NJ may force districts to merge

Lawmakers list several priorities for education

By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... A new department to oversee Pre-K to third grade education in New Jersey?
..... Forcing New Jersey school districts with fewer than 500 students to consolidate?
..... Finding billions to pay for long-postponed school building renovations?
..... Those are among the key priorities that New Jersey lawmakers who are focused on education policy are pushing to the forefront as a new legislative session kicks off this month. [01/2026]
..... Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, told NorthJersey.com she will push to consolidate early childhood education in its own department, and explore funding for school building renovation in all districts, bot urban and suburban.
..... Education advocates view Ruiz, former chair of the Senate Education Committee, as a powerful lawmaker with influence and interest in the K-12 sphere.
..... Ruiz and Senator Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, current chair of the senate Committee, are also watching developments in a school segregation lawsuit brought in 2018 by the advocacy group Latino Action Network and the NAACP.
..... The lawsuit challenges New Jersey's tradition of assigning children to public schools in their residential ZIP code on grounds that this practice makes for de facto segregation.

New department

..... Ruiz wants to win support to create a new state department of early childhood education.
..... The proposed department would function separately from the existing Education Department, says a bill introduced on January 13 [2026] and sponsored by Ruiz and Senator Angela McKnight, D-Hudson. though early childhood traditionally refers to students from Pre-K through 5-year-olds, the proposed department would administer oversight of children in preschool through grade three.
..... It's "critically important to have a global discussion about how we cerate a department or a stronger division for early childhood that really brings the development of policy and our children infrastructure in the zero-to-five space under one roof," Ruiz said.
..... About 17 states already have early childhood departments that are distinct form their department of education and report directly to the governor. The Illinois Department of Early childhood is a model for New Jersey's proposal.
..... Education experts widely support consolidating early childhood education in state government.
..... "Science shows that a young child's brain is like a sponge,: Ruiz wrote in a January 12 [2026] gust column on NJ.com . "It forms millions of new neural connections every minute, with 90% of its development completed by age five. This isn't just biological, it's a reality visible in every classroom and home, and something I witnessed during my time as a preschool teacher and again as a mother."
..... The New Jersey School Boards Association, a statewide federation of district boards of education and a K-12 advocacy group, said it had not yet reviewed Ruiz's bill but supported her efforts in pre-K expansion an literacy.
..... "We look forward to working with her to continue to promote early childhood education and to give every child the education they need," said Jonathan Pushman, the association's senior director of advocacy.
..... "Any time you talk about creating a new department, it's about achieving the intended goal, which is to make government more efficient and not the opposite," he said. "We are prepared to engage if and when the bill moves, if we can achieve that goal."

Requiring consolidation

..... Governor Mikie Sherrill has expressed support for consolidating some of the state's 600-odd school districts. Many view this as a possible solution to de facto segregation in public schools, which state Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy ruled in the ongoing segregation lawsuit has been caused by New Jersey's residency laws.
..... Lougy, however, stopped short of holding the state liable for segregated schools.
..... The Latino Action Network, a plaintiff in the case, argued that public school students are disadvantaged by the stark differences in options available to families in poorer municipalities, both rural and urban, that share boundaries with wealthy neighborhoods in densely populated pockets.
..... "We have 600 school districts. There's a lot of redundancies, property taxes continue to be high, and the quality of education could improve," Gopal told NorthJersey.com . "Governor Sherrill has said during the campaign trail over and over that we can't do this [consolidating districts] by incentives anymore. It has to be mandated.
..... "I have a bill right now that mandates consolidating school districts under 500 kids, but I think we are going to look at everything," said Gopal, the Monmouth senator. "We are also trying to look at how to merge some of the transportation and special education costs."
..... About a third of the state's school districts have fewer than 500 students, he said.
..... Gopal's bill, also introduced on January 13 [2026] at the start of the ween legislative session, lay out a plan to combine school districts. The proposal puts county superintendents in charge of visiting and staying apprised of operators and facilities in the district they oversee.
..... It requires them to regularly "promote efficiencies and cost savings within the school districts" by examining shared services agreements and acting as unofficial auditors of spending.

Help with sharing services

..... Should the bill become law, executive county superintendents will be required to draw up and submit to the state a "consolidation plan" for all districts serving fewer than 500 students in the county, excluding special services districts or vocational school districts.
..... If scaled even if they are not combined.
..... Ruiz would like to achieve economies of scale by consolidating "transpiration and special education costs that are more universal in nature, instead of creating six hundred transportation systems that are costing us millions and millions of dollars that there's no gain to, beasties those costs are going to continue to rise."
..... Ruiz said consolidating districts or their services would be "a Herculeam task," but if "a more universal, systematic approach can bring resources into the classroom ... then we should be hyper-focused on that."

Paying for renovations

..... School construction and renovations are "critically important," Ruiz said, and a priority in both suburban and urban school districts. there is growing concern about how aging school buildings can handle weather events, the newed for updated facilities in many schools, and the cost of projects to address those issues.
..... "I think Senator Ruiz recognizes that there are some pretty severe facility needs across the state," said Pushman, of the School Boards Association. "It's been a long time since the state went out for any kind of bonding to support facilities construction projects.
..... "So we are 100% supportive of her goal to provide districts wit the resources they need to modernize their facilities, and are hopeful that we can make some progress on this in the current session," he said.
..... The state could issue one or more school construction bonds to cover building costs - which will likely amount to billions of dollars - and the final amount would likely need to secure voters' approval.
..... Another way would be for the state to appropriate money and set it aside for the project in the budget.
..... "We obviously are dealing with a finite amount of resources," Pushman said, "so whether or not there's a sufficient level of funding that it be done through a straight state appropriations would really depend on the state's financial picture."

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