Poverty Rate Among Red Bank School Children Rising

The number continues to grow, year after year.

In Red Bank, 81 percent of children attending the borough’s public schools qualify for free or reduced lunch benefits. It’s a startling number, one that not only highlights the district’s need for additional funding but also provides insight into an apparent, but overlooked, rising level of poverty in a town long accused of ignoring everything beyond the lights of its own downtown.

At the Tuesday night, the district’s board of education members lamented the growing figure, one that has increased seven percent in the last five years alone, as well what they believe to be inequity in the amount of state aid the borough receives each year.

Board Vice President Ben Forest said he’s concerned about the future of the district’s finances. Red Bank School District has been able to manage its budget in the face of inadequate aid but at the cost of its entire surplus budget. The rainy day fund, the one that exists for emergency situations, no longer exists.

“We’re playing nice with our legislators in Trenton,” he said, referencing, in part during the board meeting, Gov. Chris Christie’s mandated two-percent budget increase cap. “But, I’m increasingly alarmed at our funding situation.

“Trenton owes us more money.”

Superintendent Laura Morana said districts throughout the state that are designated as Abbott districts and receive demonstratively more aid often have free and reduced lunch figures much lower than Red Bank’s. As an example, Morana pointed to the Neptune school district, which is an Abbott district with 51 percent of its student population eligible for lunch benefits.

In order to qualify for free lunch, a household with one child must earn less than $15,000 annually. Reduced lunch raises that figure to about $20,000.

Free and reduced lunch isn’t the only determining qualification for the amount of state aid a district receives, but Morana thinks it should carry more weight then it currently does. The formula for state aid relies on a number of statistical factors, many of which are tied to a town’s larger population.

Prior to finalizing its next year budget, Morana said the district is going to develop a plan highlighting the financial needs of its students. The plan, in whatever undetermined manifestation it’s presented, will likely be completed sometime in January.

“We want to be able to use that figure to establish the inequity,” she said following the meeting. “We need to be able to establish our need.”

It’s not just the school district angling for more money. State Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-12, invited Acting Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf to the Red Bank Primary School in October to show off the school’s . Red Bank is one of just 14 districts throughout the state funded at 20 percent below adequacy, Beck said, a figure determined by the state itself.

Red Bank School District is also facing a growing student population – the middle school welcomed its first class of more than 1 this past September – as well as rising costs associated with accommodating special education students and even homeless students in the district. Red Bank has also been identified as a in the most recently released state report cards, though Morana contends that the issue has less to do with its teaching methods and more to do with the challenges presented by a diverse student population, a large percentage of which are growing up in non-English speaking households.

District Business Administrator Annie Darrow said it’s hard to find extra money in a budget that’s already been stretched to its limits. With the state’s imposed two percent budget cap, the money is already spent. Rising health care costs, transportation costs, “All of these things do not fit in to the two percent cap,” she said.