The Lakewood Board of Education voted Wednesday night to end courtesy transportation for public school students who do not qualify for state-mandated busing, citing the loss of municipal funding.
The decision affects students who live within the distance limits established by New Jersey law and therefore are not legally entitled to district-provided transportation. Lakewood had previously provided bus service to some of these students as a courtesy.
According to the resolution approved by the Board of Education, Lakewood Township informed the district that it could no longer fund transportation for non-mandated students. The township has been dealing with significant budget pressure after the State Local Finance Board rejected its request to raise an additional $12.9 million in property tax revenue above the state’s 2% cap.
The change comes amid broader transportation funding problems in Lakewood. Earlier this month, the Lakewood Student Transportation Authority announced a substantial increase in fees for non-mandated transportation after losing municipal support. The initially announced $945 annual fee was later reduced to $675 per student.
The new Board of Education action does not eliminate all school transportation in Lakewood. Students who meet New Jersey’s requirements for mandated transportation will continue to qualify for busing.
Lakewood faces a particularly unusual school-funding and transportation situation. While the district has only about 4,000 public school students, more than 60,000 students attend public and nonpublic schools combined in the township. When nonpublic students are included, Lakewood’s total student population is larger than Newark’s.
The challenge is that New Jersey’s school funding formula is based primarily on public school enrollment, while Lakewood continues to face substantial transportation and service demands tied to its much larger overall student population.
Source: Shlomo Schorr / OneJerseySchorr on X; The Lakewood Scoop.
By NJ RADAR Team