Funding Alert

Leaders of the NJ Statewide Education Organizing Committee (SEOC) are stepping up their campaign to make the NJ Department of Education take parent and community concerns more seriously, including implementation of required programs to support parent participation in school improvement efforts.

On Saturday, November 11, 60 public school parents, community leaders, students, and education advocates from Newark, Jersey City, Asbury Park, Camden, Plainfield, Trenton, and Union City attended the 5th Annual SEOC Conference in New Brunswick, NJ.

A primary goal of the event was to advance SEOC’s campaign to get the NJ Department of Education (DOE) to fully implement the Abbott parent involvement mandates. Abbott requirements include a number of "supplementary programs" aimed at helping students outside of the classroom as well as inside. One of these is a required parent involvement program. Under Abbott, every school should have a parent involvement program that includes parents in school decision-making and, where needed, has parent liaisons on staff to support that participation. When SEOC parent leaders realized this often wasn’t happening, they embarked on a campaign to hold the DOE accountable for implementing this vital element of school reform.

The Conference also featured workshops on current threats to Abbott funding: how to use Abbott rulings to empower parents, middle and high school reform, and school construction. Parents also participated in workshops on basic organizing techniques and examined models of successful parent organizing from other states. Workshop leaders included Paul Battle from the Center for Community Change, Rosie Grant from the Paterson Education Fund, Patricia Jelly from La Casa de Don Pedro and Lesley Hirsch, Joan Ponessa, and Stan Karp of the Education Law Center.

The Conference ended with a public assembly with guest Valarie Smith, NY/NJ Regional Representative of the U.S. Secretary of Education. After fielding some tough questions about the interplay between state and federal education laws, Ms. Smith made a strong statement in support of SEOC’s efforts to hold the NJDOE accountable for making sure strong parent involvement programs exist in every school. She made a commitment to report back to SEOC about "best practices" in successful parent involvement programs around the country, something SEOC has been asking the NJ DOE to do for years. Finally, Smith said she would talk with the US Education Department’s accountability office about looking into the implementation of the NCLB parent involvement requirements by NJ schools.

SEOC plans to follow up on the Conference by asking Assemblyman Craig Stanley, Co-Chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Schools, to hold hearings on the question of how DOE is implementing parent involvement mandates. SEOC leaders will also meet with Ms. Jeannine LaRue, Governor Corzine’s deputy chief of staff, to seek the Governor’s support for their campaign.

At the end of the Conference, parents signed up for one of three SEOC campaigns: to promote full implementation of the Abbott parent involvement mandates, to get the Abbott school construction program back on its feet, and to make sure the state maintains Abbott funding mandates as it develops a new school funding formula.

SEOC is a direct action organizing project among Abbott district parents with membership in Newark, Jersey City, Asbury Park, Plainfield, Camden, Trenton, and other Abbott districts. For more information, contact SEOC’s Statewide Organizer at 201-333-5700, ext 546.