Failed bond proposal in Wayne would lead to school redistricting, officials warn

WAYNE — In academic circles, it can be a taboo word.

Parents of school-age children typically shield their ears at faintest murmurs of “redistricting.”

But that is what is likely to happen, K-12 district officials are warning, if a $169.8 million bond proposal is shot down by voters next week. They say consequences would include larger class sizes and a need to redraw the boundaries for neighborhood schools.

The referendum on March 12 will ask the average property owner, with a home assessed at $229,473, to pay $370 annually in school debt taxes for 25 years.

The bond proposal would fund more than five dozen projects, but if it is rejected, said schools Superintendent Mark Toback, “everything remains status quo.”

The largest chunk of the bond proposal is the $44.9 million construction of a wing with 24 classrooms at the early childhood center at Preakness School.

That space is required for children who are expected to come from new residential developments, including a 473-unit housing complex on Valley Road, school officials said.

Without the addition to the century-old campus on Hamburg Turnpike, Toback said, the incoming students would be enrolled in John F. Kennedy School on Ratzer Road.

And that school, which opened almost a year after Kennedy was assassinated, in September 1964, is already crowded, Toback said.

The superintendent broached the topic at a public forum at Wayne Hills High School, where he, an architect and other hired professionals discussed the finer points of the bond proposal — the first that township voters have considered in nine years.

“Is that really acceptable to the parents at JFK?” Toback said, referring to potential overcrowding.

The superintendent then responded to the rhetorical question himself, adding: “The answer is that it wouldn’t be acceptable, and it wouldn’t be fair for those students or for the school.”

Redistricting, he said, would be the only solution.

But the figures Toback relied on to form that opinion were disputed less than a week later by Mayor Christopher Vergano, who has publicly attacked the bond proposal because he said it is bloated.

“For me, this is pure numbers,” Vergano said at a Township Council meeting. “It’s not personalities — I just think that it’s too much money.”

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According to a demography study commissioned by the Board of Education, the new development on Valley Road, being constructed by Virginia-based AvalonBay Communities Inc., would initially generate 177 students.

The 16-page study released Friday also predicts that, between the 2024 school year and the 2028 school year, the net increase in district enrollment would be 393 students for a total of 8,105.

That factors in the impact of the AvalonBay project and other future developments plus a downward trend in district population that began about a decade ago.

Vergano said the projections are “factually incorrect,” and in a swipe at the school board, he called the Wayne Hills forum a “well-orchestrated production.”

“We have to take care of our children,” Vergano said, “but we have to be able to afford to live here at the same time.”

LAND USE: More housing in Wayne? AvalonBay quietly plans a 490-unit project on Valley Road

The mayor was supported in his remarks by Councilman Richard Jasterzbski, who made an analogy between the bond proposal and an expensive meal.

“If you can afford to have surf and turf, you order it,” Jasterzbski said. “But you don’t order it on someone else’s tab. You order what you can afford. We spend the residents’ money. We spend it conservatively.”

Councilwoman Francine Ritter, often a dissenting voice on the governing body, said she viewed the bond proposal in a different light.

She countered an earlier observation that taxpayers, like the owner of Willowbrook Mall — those with vast property holdings — would have to pay enormous increases if the referendum succeeds.

“I know that it’s more money,” Ritter said. “But it costs money to make money. Our kids need a future.”

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: devencentis@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Wayne school officials play up new housing impact in referendum pitch