Boro lobbies for bill on schooling Earle students
Navy to hold public meeting Nov. 27 at Brookdale CC
BY MELISSA KARSH Staff Writer
Through an e-mail campaign, Tinton Falls officials are urging residents to ask state legislators to pass a bill that would redefine which children could attend borough schools from Naval Weapons Station (NWS) Earle.

The initiative is a response to a proposal by the Department of the Navy to enter into a lease agreement with a private housing developer to open about 300 housing units for rental to civilians on NWS Earle in Colts Neck by 2010.

In the wake of the proposal to privatize housing on NWS Earle, Tinton Falls Board of Education (BOE) members have stepped up their efforts to change the wording of existing legislation that would hold the borough responsible for educating those non-Navy dependent children who would also be living on the federal property, by the end of the year.

According to Borough Council President Michael Skudera, the bill, sponsored by District 12 Sen. Ellen Karcher, a Democrat, needs to be passed by the end of the year.

Karcher was defeated in this year's election by Republican Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck.

Karcher's Assembly counterpart Michael Panter, who lost his seat to a Republican challenger, sponsored a similar bill in the Assembly, which passed earlier this year.

According to Skudera, in a Nov. 14 email, "If the state Senate bill is not passed by the end of this year, both the Assembly and Senate bills will expire and the process will need to start over again."

"Our district is in dire need. We have the real [possibility] of educating 200 to 500 children that do not even live in our town and we will get no funding whatsoever from the Navy or taxes," said Tinton Falls Board of Education President Peter Karavites at the Nov. 12 BOE meeting. "We are talking the destruction of our schools, the quality of our schools."

Karavites added that with the possible addition of these students without extra monies coming into the school district, class sizes could rise to about 30 to 40 kids per class.

Karavites started the e-mail campaign to change the wording of a 1988 contract between the school district and the Navy, in which Tinton Falls agreed to educate those children living on NWS Earle. The change would stipulate that the district would educate only those Navy-dependent children, and not the children of civilians, who may also be living on the base due to the new proposal.

Karavites explained previously that 18 years ago, Colts Neck sued the U.S. Navy because the township no longer wanted to educate the children of Navy personnel in its school district.

Tinton Falls agreed to take the students in return for impact aid, which, according to Karavites, was a couple of million dollars.

On average, the school district gets $2,000 for each of 103 military (U.S. Navy dependents) children, but that it costs between $9-$10,000 to educate a student in Tinton Falls, said BOE Administrator Tamar Sydney-Gens previously.

According to the Tinton Falls BOE, the government does not pay a fair share cost of educating military children.

According to the BOE Web site, "The Tinton Falls School District will not receive any impact aid for nonmilitary (civilian) children who reside on this federal property. Based on the law as it is currently written, the Tinton Falls School District is required to continue to educate these civilians at the physical and financial expense of our taxpayers."

Also on the Web site at http://www.tfs.k12.nj.us is a link for residents to click on and join a petition asking state legislators to pass legislation in the state Senate during the lame duck session.

"This district has been the most patriotic district in New Jersey," said Karavites at the Nov. 12 BOE meeting. "Nowhere else in the United States do children live in one town and come to school in another. Nowhere in the United States does that happen except here and this district for 18 years has faithfully educated thousands upon thousands of Navy kids."

He continued, "We actually went to the Navy and said we will take children that are not Navy. We will take Army and Air Force kids. We are talking about civilians. Anybody can move there and they will be sent to our schools."

Borough Councilman Brendan Tobin also spoke at the Nov. 12 BOE meeting about NWS Earle.

"Borough Council has passed a resolution backing the BOE on this. It is an issue that affects everyone in town. It is very, very simple to go on that form and go through it," said Tobin at the meeting. He was referencing a resolution the council had passed several months ago in support of the school board's efforts.

The Navy will be holding a scoping meeting with public input and then will put together an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which will include potential impacts of the proposal.

"We've got a public hearing coming up at Brookdale … I would like to see citizens show up for that," said Beck this week.

"The issue here is that both residents of Tinton Falls and residents of Colts Neck should be fighting to stop the Navy from bringing civilians to Earle."

Although the Navy will not be making a presentation at the open-house meeting Nov. 27 at Brookdale Community College, representatives will be manning information stations.

"This format allows a chance for the public to review the process and provide their input directly to EIS team members," U.S. Navy Capt. G. A. Maynard wrote in a Nov. 8 letter about the scoping meeting.

According to the letter, the Navy will also evaluate the potential impacts to local school systems, base security, community services and traffic impacts at proposed intersections to state roads.

The Tinton Falls BOE will also be holding a question and answer information session the night before the Navy open house meeting on Nov. 26 at the Mahala F. Atchison School on Sycamore Avenue.

"At the end of the day neither Colts Neck nor Tinton Falls, neither one of those school districts, can handle that influx of children, neither one. It will devastate both of them. The answer here is to stop the Navy from moving the civilians in," said Beck.

The newly elected district 12 senator also said she will be presenting a petition with 1,400 signatures opposing the Navy's plans at the Navy's Nov. 27 meeting.