Manchester BOE President Delivers Message to Congress

Donald Webster, Jr., President of the Manchester Township and Vice President for Finance of the NJ School Boards Association, joined more than 800 school board and state school boards association leaders to ask Congress to support public school students as they consider the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) this year. 

Webster was in Washington, D.C., to take part in the National School Boards Association’s 39th annual Federal Relations Network Conference held in early February. The network is a national grassroots legislative effort that urges members of Congress to make K-12 education a top priority. School board leaders are requesting that Congress help ensure that public education is adequately funded and discontinue the practice of passing education legislation without providing the necessary funding for local implementation. 

“Congress must focus on a long-term solution to funding education in America to rebuild our economy and ensure that our students will successfully compete in the global market,” Webster said in his message to Congress. “It is also clear that education funding cannot be expected to return to pre-recession levels until later in this decade, yet schools are being asked not only to sustain student achievement but to increase it while at the same time address additional accountability and other mandated administrative issues that don’t directly affect education in the classroom. What will be the long-term impact of this unprecedented budget crunch? Just think for a moment: Today’s primary schoolchildren may graduate from high school before their districts can afford to reinvest in quality teachers, small classes, and proven educational programs.” 

“For schools to succeed in the long run, school boards, policymakers, and the public need to reexamine how public education is funded at the local, state, and federal levels. We need a funding system that will stop the bleeding permanently by providing reliable and sustainable funding for public education. What that funding system looks like should be the subject of a serious national conversation—and the subject of in-depth research.” 

The Manchester Township School District consists of five schools with approximately 3,250 students, classified as a District Factor Group B school district, with only the former Abbott Districts classified lower. The district has three elementary schools (Whiting, Ridgeway and Manchester Twp.), Manchester Township Middle School, and Manchester Township High School. Two of the three elementary schools are classified as Title I schools. Over 25 percent of the student population now qualify for free or reduced lunches and, due to the struggling economy, the number of eligible students is increasing dramatically. 

The high school has 1,250 students. The Borough of Lakehurst sends their graduates (160 currently) to our high school on a tuition reimbursement basis. The district also operates the Regional Day School at Jackson, a special needs school, for the State of New Jersey.