SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-2085-17T3

M.K. and M.K., on behalf of 

minor child, M.K.,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF 

THE BRIDGEWATER-RARITAN

REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT,

SOMERSET COUNTY,

Respondent-Respondent.

Submitted May 30, 2019 – Decided July 5, 2019

Before Judges Alvarez and Reisner.

On appeal from the Commissioner of Education, 

Docket No. 363-12/15.

Pasquale Marago, attorney for appellants.

The Busch Law Group LLC, attorneys for respondent 

Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District Board of 

Education (Elizabeth Farley Murphy and Nicholas 

Celso, of counsel and on the brief).

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the 

internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
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Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for 

respondent Commissioner of Education (Joan M. 

Scatton, Deputy Attorney General, on the statement in 

lieu of brief).

PER CURIAM

M.K. (Tom) and M.K. (Mary), on behalf of their son M.K. (Sam), a minor, 

appeal from the Commissioner of Education's June 5, 2017 final agency decision 

adopting without modification the initial decision of an Administrative Law 

Judge (ALJ). The ALJ found that Sam was not domiciled in the BridgewaterRaritan Regional School District during the 2015-2016 school year and yet 

attended public school in the District. Based on that determination, the 

Commissioner ordered Tom and Mary to pay $38,329.20 for tuition costs to

defendant, the Board of Education of the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School 

District. We now reverse and remand.

The appeal began after the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Board of 

Education finance/facilities/transportation committee held a hearing and ruled 

that Sam was not domiciled in the District, and should be disenrolled and pay 

tuition costs of "$212.94 for each day [the] child attended school during the 

ineligible period." Tom and Mary appealed to the Commissioner, who 

transferred the matter to the Office of Administrative Law to be heard as a 

contested case. N.J.S.A. 52:14B-1 to -15; N.J.S.A. 52:14F-1 to -13. The ALJ 
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decided the matter based on his review of some documentation and his 

credibility rulings. He found the school's attendance officer to be very "credible 

and persuasive[,]" while Tom and Mary, and Tom's parents, were incredible

witnesses. 

The family testified that Tom, Mary, and Sam resided with Tom's parents 

in Bridgewater in a basement apartment where they had lived for years. The 

school's attendance officer conducted surveillance on sixty days over the course 

of one and a half school years. On thirty-five occasions, he observed the mother 

and the minor child at Mary's mother's home in South Bound Brook, a separate 

school district. On each occasion, Mary drove the child to school in 

Bridgewater. On at least two occasions, the investigator saw Mary pick Sam up 

from school and take him to the South Bound Brook residence. He did not 

conduct surveillance at the Bridgewater residence. The investigator never saw 

the child at South Bound Brook when he surveilled the home in the summer.

Two family vehicles registered in Mary's name are listed at the South 

Bound Brook address, as is a rental agreement for a storage unit. Mary claimed 

her mother co-signed the loan for those vehicles, and thus her mother's address 

in South Bound Brook had to be given. She also said her mother paid for the 

storage unit rental, and she therefore gave her mother's address. 
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Tom and Mary proffered documents from 2015 listing Mary's address in

Bridgewater, including: Mary's driver's license, her food stamp allotment, a 

vaccination certificate for the family pet as well as a reminder from the vet that 

the animal was due for another booster, a life insurance certification, bank 

statements, and insurance identification cards for a pickup truck and Mazda. 

Mary testified that she and Tom file their returns with the IRS listing the 

Bridgewater address. They submitted letters from neighbors in Bridgewater and 

South Bound Brook stating that Mary lives in Bridgewater.

During the course of his testimony, Tom said Sam spent his evenings after 

school at Bridgewater with him, engaging in typical every day after-school 

activities, and went to bed there. Mary frequently would not be in the house, 

however, when he awakened during the night, which would cause the child to

have an anxiety attack. Sam's struggles with the condition were verified by a 

letter from a pediatric psychiatrist. When the child became anxious and upset,

either Mary would pick up the child and return to South Bound Brook, or Tom 

would drive him over. Tom's father claimed he too would drive the child to 

South Bound Brook. 

Mary started staying overnight in South Bound Brook mainly because her 

mother suffered from life-threatening pulmonary diseases that often necessitated 
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someone's presence at night, and she had a very elderly grandmother at a 

different South Bound Brook address who also required her assistance. Mary 

said she started keeping the child with her overnight, and that the child was with 

her in South Bound Brook on weekends when school was not in session. 

The ALJ concluded the family concocted this story to avoid Sam's

disenrollment in Bridgewater. He found it inherently suspect that parents of a 

child suffering from severe anxiety and behavioral struggles would add to his 

stress by frequently transporting him from his home in the middle of the night

to the home of his ailing grandmother. Thus the ALJ decided that Tom and 

Mary failed to meet their preponderance of the evidence burden of proof.

We do not question the ALJ's judgment that the parents' and the in-law's

testimony was unreliable. We do question his ultimate conclusion, however,

that the testimony and the attendance investigator's observations established that 

Sam was domiciled outside of the District in the 2015-2016 term. 

The ALJ made no mention of N.J.A.C. 6A:22-3.1(a)(1). That regulation 

provides that a student is considered domiciled in the school district in which 

the parent or guardian is domiciled. The ALJ made no findings with regard to 

Tom's statement that the child lived with him in Bridgewater. Nor did the ALJ 

in any fashion consider whether Mary intended to establish a permanent abode 
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in South Bound Brook or was there merely to temporarily assist her mother and 

grandmother, taking the child with her. A temporary relocation with the child

does not necessarily mean that the child's domicile changed. The regulations 

embody the principle that a minor child is domiciled where the parent is 

domiciled. P.B.K. v. Bd. of Educ. of Borough of Tenafly, 343 N.J. Super. 419, 

427 (App. Div. 2001). 

We note Tom's testimony that he spent some time in a drug rehabilitation 

facility, and Mary's testimony about her mother's serious illness. Given the 

family's situation, including a father struggling with drug addiction, and a

mother struggling with responsibilities for an ailing parent and grandparent, it 

is legally possible that she and the child could have been found to have had two 

simultaneous residences, although only one domicile. See D.M. v. Bd. of Educ. 

of Princeton Reg'l Sch. Dist., 366 N.J. Super. 269, 274-75 (App. Div. 2004). 

Because of her life circumstances, Mary may well have been temporarily living

in two residences without intending to make her mother's home her domicile. 

The real question is not where Sam resides, but where he is domiciled. And that 

question is answered by examining where Mary and Tom are domiciled. See

N.J.A.C. 6A:22-3.1(a)(1). The investigator's statements that over the course of 

270 school days he observed Sam at the South Bound Brook residence thirty-
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five times is insufficient to decide the matter. The investigator never surveilled

mother and child at the Bridgewater residence. 

The ALJ's skepticism was well-grounded. But given the peculiar facts

here, there was simply insufficient evidence in the record for a determination of 

domicile. Accordingly, we remand the matter for a further hearing to clarify the 

issue. We express no view as to the ultimate outcome. 

Reversed and remanded. We do not retain jurisdiction.