State to review busing petition

By joyce blay
Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD — The petition filed by the Coalition of Advocates for Public School Students (CAPS) protesting the Lakewood School District’s courtesy busing policy has been received by the state Board of Education and will be acted upon according to several available options.

State Department of Education spokes-man Richard Vespucci said, "The Com-missioner of Education has power under the state constitution to resolve local disputes that arise from different interpretations of education law and regulation. Any party can petition for a ... review of the statute" in question.

Vespucci said there are three means of responding to the petition following its review by the state board. The first is for the board to declare it has no jurisdiction in the matter and to dismiss the petition. The second option is for the board to render a declaratory judgment on the matter. The third option is to determine that the matter should be treated as a contest case and to send it to a full hearing of the Office of the Administrative Law (OAL), which is a separate office in the state government. It is staffed by administrative law judges.

Although not a part of the state’s legal system, the OAL is a quasi-judicial system that would still entail having a judge hold hearings for finding of fact and conclusions in the matter.

"People have a right to due process and the Lakewood Board of Education has a duty to respond" to CAPS’ petition, Ves-pucci said.

The commissioner will review the matter and make a determination in two or three weeks, he said.

In a related matter, a workshop involving members of CAPS and Rabbi Moishe Weisberg, a nationally known school administrator, will be held in the municipal building on Sept. 3 at 7 p.m.

"I’m trying to get the people who really care about what goes on in the classrooms to work on the problems that they all agree are definite problems and to concentrate their efforts where they’re most needed — in the classroom," Mayor Ray Coles said.