AN IMPORTANT ELECTION MESSAGE FROM R' AARON LANG

Are people going to wake up before the bottom falls out of their home values? Only 20% of the voters last November cared about the dire straights we are in. Instead, the tumult was to get an assemblyman into the legislature in order to "get a seat at the table." I've been at the head of the table for years. The Senate leadership was asking the commissioner how much money for Lakewood after we won in 2023. The governor is buying time to delay the final decision. We were invovled in all three branches of government yet all anyone cared about was vouchers, but not the soon to be billion dollar debt.

Just to illustrate, our school tax levy is a little over $100 million. We have to borrow another hundred million on top of that every year. The bottom is going to fall out. Think about it, if you pay 5,000 in school taxes a year, your portion of the billion dollars will be $50,000. In fact the assemblyman you elected is against my work. He thinks he is going to get the formula fixed in the legislature without a court order.

That is not how NJ works.

Don't think for one second that the State and governor have not been playing Lakewood's BOE as chumps. The icing on the cake was when the governor promised Lakewood $28 million in 2019 and legislature rejected it because they did not have a clue what it was for (that is what Sweeney said). How could they not have a clue if we have been in court against the governor on the funding issue since 2014. The hundreds of millions we owe is a tax. Plain and simple...

Even if we get the formula fixed, we still have to pay the money back. The governor cannot not waive the debt. However, the Court already ruled that Lakewood kids are not getting a sound education and since that is the case, the loans should have been part of the state's contribution, and IY"H they will be forgiven when we get to the NJ Supreme Court and IY"H win.

First I produced documentation of $10 million the BOE gave to 70 or 80 special education children from 2014 to 2018 to withdraw from the district after the commissioner told the BOE that these kids were not in eligible placement. That is $10 million of your taxes that were wasted. No reason that mistake should have been made. And I am talking about services for $10 million. I am talking about payoffs for their mistake since a court will not allow you change the placement even in such a case as in unapproved placement. Many of the parents got over $100,000.

The state produced 2,000 pages of documents at during discovery and trial, including audits and simple mistakes, that cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2014 I told the BOE not to go with the Education Law Center and the Bacon case because the factual record in that case says we do not need more money for the district and that education is adequate. I told the BOE we needed to file a separate case and create a new record of the facts. They did not listen. I won without them. Lakewood is now basically an Abbott district.

Yet the whole time, since the trial ended in 2019, the BOE opposed me. They wrote to the court saying that the education was sufficient and therefore the court should not be involved. They basically agreed with the judge in the case they lost in 2002 when BOE was pleading the same ta'anos as I am pleading now, that the education is inadequate, which we just won on, and the formula is at fault. That part has not been decided yet. The state is claiming the lack of money is not because of the formula but the incompetence of the BOE. Seriously. They are wrong - but it says something about our voters.

The BOE wrote in its brief the same thing the state has been saying for decades. There are about three other people in Lakewood that say that also. The matter is for the legislature, not for the courts. In other words, they tried invalidate what took me ten years to prove. Guess what, our delegation to the legislature has been trying since the 1990s to get a carve out. Thirty years and where is it?

I am not sure how long this candidate was on the BOE, but he was there for sure when Cary Booker, Cory's brother, assistant commissioner, came out with the seething report concerning the Lakewood BOE (Kevin Dahmer, the commissioner, recused himself since he testified in my case. BTW He had no clue how to fix Lakewood).

Booker's report reveals the following glaring issues:

• Financial Transparency. Board involvement with budget development was reported to be minimal. There were no observed board meetings that discussed financial issues or presented detailed information regarding budgets. There appears to be no urgency or accountability for the District’s financial situation by leadership.

• Board Attorney. The Lakewood Board of Education attorney plays a far more active role than the typical board attorney in District business. The Board Attorney stated that his role is not only Board Attorney, but he also provides the District a service like a Communications Director. Lakewood's legal expenses per pupil are significantly higher than comparison districts.

• Culture. A culture of low expectations for students was observed, and high levels of distrust between central office administration and school-based staff.

• Communication. There are communication gaps from the central office administration with both internal and external stakeholders.

• Strategic Plan. The organizational management of the District is not based on a coherent system focused on a District strategic plan. Without a strategic plan, the District relies on a series of annual goals that lack accountability as they do not have metrics that can determine how successful the District is in meeting their goals. Several annual goals are duplicated from previous years.

• Reporting Structure. The organization’s reporting structure does not follow typical practice, as it is designed with many administrators reporting directly to the Superintendent. The Superintendent has 24 direct reports, including all curriculum supervisors, and there is no Assistant Superintendent.

• Decision-making. Large-scale district planning appears to occur behind closed doors. For example, the District changed the configuration of schools for elementary and middle schools this school year. The grade configuration consisted of moving hundreds of students and staff with little notice or explanation as to why the decision was made. There was no discussion at Board meetings or opportunity to provide public input.

• Morale. Staff stated multiple times that the District has a morale issue. Staff reported not feeling respected and fear retaliation from the administration if they speak out in a critical way. Instances of unresponsiveness or unclear communication from the District contribute to a perception of inadequate support.

The Lakewood board meetings are conducted with a consent agenda where agenda items are voted as a package without discussion unless a board member asks for removal of an item. Included within the consent agenda are the first and second readings of policies. There are no discussions of action items, no committee reports, no discussions, and very little public comment. Most school boards in New Jersey have a Policy Committee that meets to discuss changes and updates to existing policies and drafts of new policies. These policies are given first and second readings where this is open discussion among board members about these policies and the public is given time to comment as well.

Mr. Lang's long time 2 arguments are; 1) Lakewood's students are not receiving a constitutionally sound education (known as a Thorough and Efficient education, or T&E), and; 2) the fault of this lies squarely in the fact that New Jersey's School Funding Formula (SFRA) is unconstitutional as applied to Lakewood's unique demographic situation (which has many nonpublic students who need transportation but whom are not counted towards funding).

Succeeding on both of these arguments is key to be able to force State officials to finally provide fairer funding to Lakewood.

As previously reported here on FAA News, back in March 2023 the New Jersey Appellate Division gave Mr. Lang a major victory regarding his first argument.

As previously reported here on FAA News, Mr. Lang has a pending appeal regarding his second argument. Oral arguments will likely be held in the coming months.

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