Two school districts with which municipality’s nonoperating school district had merged sought review of Commissioner of Education’s determination that municipality had standing to withdraw from merged districts and to petition to join newly-formed all-purpose regional school district.
As matters of first impression, the Superior Court, Appellate Division, held that:
- Despite its merger with other school districts, municipality’s nonoperating school district continued to exist as a separate local school district with standing to withdraw from its merger;
- Municipality’s governing body was entitled to stand in the place of a board of education for its nonoperating school district; and
- Statutory provisions for withdrawing from a regional school district applied to nonoperating district that had merged with other districts.
Despite its merger with other school districts, municipality’s nonoperating school district continued to exist as a separate local school district with standing to withdraw from its merger; nonoperating district’s merger was part of legislative mandate to encourage financial accountability and the reduction of duplicative services through consolidation and regionalization of school districts, but nonoperating district retained its status as a local school district with sovereignty separate from merged districts.
Municipality’s governing body was entitled to stand in the place of a board of education for its nonoperating school district for purposes of determining whether to withdraw nonoperating district from limited purpose regional district or consolidated district; statutory definition of “governing body” included the governing body of a municipality constituting a constituent district which lacked a board of education.
Statutory provisions for withdrawing from a regional school district applied to nonoperating district that had merged with other districts, where statutes provided that nonoperating district was to be treated as a constitute district of a consolidated or regional district.