New Jersey Assemblywoman Valerie Vaineri Huttle (D-Englewood) met with staff and parents at the Moriah School in Englewood last week for a Schools in Session forum hosted by the school and Teach NJS. The forum was about the Jewish community’s concerns, campus security, and making tuition more affordable.
Ms. Huttle talked about the competing priorities that face the State Assembly, including an aging transportation system and pension obligation, that make it difficult to get more funding for private schools. She encouraged parents and their friends to send emails to their district legislators to bring attention to the issues most critical to them.
She also is concerned over the lack of nursing staff at private schools such as Moriah, where one full-time nurse tends to the school’s 725 students.
Teach NJS, launched in May, is a coalition of 20 New Jersey Jewish day schools, the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, and the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center. It represents about 15,000 families in 10 counties. Schools in Session visits provide state legislators an opportunity to tour schools in their districts and conduct conversations with parents, board members, and school staff.