Opinion ID: 2294246
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Model district.

Text: Plaintiffs also criticize the State's process because it used a model district, a defect that they say mirrors that which we found to exist in CEIFA. Indeed, in Abbott XIX, supra, we said that the State must show that, in devising SFRA, it had overcome the deficiencies we found in the development of CEIFA. 196 N.J. at 566, 960 A. 2d 360. The Abbott IV, supra, decision, in which we addressed CEIFA, had faulted the State's use of a hypothetical school district to determine funding levels that did not account for the characteristics of Abbott districts. 149 N.J. at 172, 693 A. 2d 417. According to plaintiffs, the model district used in SFRA is similarly flawed because it was not based on the characteristics of the special needs districts. Ibid. It is superficial to say that the methodology used in developing SFRA is funding that is based on a model and to discount it on that basis. The layered process used by the State in developing SFRA is not like the assumptive-based single model used in CEIFA. The process builds costs from the ground up, as it has been described. The educators involved in developing the new funding formula that became SFRA were experienced and knowledgeable in delivering the CCCS standards in a variety of settings and for students of various types. [11] The CCCS had been implemented in all districts for years when educators were called together in panels to identify the resources needed for students at every level. [12] The same experienced educators also were asked to identify the resources needed for students having special needs or challenges. Again, those experts did so based on their experience in such matters, under the CCCS. Thus, although those efforts were building to a formula from which per-pupil costs could be determined, it was unlike any model used before. Any formula can appear model-like in part, unless, of course, one is funding a statewide program based on an as-needed/individual district request basis. But with demographic changes increasingly presenting an at-risk population of pupils spread throughout the state (forty-nine percent of at-risk pupils are attending school in non-Abbott districts), the State determined that such an approach would be impracticable and unrealistic. We do not find the State's determination to be constitutionally infirm. Furthermore, to the extent that the sliding scale of added weights for at-risk pupils, in particular, was determined from the perspective of implementation on the basis of a single districtthe largestthat too does not convert SFRA's use of a model to the same type, or degree, of abstraction as that which concerned us about CEIFA. As the record reflects, the largest district was selected because, among other reasons, it was most likely to have higher concentrations of at-risk pupils and therefore was likely to have the most similar, and higher-cost set of needs for such pupil populations. In sum, we do not find the State's approach to the formulation of per-pupil costs and additional weights used as the foundation for SFRA's funding formula to be constitutionally infirm. 3.