LAKEWOOD -- Students enrolled in Lakewood schools will receive a "tragically inadequate and inferior" education next year unless nearly $15 million in budget cuts can be avoided, according to its superintendent.
Without last-minute state assistance, Lakewood would have to lay off 119 teachers and the average class size would swell to 50 students, according to a letter from Superintendent Laura Winters to Ocean County Interim Executive Superintendent Judith DeStefano-Anen outlining the district's financial problems.
Besides firing off one-fourth of its teachers, the district would be forced to halt all interscholastic sports and many extracurricular activities. In addition, before and after-care would be eliminated from Lakewood's elementary schools.
The reduced budget would also not provide funding for guidance counselors at elementary schools or a summer school program at Lakewood High School. Another $500,000 allotted for the purchase of new school supplies would be a casualty as well.
The already challenged district (nearly 39 percent of the town is below the poverty line) is required to to spend $2.1 million of its budget to fund a new charter school opening in town.
The 2017-18 budget also includes an additional $5.4 million in salary hikes and health benefits to be paid to district employees. In addition, Lakewood must foot the bill to bus 30,000 students to dozens of non-public schools in town.
Courtesy busing is not part of the district's 2017-18 budget for its own students, though.
The township, which had an official estimated population of 99,262 in 2015, enrolls 5,000 students in its public schools.
Lakewood faced an $11 million budget shortfall last year before the state provided $6 million in aid to help it avert the most serious cuts.
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