Red Bank Council member Ben Forest delivers prepared remarks in which he called for the council to pass a resolution regarding the Red Bank Charter School charter as Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano looks on. (Photos by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
While it has no jurisdiction over the matter, the council threw its political support behind what district school officials have long called the goal of a “unified school district” that would be created by the closure of RBCS.
On Thursday night, Councilman Ben Forest delivered an emotional 14-minute address to his fellow council members, imploring them to perform what he called the necessary but “miserable task” of doing it again.
But, unlike in 2021, the motion failed.
Forest’s call for another council member to second his motion to introduce the resolution was met with nothing but silence.
The motion’s failure was remarkable for a governing body that, according to this reporter’s notes, has approved every resolution and ordinance unanimously since its members swept into office as running mates in July 2023.
“Residents come to us every week with concerns about schools, and the cost of our schools is the biggest part of the taxes that we collect here,” Forest said during an address in which his voice cracked with emotion. “And here we have a small chance to actually do something about it. I mean, this (town of) 13,000 having two school districts is absurd on the face of it.”
“I have never seen this body not act on a recommendation from the Board of Education,” he added later. “It’s just incredible that we’re thinking of not doing anything.”
Video of Thursday night’s Borough Council meeting. The charter school debate begins at the 1:05 mark.
The move brought at least a temporary sense of relief to Charter School parents and members of the RBCS Board of Trustees in attendance, several of whom gave impassioned statements decrying the notion of the school being closed.
“This might just be a decision involving numbers, budgets, paperwork, and if you ask me, maybe a little bit of drama,” said Janette Viruet, an RBCS grad and the mother of several current students. “But to us parents, this is about our children, their education, their happiness, and also their future. “
Janette Viruet, Red Bank Charter School graduate and parent, addresses the Mayor and Borough Council Thursday night.
Matthew Taetsch, father of two RBCS students and a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, rebutted the argument that closing the charter school would ease financial pressures on the K-8 district or taxpayers.
Both he and his wife, Nicole Taetsch, noted that the skyrocketing costs for employee health care – a key factor in back-to-back whopping tax hikes – far outweigh the budgetary impact of the 28-year old charter school.
RBCS parent Nicole Taetsch addresses the council while members of the Red Bank Borough Board of Education, Superintendent Jared Rumage and other parents look on.
“I’ve heard a lot of talk about tax savings and property taxes, and anyone who is stating that closure of the charter school will somehow reduce your property tax burden is lying to you,” Matthew Taetsch said.
Taetsch further chastised Forest, saying, “You’re dividing us. You took it upon yourself to drive us apart.”
The Board of Education, which oversees the K-8 school district, passed its own resolution calling for a denial of RBCS’s charter earlier this year.
The board publicly appealed to the council in October to join the campaign, noting factors that have been repeatedly cited in the often bitter 30-year debate over the charter school, including its alleged effects on segregation.
Closing the charter school, they argue, could save an estimated $1.5 million in duplicative costs at a time when budgets are already stressed by historic shortfalls in state aid and massive increases in employee health insurance costs.
But the board’s public appeal at the October 8 meeting was immediately described as “misguided” by Mayor Billy Portman, making the chances of it appearing on any council agenda slim.
Forest, who previously served on the Red Bank Borough Board of Education for 19 years, spent the last month speaking with both sides in the debate and engaging in what he described as a search for some middle ground, such as regionalizing the Charter School to mitigate the financial impact on the district.
He argued the council issuing a formal resolution asking the state Department of Education to support a ‘graceful plan to consolidate’ would have ‘gravitas’ that could impact the final decision on renewal.
That decision is expected in early 2027.
The state Department of Education has denied charter school renewals 19 times since the law establishing charters was passed in the 1990’s. The vast majority of those have been for poor academic performance or operational failures.
Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano is the only member of the current governing body who was in office when the council passed a resolution calling for non-renewal in 2021.
Both she and Council Member Kristina Bonatakis echoed Portman’s reluctance to involve the governing body in a deeply divisive issue over which they have no official say.
“I find this to be the incorrect theater for this conversation,” Triggiano said.
Triggiano recalled the meeting five years ago at which the resolution was passed: a tortuous three-hour affair marked by emotional appeals from more than 40 people on both sides.
“It was people begging us not to close their school, and it was us really trying to explain to them that we are not that authority,” she said. “And it was very confusing to people. It was extremely confusing about order and process.”
She continued:
“We were also told as elected [officials] at that time that this was the Hail Mary. And that this would be the last time we’d be asked as a governing body to take that action, to really put ourselves out there. This was really going to be the push. And then here we are again.”
Describing herself as a “district parent,” she said she would personally pen a letter to the state commissioner of education expressing her opinion.
“I wish Trenton was more accessible,” she said. “I wish this was all being heard by the education commissioner. I don’t think it’s healthy for this to happen every five years and I don’t think it’s good for the borough.”
Mayor Billy Portman closed the debate, saying, ” My opinion hasn’t changed and I’m hoping we can move on as a community and get back to celebrating what an amazing place Red Bank is.”
Editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
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Red Bank Council member Ben Forest delivers prepared remarks in which he called for the council to pass a resolution regarding the Red Bank Charter School charter as Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano looks on. (Photos by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
Janette Viruet, Red Bank Charter School graduate and parent, addresses the Mayor and Borough Council Thursday night. 
RBCS parent Nicole Taetsch addresses the council while members of the Red Bank Borough Board of Education, Superintendent Jared Rumage and other parents look on. 
Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano is the only member of the current governing body who was in office when the council passed a resolution calling for non-renewal in 2021. 
