground project was evidence of the school\u2019s unique value in the community, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is no small feat that year after year, Herbertsville students came together to raise money for a new playground,\u201d said Cindy Cory of Paramount Way.<\/p>\n

Kelly Tobin, another parent, said closing the school would \u201cuproot the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope this will be a last, or dire, option, and we want to see Herbertsville stay in our community,\u201d Tobin added.<\/p>\n

\"Herbertsville<\/a>

Herbertsville Elementary School (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

James Edwards, the district\u2019s business administrator, said there have not been any decisions made on whether schools will have to be closed in the future. Another option that will be considered, potentially as an alternative to closures, is \u201creconfiguring\u201d the district\u2019s schools. In that scenario, the grade levels of the elementary and middle schools could change in order to better balance class sizes across the student population if staff is reduced. Stafford Township\u2019s school district took that step as a cost-saving measure.<\/p>\n

Though the issue of potential school closures in the future came to light inadvertently by way of the donation discussion, officials urged parents district-wide to come to school board meetings to share their concerns and with ideas on how the district can cope with the funding crisis. Edwards previously told Shorebeat that if a PTA at another school had a large donation to offer, they would have been told the same as the Herbertsville parents.<\/p>\n

Edwards did say Thursday that officials are focusing on generating new income sources and maintaining services rather than looking to cut schools or programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really need to be looking first at where we can replace the revenue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the next several years, as Brick Township\u2019s school system will gradually lose $23 million in state funding, schools may be subject to closure or \u201creconfiguration,\u201d officials said, as the Board of Education considered the acceptance of a $38,000 playground for Herbertsville Elementary School Thursday night. The board ultimately approved the playground, which was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[24,2285],"class_list":["post-15074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-herbertsville-elementary-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/IMG_7335.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3V8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}