School elections in April. PSATs on a Saturday morning. The timing of those two deeply ingrained academic traditions will be under review in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District. The School Board, which raised the question of changing the election date at its November 27 meeting, heard a brief presentation about the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) at its December 11 meeting.
At that meeting the board also named Alapakkam “Mani” Manikandan to fill the Plainsboro seat vacated by Ellen Walsh. Manikandan had previously served a term on the board and was defeated in a narrow election by Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz, who addressed Manikandan after he was unanimously approved. “The common denominator among all four candidates for the seat was a strong sense of community,” she said. “Mani, despite losing by just 10 percent in the last election, there was no doubt you really wanted to return to the board.”
One of the four applicants for the vacancy, Taylor Yu Zhong, has already indicated that he will run in the next election for a Plainsboro seat (see letter, page 2).
In other personnel action, the board approved the appointment of Nicole Foulks as assistant principal at Village School.
The possibility of administering the PSAT to all students at district expense as part of a regular school day was raised in a discussion at the curriculum committee. Richard Kaye reported that the change would enable the district to gather more data about the abilities of its students. For some students, high performance on the PSAT could “show them that they can and should take a higher level course” than they might otherwise choose.
Under current practice, Kaye said, “no one says you have to take the PSAT but everyone knows that they should.” But some portion every year do not, and wait until their senior year to take the SAT. At that point, the discovery of an unappreciated aptitude for English or math would be too late to influence their course selection.
“The data is important,” said Kaye, and would cost the district about $20,000 a year to collect for all students, compared to the $5,000 that is spent already spent for test administration. The curriculum committee will meet again Monday, January 7, at 11 a.m. in the central office.
The discussion about moving the April election to November in WW-P follows the decisions made by 468 other school districts in the state earlier in the year. The impetus for the change was a law signed by Governor Christie giving each community the right to decide which month the elections would be held.
According to the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA), April school elections typically attract about 15 percent of voters. The state’s new law was created to increase voter turnout and to help districts save money by not holding a separate election. As an added incentive to districts, the law also states that if the district transitions to a November election, the school budget does not have to go to public vote, unless it increases above the two percent property tax cap.
Several factors are likely to be considered by the WW-P School Board when deciding if it should make the move. While a November election date would bring out more voters, the school elections could get lost in the mix, particularly during a presidential election year, when party politics could become a factor.
Mike Yaple, a spokesman for NJSBA, said his organization supported the new law because it gave communities the ultimate decision in how they conduct their elections, rather than being governed by a state mandate. While voter turnout for those districts that moved their elections in 2012 is still being determined, Yaple said the numbers this year were undoubtedly higher due to the presidential election. “Without a doubt, more voters come out during election years,” he said, adding that gubernatorial elections can also trigger a higher voter turnout.
Some school boards, however, have been reluctant to move the election date because it takes the budget vote process out of residents’ hands. For those districts that still held their elections in April this year, approximately 90 percent of the proposed school budgets were passed by voters. However, out of the seven budgets rejected, only three were proposing to spend above the two percent cap. In 2011, only 80 percent of proposed budgets gained voter approval.
“Even if the budget is lower than the previous year, the community can still vote against it,” said Yaple, citing this as an incentive for districts to take budget decisions out of voters’ hands.
Only three of the school districts that held their elections in November had to put their budgets to a vote in 2012, which was considered a “second ballot question” when it was part of the April elections. While Delran (Burlington County) and Farmingdale (Monmouth County) were both approved, voters rejected Verona’s proposed budget (Essex County).
“The success rate of the base budgets has varied, depending on the economy and other factors, but generally voters would approve about three-fourths of the base budgets,” said Yaple, noting that those budgets that exceeded the two percent increase and merited the second ballot question would generally receive a 40 to 50 percent approval rate.
Another factor the WW-P Board needs to consider is that in this year’s November election there was a decrease in the number of candidates running for districts’ boards of education. In fact, NJSBA cited this year as the lowest ratio of candidates per vacant seat in the past 14 elections.
One likely cause for the decrease was that school board members were required to hand in their nominating petition a full five months before the election. A bill was recently introduced that would move the filing deadline to 64 days before the general election.
While 73 districts ultimately decided to keep their elections in April this year, since then eight more have officially made the decision to switch to November for 2013, including Lawrence Township, which kept the April election date in 2012.
“Last year the Board decided to wait one year to see the process unfold so we could see if it was in the best interest of the community to move elections,” said Lawrence Township Board of Education President Laura Waters. She cited the higher voter turnout in November and the added security of not putting the budget to a community vote as reasons the Board ultimately decided to make the move.
Waters added that as part of the resolution to move the election date the board added a resolution that emphasized its commitment to continue involving the community in budgetary discussions. “We want the community to know their voice will continue to be heard,” she said.
What is unclear is if it’s in the WW-P Board’s best interest to move the election date for budget approval reasons, since the budget passed by 69 percent in 2012. However, according to the state Department of Education website, the two districts in Mercer County that had a tax levy increase of more than two percent from 2010-’11 to 2011-’12, were West Windsor-Plainsboro (2.27 percent) and Princeton (2.85 percent), two of the districts that chose to not move their elections to November in 2012.
As it happens, along with West Windsor-Plainsboro, Princeton’s School Board is also reconsidering moving elections to November even though it was rejected earlier this year. It is scheduled to be discussed at the December 18 school board meeting.
If Princeton decides to move its election date, it would only leave West Windsor-Plainsboro and Hopewell Valley Regional with April election dates in Mercer County. Every district in Burlington, Cape May, and Union counties made the switch earlier this year, with just a handful of districts in other counties holding fast to the April election date.
Some districts have held off on making the decision as once the date has been switched, a district cannot switch back for another four years.
The WW-P Board of Education will meet again Tuesday, January 15, at 7:30 p.m. at Community Middle School.
