Sanity finally prevails in Marlboro case against high school district

After five years of battling the Freehold Regional High School District on the issue of redistricting, Marl-boro has finally decided (News Transcript, July 23, 2003) to stop acting as if special rules applied to it.

Interestingly, it took a state administrative law judge to make crystal clear what a federal district court judge four years ago got so wrong.

Marlboro children, just like other children throughout the district, are subject to redistricting when the FRHSD Board of Edu-cation, and not a court, determines that such redistricting is warranted.

Sending some Marlboro children to the newest, most technologically advanced high school in Colts Neck, the most affluent town in the district (or, for that matter, to any of the regional high schools), never was the bugaboo that too many Marlboro parents made it out to seem.

Nonsensical and expensive litigation to residents of the entire district has come to an end. Sanity has finally won out.

To its credit, the Marlboro Township Council (albeit with one Neanderthal holdout) has finally recognized (with a push from the administrative law judge) that it is part of a regional high school district for purposes including the need to redistrict.

As such, Marlboro can no longer simply continue to demand that taxpayers throughout the district pay for millions of dollars of school construction in Marlboro to alleviate overcrowding in Marlboro High School when empty spaces go wanting in other parts of the district.

It was encouraging to read council President Ellen Karcher’s words that Marlboro "should work together and negotiate with [the FRHSD], rather than litigating every time we have a problem."

The days of seeking "special" treatment by whining to the courts, is, hopefully, finally over.

Marlboro’s recognition of the prohibitive cost of building a new high school on its own should give those who have opposed redistricting further pause for rational thought.

It should end any talk of withdrawal from and dissolution of the district, the process of which would entail great chaos and expense to the taxpayers of the entire FRHSD.

The FRHSD board can now move ahead to plan for a badly needed seventh high school, recognizing that another redistricting plan will then be required.

Only this time, when it comes time to implement a new plan, all towns will chip in together to do their fair share so that student populations are distributed evenly and in a way that also minimizes taxpayer expense.

Barry Fulmer

Freehold Township