Council also questioned new information the township had received from the state regarding the school district’s Long Range Facilities Plan.
For now, Evesham Township Council is not appealing a decision from the state Department of Education that approved amendments to the Evesham Township School District’s Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) and allows the Evesham Board of Education to close Evans Elementary School.
Council gave no specific reason for tabling the idea at its Oct. 4 meeting, although Mayor Randy Brown did say he believed the township should put together a public presentation regarding the issue.
The state Department of Education approved the closure of Evans School in late August after months of disagreements and litigation between the district and township over whether district-wide enrollment figures and new housing studies supported the closure.
At the Oct. 4 meeting, township solicitor John Gillespie also noted the township had recently filed Open Public Records Act requests with the state and school district regarding all information related to the district’s recent decision to amend its LRFP.
Yet, when the information came back from the state, Gillespie said the township received additional information from the state that it did not receive from the school district.
Specifically, Gillespie said information from the state included references to the district “proposing to increase the existing number of district-owned or leased sites.”
“Nothing that the school district gave us explained that, but we did get it from the commissioner,” Gillespie said.
However, in response to questions from The Sun after the meeting, Evesham School District Superintendent John Scavelli Jr. said the school district “has no plans for future purchases or leasing of new sites.”
At the Oct. 4 meeting, Gillespie also pointed to a section of documents from the state that referenced two acres of land and a “new district operations building.”
While Scavelli said he was unaware of the two acres of land Gillespie was referencing, Scavelli did expand upon the references to a new district operations building.
According to Scavelli, the last time the district was required to submit a full-form LRFP to the state was in 2005, at which time the district had just experienced its peak in enrollment. As such, Scavelli said the district’s 2005 LRFP did include a “small operations building,” but only as a possibility.
“Basically, the LRFP should include any project that is a possibility,” Scavelli said. “Subsequently, over the years, the district did not build a new operations building and has no plans to pursue this in the future either.”
Scavelli said the recently amended LRFP only related to enrollments and the closing of Evans School, so “potential projects” that were listed in 2005 remained.
“They are not new,” Scavelli said. “They are holdovers from years ago and remain in the amended plan until the state actually requires school districts to completely submit a brand new plan.”
As of two days after the Oct. 4 meeting, Scavelli said the township had not contacted the district to clarify any of this information.
However, at the Oct. 4 council meeting, township manager Tom Czerniecki echoed the sentiments of the township solicitor and said under municipal land use law, the township planning board was the venue for holding discussions related to a school district’s LRFP.
“The board of education comes to the planning board and gives them their Long Range Facilities Plan … the only small shred of governmental oversight a town has over a board of education is there. They refused to do it, and we dragged them into court to give us something,” Czerniecki said.
Czerniecki was referencing a planning board meeting in July that Scavelli and other district officials attended as part of a legal settlement between the district and township regarding prior litigation over the closing of Evans.
That meeting ultimately saw Scavelli and several BOE members walk out after the mayor attempted to directly question several BOE members, which the school district’s solicitor said went directly against the terms of their legal agreement.
The next meeting of the Evesham Township Council is set for Oct. 18.
