Brigantine School District no longer has voting rights for their part in the Atlantic City School system. (see here) As a ‘sending district’, Brigantine taxpayers contribute approx. $20,000 for every Brigantine student sent to AC high.
According to Superintendent Brian Pruitt, Brigantine sends 170 kids to AC High, which means Brig taxpayers pony up about $3.4 million dollars annually for the AC School District. Brigantine has no say in how those dollars are spent.
The stealth and highly autonomous Brigantine school board is appointed by Mayor Guenther. Current board members & meeting minutes are still not posted publicly.
From what we understand, these are the 7 members of the current Brigantine school board:
- Frank Koch (President of School Board)
- Jim Mackey (President of Brigantine Republican Club)
- Matt Doran (Former & potential future city engineer, domestic partner of Rose Roberts; Republican club organizer)
- Cass Kaufman
- Nancy Barbin
- David Borrone
- Steve Bonanni
Ventnor, Atlantic City & Brigantine met recently to discuss the potential for sharing services in order to reduce costs. (See Press of AC report here) Mr. Bonanni attended that meeting. Bonanni has yet to update council and the public on those meetings, as well as the board’s efforts to reduce Brigantine school costs, and improve teacher / student assessments.
Typically, Bonanni, Pruitt & Guenther do not update council or the public on anything related to the school district.
Councilwoman Lisa McClay; a Northfield teacher and a member of the Brigantine school budget committee (Board of Estimates) had no comment at this time.
How can Atlantic City Schools get away with charging $20,000 per student ? A School District as prestigious as Haddonfield School District accepts tuition students and the rate for Grades 9 through 12 is only $11,250 . http://www.haddonfieldschoolstuition.com/get-more-info/
Cost per pupil: Brigantine School- $19,373 (paid by taxpayers)
Cost per pupil: Atlantic City High School- $20,500+ (paid by taxpayers)
Cost per pupil: Holy Spirit High School- approx $8,000 (paid by individual family)
Cost per pupil: St Augustine approx- approx $15,000 (paid by individual family)
Cost per pupil: Atlantic County Institute of Technology- $15,000 (school run by Mayor Guenther)
Because:
>Atlantic city is corrupt.
>They clasify every dumb ass as “classified” so he can get an SSI check. (Note: I am not talking about children with true disabilties. I am referring to the arrogant, lazy, and confrontation assholes.)
>They do not kick bad kids out of school anymore, they assign them a personal aid and spend thousands of dollars on worthless couseling.
>Chilld study teams are also a huge worthless burden on the taxpayer. About $200,000 a year in a average school.
>Affirmative action staff has to be paid. Some schools even have an AA superintendent. Another waste of $100,000.00 plus a year.
>Check out the staff at other schools, even affluent schools like Mainland Reg., and you will see that the the special ed staff , also listed as Individual Ed., is larger than the Math and Science staff combined.
>You can not run a country on Special ED. And this is where most of our money is going to in reference to the educatinal staff department
>There are to many administrators in all schools.
>Atlantic city’s secretarial staff is in incompetent and over staffed.
And much more,
Go substitute teach a few days in various schools and you will shocked on the money being wasted.