As the Long Beach Island Board of Education contemplates a bid for the purchase of the LBI Grade School in Ship Bottom, parents and other community members are calling for transparency, as well as careful re-evaluation of the situation now three years, and one superstorm, since the school was first listed for sale.
In fall 2011, following a feasibility study, the board authorized selling the LBI School and consolidating the district’s students in Surf City’s Ethel A. Jacobsen Elementary School, which would be expanded with money from the sale.
“The big question is ‘Why? Why are we doing this?’” remarked Dawn Kennedy-Little of Long Beach Township, a former member of the school board. “Is it really cost-effective? I think people have lost focus on the consolidation process.
“Can we take a step back?”
Kennedy-Little, who was among the Island residents in attendance at a special school board meeting held last Monday, said she wants to see current numbers to justify the potential amalgamation of the two schools, and to know there was a thoughtful, fair, facts-driven approach to the matter. Some creative thinking, she added, might be in order.
The Monday night meeting was conducted almost entirely in closed session, though it was preceded by some public comment and followed by a brief announcement that “no action will be taken tonight,” as board President Marilyn Wasilewski noted. The board gave no further information on the offer made on the school property.
Another special meeting is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 26. Board attorney Dennis McKeever said that meeting will “help explain the narrative” of the potential sale of the school, at 201 20th St., including the feasibility study. “They’re asking good questions,” he said of the community, “and they deserve answers.
“This is a significant decision for the board to make,” he added.
District parents concur, noting in a joint letter read on Monday night, “We are not ready to make a decision on selling either property. … Can the sale of either property support the construction of an addition without incurring debt? Have we had a cost analysis for the projected operating expenses on an addition especially in light of the fact that there is no electric heat conversion planned for the E.J. School as recommended by the (feasibility) study?”
As the letter also states, “there was no mandate to consolidate” from the Island mayors after the 2010 budget was voted down, only a directive that the board reduce the budget and hire a professional firm to perform “a detailed study to examine the ‘possibility of consolidation without impact to the children.’” The study, conducted by LAN Associates, evaluated the condition and amount of space in both buildings, as well as enrollment numbers and trends. The decision to sell the LBI School – listed in October 2011 for $9.5 million – was made by the board after consideration of the study.
In the time since, Superstorm Sandy swept through, damaging the LBI School and sending its third,- fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders to the E.J. School – which houses pre-kindergarten through second grade – during the renovation process. Parents would like to see the upgrades to the LBI School, as well as received and outstanding funding from insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, factored into the decision on the school sale.
Around town, and on social media, residents have shared their concerns, their questions and word of contractor sightings near the LBI School.
More than anything, said Kennedy-Little, parents and other local year ’rounders want to be heard, and want to know that an informed decision will be made, one that is best for the children and the community.
Stacey Fuessinger of Ship Bottom, who also attended the Monday meeting, noted, “We’re the doctors, the real estate professionals, the shopkeeps … We are the community.
“We need to look at the big picture.”
Visit the district website, lbisd.schoolfusion.us, for posts on upcoming meeting dates and times.
— Juliet Kaszas-Hoch
juliet@thesandpaper.net