By PATRICIA MCDANIEL
When Asbury Park public schools open for students on Thursday, Sept. 5, a school redistricting plan will be ready for them.
And that, along with other administrative initiatives, will give the district a renewed sense of purpose, Acting Superintendent Mark Gerbino said in an interview with the Coaster on Monday.
For students and parents, “we’re giving them a reason to come back here and not go somewhere else,” said Gerbino.
He is a longtime teacher, administrator and former athletic director who was named acting superintendent as of March 1.
“We want them to be proud” of their home district, he added.
The city school district has labored for many years with educational challenges, among them some of the lowest tests scores in language arts and math in the state, according to past reports. According to 2023-2024 figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, the pre-k to Grade 12 district serves 1,541 students.
But Gerbino and the board leadership say there is a real sense of change and optimism stirring in the district.
Gerbino has been in his new role since a majority of the Board of Education members voted in February to place Superintendent RaShawn M. Adams, Ph. D., on administrative leave. No other information about the board action has been released because the issue is a personnel matter. But Adams and the teachers’ union have been at odds for several years.
Redistricting plan
With Gerbino now leading the district, the school location change for certain grade levels is a foundation for other improvements he and the board envision for the city schools.
Now, all students in grades pre-K through second grade will attend Thurgood Marshall Elementary School at 600 Monroe Ave., bringing together not only students but staff and faculty in one place. There is already busing in place for all pre-K students, Gerbino said.
All students in grades three to six will now attend Bradley Elementary School, 1100 Third Ave.
And seventh and eighth grade students attend the Dr. Martin Luther King Middle School, 1200 Bangs Ave. High school students all attend Asbury Park High School, 1003 Sunset Ave. (The plan is for the unused Barack Obama School to be repurposed for use by other departments, Gerbino said.)
The goal of the redistricting is to have the same grade level of students and their teachers working together in the same building.
“This focuses instruction, creating a better learning environment,” Gerbino said, adding that now teachers of the same grade level can all communicate more easily with each other.
He had thought about the concept for a long time, he said, adding he’s glad to see it now put in place.
He said he’s been “hearing good things” about the plan, but he’ll have a better feel for how the restructuring is received once it’s in effect.
“I can’t wait until I can have eyes in the buildings – then I can see what the climate is,” he added.
Another change is that the school administration’s Central Office itself is moving from a leased space on Fourth Avenue to an upper floor of the Middle School. That will save the district $300,000 annually in rent, Gerbino said.
‘A lot going on’
School Board Vice President Giuseppe (Joe) Grillo said in a separate interview that he is enthusiastic about the changes.
“There’s a lot going on – a lot of change. We’re laying the groundwork to improve academic achievement,” Grillo said.
Hoping to stem the decline of students from the district – often to area charter schools, the board is “right-sizing” the district, Grillo said.
And he and Gerbino noted that pre-K enrollment has already grown.
The new school year will see 191 students enrolled in pre-K, up from about 70 the year before – “a huge jump,” said Gerbino, who also credited the new pre-K supervisor with encouraging greater interest in the program.
There’s a lot on the horizon for the district, Grillo noted.
For example, the high school is approaching its 100th anniversary, Grillo said, and its history and architecture are things to cherish, he added. Many notable area residents have graduated from the school over the decades, he said.
And now, the high school varsity football team, the Blue Bishops, has 40 students signed up after it had a hard time fielding a full team in recent years, Grillo said.
Soccer has enough students to field varsity, junior varsity and freshman soccer, he added.
Financial goals
Grillo said another goal of the board is to find financial savings wherever possible – mainly through working on many fronts and rebuilding relationships: “I have faith we can collaborate on a lot of creative ways to better the quality of education,” he said.
The first front is local, he said, and the board will consider creative ways to address school funding to help taxpayers – new streams of revenue, for example, Grillo said.
At the state level, he said the board and Gerbino advocated to restore state aid under the state’s now-expired S2 funding formula. The district saw a cut of nearly $5 million and “clawed back” $1.8 million, Grillo said.
Legislatively, he said state Sen. Vin Gopal (District 11), helped not only with state aid restoration but also was instrumental in obtaining $250,000 from the state budget for mental health support for students – up from zero funding the year before.
Overall, Grillo said there have been hundreds of thousands saved in administrative costs, including the $300,000 saved from ending the Central Office rental. He added that the board will be pushing this year for more funding for extra-curricular programs in the district.
Gerbino said school districts in the state have not yet been informed what new state funding formula will be in effect for the coming budget, but he said he would be “fiscally responsible” no matter what new program comes down from the state.
In terms of staff relations, Grillo said that Gerbino has ushered in an era of better relationships with the teachers’ union. And Gerbino noted that the board will be negotiating a new contract with the union this year.
Gerbino himself now has a $209,000 contract with the board for his new position, he said. He added that he took no salary increase for the months last school year after he was named acting superintendent.
He said he had been looking to retire, but, given his new job, he realized that the district “needed consistency.”
And he also wants to “put the right people in place,” he said.
