Opinion ID: 2424209
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: New Jersey Education and Funding Data

Text: Currently, New Jersey has 581 school districts, of which 31 are former Abbott districts. Stip. ¶ 97. Of the total districts, 114 have a greater than forty percent concentration of at-risk pupils, 142 have twenty to forty percent concentrations, and 352 have less than twenty percent. See D-106. The State has 1,366,271 students; 282,417 of them reside in the former Abbott districts. Stip. ¶ 98. In other words, 79.33% of the student population resides outside of former Abbott districts in comparison to 20.67% residing within. Ibid. On average, the length of a school day in New Jersey across all grade levels is 6 hours and 30 minutes. Stip. ¶ 164. Of this time, generally, less than 6 hours are dedicated to instruction. Ibid. Teachers' salaries and benefits are 55% of total comparative expenditures, and administrative salaries and benefits are 8% of the total comparative expenditures. Ibid. In New Jersey, the student to administrator ratio, the number of students per administrator, is 275:1. Ibid. The total amount of K-12 State aid allocated to all districts in FY 10 was $7,930,342,303, and the total amount of K-12 State aid allocated in FY 11 was $6,848,783,991. [12] Stip. ¶¶ 101-02. The resulting difference was $1,081,558,312, or a 13.6% reduction from FY 10 funding levels. D-109 at 12. The composition of the State's school districts is wildly disparate. Districts vary in geographic size; age, size, and location of its school buildings; number of students enrolled and percentage of at risk, Limited English Proficiency (LEP), and special needs students; wealth as delineated by DFGs; security concerns and transportation needs; involvement and nature of the families and extended families of the students, etc. This significant diversity among districts has only added to the complexity of understanding and attempting to create a fair funding formula.