N.J. education department disputes Abbot pre-school eligibility claims

By James Queally/The Star-Ledger

December 04, 2009, 8:00PM

Claims made Thursday by a Newark-based advocacy group that nearly 7,000 students would be rendered ineligible for pre-school in Abbott districts across the state were "incorrect and misleading," the state Board of Education said.

In a press release issued Thursday, Elizabeth Athos, a senior attorney at the Education Law Center, wrote that 6,891 three-and-four year-olds would be rendered ineligible for pre-school in the state’s 31 Abbott districts because of a change in the way the board tracks the number of students eligible for pre-school residing in a city or township.

Today, Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy said the data supporting the Education Law Center’s claims were actually estimates of the amount of students expected to attend pre-school in Abbot districts, and did not indicate that students would be dropped from the landmark program borne from the Abbot vs. Burke school equity rulings.

"The preschool universe estimates are in no way tied to funding or whether or not children will be served. All former Abbott school districts are required to serve all resident, age-eligible preschool children whose parents present them for enrollment, even if the total number of children exceeds the preschool universe estimate," Davy said. "The calculation is purely an estimate of the number of children that a district is potentially responsible to serve."

The change in the way the board collects estimated data does not eliminate students who attend first-grade at private or parochial schools, as the Law Center claimed Thursday, BOE spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said.

The board now estimates "preschool universes" by doubling the total number of students attending first-grade in public schools to account for the exclusion of private school data that was collected in an "unsystematic manner."

Davy also said that if districts feel their preschool estimates are not representative of the amount of students they need to serve, they can request an adjustment.