The Jersey City Board of Education is set to receive $89,072,074 from the New Jersey Department of Education due to a provision in the American Rescue Plan.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Good news: in response to ELC complaint to @usdoegov, New Jersey has finally distributed FY22 state aid to high need districts to comply with ESSER Maintenance of Equity (MOEq). Still waiting for FY23 MOEq aid,” the Education Law Center tweeted last night.
In June 2021, advocacy group Jersey City Together said the state must reverse $71 million in cuts to the BOE due to the “maintenance of equity” provision in the American Rescue Plan.
” … A State educational agency shall not, in fiscal year 2022 or 2023, reduce State funding (as calculated on a per-pupil basis) for any high-need local educational agency in the State by an amount that exceeds the overall per-pupil reduction in State funds, if any, across all local educational agencies …,” they wrote in a letter the New Jersey Senate Budget/Appropriations and Assembly Budget Committees at the time.
Then in November, the Education Law Center said that the Jersey City BOE could recoup as much as $126 million in state aid cuts due to the maintenance of equity provision.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop applauded the situation and said it would go a long way for the public schools.
“$89 million is a great result for the #JerseyCity Public Schools and it should go a long way towards fixing many of the infrastructure issues,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Harrison Board of Education will also benefit, receiving $339,772 from the NJ DOE.
The non-instructional full timers and are still waiting for their contracts to honored financially. The part/timers were recently notified that they were only going to receive 1 sick day to start the school year off and they would have to earn any additional days by working 30 days at a time. This district also received millions of Cares Act Money and didn’t provide the custodial staff with PPE equipment.
Let’s see how this improves the quality of education and/ or the infrastructure of the schools.
Hudson County View, how about the other towns in Hudson County, will Hoboken receive anything?
No.