PENNSAUKEN — The school board said last night that it would continue its fight to keep Merchantville high school students in the Pennsauken district.
The board also agreed to file an appeal with the state Board of Education asking it to keep Pennsauken and Merchantville students from attending Haddonfield Memorial High School.
Last month, state Education Commissioner John Ellis denied Merchantville’s request to pull its 72 high school students out of Pennsauken and to send them instead to Haddonfield Memorial High School. Ellis said that withdrawing the students from Pennsauken High School would cause a racial imbalance at the school.
As part of his ruling, Ellis also denied Merchantville’s request to retain Haddonfield’s private tuition program for Merchantville and Pennsauken students to pay to attend Memorial High School, Finley said.
On Thursday, the Merchantville Board of Education filed an appeal with the state board, asking it to overturn Ellis’ ruling. In response to Merchantville’s appeal, the Pennsauken board voted last night to authorize its solicitor to defend Pennsauken against Merchantville’s appeal.
“We will ask (the state board) to affirm the negative racial impact,” said Solicitor Joseph Finley, who added that the board will also argue that withdrawing Merchantville students would have an educational impact on the Pennsauken district.
“Race and education are intertwined,” Finley said. Education is more than the three Rs.”
The Pennsauken board expects to file an appeal today or Monday with the state Board of Education in its effort to prevent students in Merchantville and Pennsauken districts from attending high school in Haddonfield on a tuition basis.
Haddonfield’s tuition fees have rankled Pennsauken, which says the school grossly undercharges Merchantville students in an attempt to lure them away. The average cost of educating a Haddonfield High School student is $7,920, according to the state Education Department’s Division of Finance, which is almost double the tuition fee charged students from Merchantville and Pennsauken who attend Memorial.
“If Merchantville parents want to send their children to private schools, then that’s fine,” Finley said. “But if they choose to send their children to a public school . . . the state of New Jersey has designated Pennsauken High School,” he said. “We feel the Haddonfield tuition practice violates that sending-receiving relation.”
Merchantville parents have fought for the change for the last decade. The district has argued that its students would find Haddonfield more compatible and academically oriented than Pennsauken, which it says is overcrowded. Merchantville also says its students would help integrate Haddonfield High.
