At the same time the Henry Hudson Regional Board of Education is facing harsh criticism and complaints about lack of communication and diminished educational standards from Atlantic Highlands parents, Highlands Council president Joanne Olszewski and the Borough of Highlands are calling on the New Jersey Commissioner of Education to provide relief under state school law, assess its financial situation and correct the disproportionate share of assets and financial reserves the school district provided through records provided by the former Highlands Board of Education.
Briefly, this means the current nine member Board of Education, elected last November and taking office for the first time in January, now faces a series of financial challenges from Highlands taxpayers at the same time they are hearing from Atlantic Highlands parents that education in the Atlantic Highlands elementary school is bad, getting worse, and communications between board and school officials and parents is worse than terrible.
On the financial issue, Olszewski, who has led the challenge both on her own and as council president in the borough on issues concerning whether Sea Bright can be included in the newly regionalized three school district, said she filed the petition earlier last month since the state Commissioner has jurisdiction in the matter as it arises from school laws and she is seeking an investigation and solution.
In her ten page petition which was filed last month, Olszewski gave the Commissioner the background of the formation of the three school district in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands, dating back to 2020 when Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and Sea Bright began their search to find the viability and impact of a regional district that would include the three schools in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands and the students in Sea Bright which does not have any schools, into a new all-purpose Pk-12 regional district.
The three boroughs commissioned studies and received documented studies that analyzed the options and financial, educational and racial impacts if they formed the proposed K12 district
Two years later, the three boroughs passed resolutions calling for a vote to create a PK-12 district with Sea Bight’s inclusion in it.
That same summer, the three boroughs, together with the three boards of education in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands, joined in a single petition to the Commissioner of Education to authorize Sea Bright’s withdrawal from the Shore Regional and Oceanport school districts their children current attend. The purpose was to enable Sea Bright to join the newly former Henry Hudson district as a third member.
Nine months later, in March of 2023, the boards of education in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands amended the petition to the Commissioner and requested it proceed to a referendum to form a Pk-12 district with just the two boroughs of Highlands and Atlantic Highlands.
In support of their petition, the three boards then commissioned another feasibility study from Kean University. And in July 2023, the Commissioners approved a referendum which would,, if approved, establish a regional district including the three schools in the two towns, excluding Sea Bright.
But, the recently filed petition continued, the Commissioner did not discuss the apportionment or accounting of financial assess on the two districts should the three boards be dissolved and a single regional district be formed.
The Henry Hudson Board held an information session before the vote designed to show the financial benefits, efficiency, fiscal responsibilities and tax savings to each of the two towns.
Olszewski’s petition points out that Highlands taxpayers were told that the allocation for each borough’s contribution “would not and could not be changed.”
As a result, Highlands voters, believing the assets and liabilities of both boards of education would be proportional and all players in both school districts of Highlands and Atlantic Highlands would realize similar savings, approved the referendum in September 2023.
The new Pre-K-12 regional district combining the three schools in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands was formed in July 2024, into the new Henry Hudson Regional Prek-12 school district, including all assets and liabilities associated with the two elementary school boards incorporated into the new school district, including capital reserves and surplus.
However, Olszewski’s petition points out, ‘recent financial information shows the Highlands Board of Education contributed significantly more to the regional school district “in terms of net assets and reserves.”
Further, recent information also noted that “the tax allocation method, which taxpayers had been told could not be changed under the 100 percent equalized property value, was inequitable to the borough of Highlands.
Citing the Statement of Net Position in the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the period until the end of June 2024, indications are that Highlands’ net financial position was in actuality approximately $3,052,160 more than Atlantic Highlands financial position. That means Highlands contributed 86 per cent more in net assets to the new PreK-12 school district than Atlantic Highlands.
Highland total reserves, the petition continues, for the same period equaled $3,307,712, whereas Atlantic Highlands total reserves equaled $1,447,369 pr nearly $2 million less That means Highlands contributed roughly just under 70 per cent of all the reserves to the new district.
The first time all of this information was made public by the Regional School District Board of Education was at the January 22, 2025, meeting, when the Board of Education approved its annual Comprehensive Financial Report at a public meeting, Olszewski said in her petition.
After presenting all this information to the state Education Commissioner Olszewski is calling on the Commissioner to have the regional district provide a complete inventory of all assets, real and personal it received in the formation of the new district, information she said is mandated but she does not believe has yet been received. Absent this accounting, as required by law, Olszewski said taxpayers in Highlands “do not know how the significant issues they brought to the regional school district have been spent, or whether they have been used primarily for the benefits of Highlands students.
Had Highlands voters been made aware they were contributing significantly higher sums than Atlantic Highlands payers for equal education for both boroughs, “Highlands voters may not have voted in favor of the referendum” that created the district, the council president said.
The petition is further calling on the Commissioner to issue an order requiring the new regional district to create a reserve fund for the benefits of the Highlands Elementary School and grant a tax credit applicable to Highlands to equal the disproportionate assets and serves contributed by Highlands to the new regional board, actions the council president said would be “just and proper.”
“The Commissioner has the authority to order an accounting and to provide relief to the Borough of Highlands and its taxpayers,” Olszewski said in filing the petition which was submitted by Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, P.C., the Morristown firm who has been representing both Highlands and Olszewski, with attorneys Vito Gagliardi, Jr. and Kerri A Wright representing for both the borough and councilwoman in the action.
