Michele Masterman is leading a group of Ventnor taxpayers who want to change the insane tuition deal between Ventnor and the Atlantic City School District.
Some parents want Ventnor to start it’s own high school. Or, at the very least, find another education facility for our 200 High School students.
Masterman is a 2018 Teacher of the Year. She has a online petition of over 800 signatures that hopes to send a wake up call to NJ Governor Phil Murphy, Senator Chris Brown, Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo and others.
Masterman: Students of Ventnor deserve better. We pay a tremendous amount of money to send our students to Atlantic City High School. As a result of this, we are losing three teaching positions and programs will be affected. We demand the same opportunities as other districts, fair funding, and fair tuition. We are writing to urge you to propose new legislation to change the state regulated formula, in the calculation of tuition for sending school districts.
Sending districts like Ventnor have a limited say in how those tuition funds are spent. Making matters worse, sending districts like Ventnor can be saddled with huge, unfair tuition costs and increases.
Masterman: NJ State aid (free money) spent in an AC school, can be included in the tuition it charges to sending districts. (Ventnor)
Michele Masterman says: If a receiving district benefits from state aid, a sending district should benefit equally. Right now, a sending district is penalized thru higher tuition costs.
Atlantic City is a receiving district for Ventnor. Atlantic City School Board enjoys huge state aid awards, and gladly spends all of it.
Atlantic City gets to spend free, state money twice; once when received from the state, and once again when Ventnor pays the ACHS tuition. This creates an unfair financial burden on Ventnor’s School Budget and it’s taxpayers.
To meet skyrocketing tuition costs, Ventnor must make budgetary cuts elsewhere in the school budget and taxes must be increased to meet tuition obligations.
This year, Ventnor saw a $2,300 increase in tuition at Atlantic City High School. Ventnor taxpayers will have to pony up $1mil dollars.
How Much Ventnor Must Send to Atlantic City High School.
In the 2018-19 school year, it was $16,700.
In the 2020-21 school year, it ballooned to $22,700
That’s a $6,000 tuition increase per student….in just a few years.
High Cost of Low Grades in Atlantic City
Wanna help change that funding law? Let’s remove NJ State aid spending from a receiving district’s tuition calculation.
In other education news, Ventnor Board of Education appointed Ventnor School Principal Carmela Somershoe as the district’s new superintendent, effective July 1.
Somershoe replaces Ventnor School District Superintendent Eileen Johnson, who retires on June 30.
- 3-year term with starting salary of $140,000.
- 3% annual salary increases.
- Eligible for 3.3% merit bonuses.
- Eligible for 2.5% qualitative bonus, up to 15% of salary.
- Somershoe will serve as superintendent & principal.
Ventnor operates it’s K-8 district with two schools within the VECC facility.
Somershoe will serve as superintendent and principal of grades Pre-K thru 2nd grade.
Middle School Principal Rob Baker will supervise grades 3 thru 8.
Ventnor School Board meetings are not yet videotaped for on-demand viewing.
This is out of line Ventnor. They want us to lose our Teachers to attrition without replacing any of them.
That leaves Ventnor very short Teachers that are needed to better prepare our Elementary and Middle School kids so we can give more of our tax money for absurd tuition fees to AC High School
and this is the best AC High School can produce in end.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-jersey/districts/atlantic-city-public-schools/atlantic-city-high-school-12459
Start looking into Mainland, or Ocean City?
We can all thank Sen. Jim Whelan for these increases going back 10 years. They increased Ventnor tuition to help cover AC school districts cost of Elementary services. How fair is that?
Read the sending / receiving contract among Atlantic City, Ventnor and the state. That will answer almost every question and correct the misinformation in the postings
spending a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to educate our high school students is off the charts ridiculous. I would very much like to see how our Ventnor students perform alongside the other students. The overall results look poor for the school yet Ventnor continues to send it’s students there!!! There has to be a better solution. Are there town meetings to discuss this? I’d very much like to hear how and why this continues is questionable. I think we can do better.