Consolidation Of 31 Bergen County Schools Possible

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ – Gov. Phil Murphy has backed a plan that could lead to the elimination of nearly 300 New Jersey school districts, including more than two dozen in Bergen County.

Murphy gave $10 million to New Jersey communities this past week to help promote shared services and study school consolidation. Of that, the governor agreed to set aside $2 million specifically for K-12 regionalization and countywide school district pilots.

Read more here: Big Move On Plan To Eliminate Nearly 300 NJ School Districts

The money would back up an effort started by Senate President Steve Sweeney who has been pitching a 32-recommendation "Path to Progress" plan that he, 26 analysts and so-called experts helped draw up last year.

But in June, Murphy cut $38 million from $48 million that had been set aside for a school consolidation study. It accounts for 80 percent of what had been set aside for the study.
Now Murphy has set aside money for the plan, which includes merging nearly 300 school districts to save the state money.

Sweeney acknowledged that his school consolidation plan would be unpopular, but he also believes that it could provide the state an additional $1 billion.

The plan proposes merging all K-4, K-5, K-6, K-8, and K-9 school districts into K-12 regional districts to improve the quality of education and promote efficiency. It also calls for the establishment of two countywide school district pilot programs.

Here are the local K-6 and K-8 schools that would be merged/eliminated if NJ school districts were consolidated:

• Allendale
• Alpine
• Carlstadt
• Closter
• Demarest
• East Rutherford
• Edgewater
• Englewood Cliffs
• Fairview
• Franklin Lakes
• Harrington Park
• Haworth
• Hillsdale
• Ho-Ho-Kus
• Little Ferry
• Maywood
• Montvale
• Moonachie
• Northvale
• Norwood
• Oakland
• Old Tappan
• Oradell
• River Edge
• River Vale
• Rochelle Park
• Saddle River
• South Hackensack
• Upper Saddle River
• Woodcliff Lake
• Wyckoff