The Buzz In Brick

There has been a lot of buzz in Brick over a big school budget deficit which
this week had education officials throwing out the possibility of closing schools. Concerned parents expressed their displeasure this week at a Board of Education meeting over talk that as many as three elementary schools could be closed to narrow the $3.5 million gap it will take to run the district during the 2008-09 school year. School officials say at this time that closing schools will be a final option but the fact of the matter is that unless they can come up with other solutions than it’s one they will have to consider.

The reality is that what’s happening in Brick now is going to be something many school districts will be experiencing in the immediate future. Taxpayers everywhere say they’ve had enough and many of our local districts are not getting their fair share of state aid to meet budgets.
People of course want these budgets slashed but in truth most of the costs are already built in and can’t be trimmed…it’s a combination of built-in salaries and spiraling costs of doing business…even the public school business. Sure you can cut a bit here and there but that does not save the millions that will be needed to balance the budget in Brick and other districts. The picture is not a pretty one and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

For many the John Bennett Indoor Complex is nothing more than a big bubble that sits between Toms River Intermediate East and Hooper Avenue Elementary Schools. It’s been a controversial facility from the beginning but certainly nobody can argue about the use it’s getting in its first full year. Intermediate East holds gym classes there every day and it has become the #1 indoor track complex in all of New Jersey. Over the next three weekends the NJSIAA will pay to hold their State Sectionals, State Group Meet and Meet of Champions at the Bennett Complex, bringing hundreds if not thousands of high school athletes to the area. The sectional meet is a new one and was established only because the “bubble” can accommodate what is needed to hold it. Since Christmas there have been about two dozen track events held and more to come including the New Jersey Athletic Conference College Championships and the New Jersey Amateur Track and Field Championships which features athletes from 18 to 85. As a parent of a student-athlete who runs in the bubble it’s been a blessing to stay local for meets instead of having to drive to North Jersey or New York.