Vote in the April 15 Board of Ed. election

Over the past several months, our school district has been meeting to prepare a budget for the 2008-09 school year. The Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education unanimously adopted this budget and on April 15 our two municipalities will have the opportunity to vote on it.

The district's budget is designed to support academic performance, artistic accomplishment, athletic achievement and character development throughout our district. The proposed budget maintains all academic, cocurricular and extracurricular programs from the current year, maintains class size at a level we feel maximizes our teachers' ability to deliver instruction, and continues our subject matter supervisors at the high school in English, math and science.

The additions to the 2008-09 budget, if adopted by the voters, will impact curriculum in a very meaningful and tangible way.

First, the new budget provides funds for the purchase of new textbooks at all levels; this has been a legitimate source of concern in our community, as some of our books are 20 years old and obviously outdated. Under the proposed budget, we added funds for guided reading texts, literacy assessment kits for kindergarten through fourth grade, and textbooks throughout the district.

Second, the budget contains additional professional development and training opportunities for our teaching staff.

Third, we added teachers at critical levels including additions to the eighth-grade teaching staff, special education teaching staff, language arts staff and teaching staff at the high school.

Fourth, we will provide for the expansion of our prekindergarten program for regular education and special education students.

Finally, we need to continue to find creative solutions to address the severe overcrowding at our elementary/middle school until our new middle school opens in September 2010. The budget provides for these needs in three ways: our pre-kindergarten program will rent classroom space at Millstone, freeing one classroom in our current building; we will rent space at the Robbinsville Field House, located two miles from our school, to allow our seventh and eighth graders to have appropriate space in which they can receive the state-mandated physical education program; and, as a last resort, we are purchasing three additional classroom cottages for our students, so that we can accommodate all the classes in the fifth and sixth grades in our annex, making it a fifth- and sixth-grade facility.

The new school budget does represent an increase in school taxes for the coming year. Because ours is a regional district that receives support from both Allentown Borough and Upper Freehold Township, the apportionment of the tax levy is actually calculated by the state of New Jersey and is based on a ratio of equalized property values. The tax ratio is not set by the Board of Education. This year's proposed budget represents an increase of 13 cents per $100 of assessed home value for Allentown (or $199 per year for the average home) and .006 cents per $100 of assessed home value for Upper Freehold (or $32 per average home).

The Board of Education is committed to providing the best possible environment in which our students can achieve their personal best. In order to accomplish that goal, we must provide teachers with the resources to do their job, which we feel they do extraordinarily well. We feel that this budget continues to move the district forward. We certainly hope you agree and hope you will vote on April 15.
Joe Stampe
Board of Education President
Bill Borkowski
Board of Education
Vice President
Upper Freehold Township
Allentown Borough