Kevin Riordan: A funding blow for Lawnside School

What a difference a month can make.

At the Feb. 18 launch of a private foundation to support the only school in the historically black Camden County borough of Lawnside, Superintendent Patricia Felton-Montgomery was as upbeat as the occasion itself.

Predicting the nonprofit Lawnside Education Foundation (LEF) could raise thousands of dollars for such things as year-round enrichment programs, the superintendent declared, "Our children deserve the very best education possible."

One month later, on Thursday - reeling from what she called the state's "slash and scorch" of the district's budget – Felton-Montgomery was gloomy, if not grim. A just-announced $318,000 cut in aid from Trenton was not only deeper than expected, she said, but could cost her 300 elementary-school students their art, music, and computer-education classes.

"I'm not talking about frills," Felton-Montgomery declared.

Noting that the state's budget crisis means less aid for every school district in New Jersey, she added, "Other districts may have to cut after-school programs, but my kids don't even have those in the first place. . . . We need the LEF because there's no way to fund everything that's needed."

There certainly isn't, as Gov. Christie made clear - let's give the big guy credit - with rather refreshing (if depressing) candor last week. New Jersey's broke and getting broker, and the fix can't be more of the same.

But a foundation is not a panacea, nor is it tantamount to privatization. Which isn't a panacea either.

"There is a concern that foundations not supplant funds that should be provided by school boards," said Marcia Smith Fleres, executive director of the 72-member N.J. Education Foundation Partnership Inc. "Foundations are not supposed to fill the holes in budgets. But I don't think we can make a blanket statement, because in some districts, that might be necessary."

LEF president Sandra G. Strothers told me via e-mail that "it would be hasty" to change the foundation's mission. In addition to paying for enrichment programs, the LEF hopes to finance physical-plant improvements, technology upgrades, and community-education programs.

Lawnside, a 1.4-square-mile community of 2,600, clearly takes pride in its school. The borough would prefer not to see its pre-K-through-eighth-grade district consolidated with other towns to save money (Lawnside high schoolers have long been sent to nearby Haddon Heights).

Lawnside voters, however, defeated the district's budgets in 2008 and 2009. Like their counterparts elsewhere in New Jersey, residents of the mostly blue-collar town feel taxed to the max.

"Fifty percent of our residents are senior citizens, and 56 percent of our students get free or reduced-price lunches," Felton-Montgomery said. "Property taxes are an inefficient and inequitable way to fund education. Everything cannot be funded through property taxes."

Although Lawnside School - most of which dates from the 1960s - is well-maintained, "a lot of things that were here when I was a student are not here now," said Dara Riggs, who has three children attending her alma mater. "For instance, the library is pretty bleak. What happened to all the books?"

Riggs, a senior administrative associate at a technology firm in Marlton, oversees the LEF's page on Facebook. Social media and other technologies will help the foundation reach former residents and alumni.

Known as the first independent, self-governing black community outside the South, Lawnside "has a very special and powerful history," Strothers noted. "Lawnside residents are Lawnside residents wherever they are."

Said Felton-Montgomery, "I am hoping . . . there will be entities and individuals out there who believe that our children deserve a world-class education and will support the foundation."

Let's hope the superintendent is right. And let's hope that next month, Lawnside voters will think not only about the history of their town but its future as well.