Christie Administration Rejects Most Applications for School Repairs

When Chris Christie became governor in 2010, he stopped the New Jersey Schools Development Authority from moving ahead with any school construction projects until an audit and a revamping of the agency could be completed. It took years for stalled school construction projects to move forward.

One particular part of the SDA mission — to make urgent repairs on buildings in poor school districts — has been particularly slow to respond to applications. Now, in the latest round, the N.J. Department of Education only funded 5 percent of the requests, or 15 applications out of 429. The deadline for the applications, which include crumbling ceilings, faulty fire alarm systems and broken fire escapes in schools that serve low-income students, was August 2016.

“It is outrageous that the State took so long to make the determinations and that so few projects were selected when the conditions detailed in the applications impact the health, safety and well-being of thousands of students, teachers and other staff every day,” said Jerell Blakeley, an organizer with the Healthy Schools Now Coalition, a project of the N.J. Work Environment Council. 

The coalition is working with the Education Law Center, which advocates for poor school districts in New Jersey and has been critical of the Christie Administration's running of the Schools Development Authority since 2010.  They're calling on State Education Commissioner Kimberly Harrington to publicly explain why so many of the repair projects were denied.

When asked about the low number of schools approved for repairs, the NJDOE provided a letter from Harrington to the Education Law Center that details the lengthy application process. Each application is evaluated, the letter says, on whether it is complete, whether sufficient evidence is presented that the repairs constitute an "emergent condition." A site visit is then conducted.