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PORT JERVIS – The Port Jervis City School District is suing the Montague Township (N.J.) School District to force payment of more than $441,327 in tuition for Montague students who attend the Orange County district’s middle and high schools.
The suit was filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Port Jervis has accused Montague of falsely promising payments to keep the New Jersey students enrolled.
Neither Port Jervis Superintendent Thomas Bongiovi nor Montague Superintendent Tacia Johnson returned calls for comment. Details cited are based on court documents and documents posted on the Montague school district website.
Montague’s sole school houses kindergarten through sixth grade. For roughly 85 years, Montague students have attended Port Jervis schools for grades 7 through 12, and Montague has paid tuition to Port Jervis. A formal agreement signed by both districts in 2000 requires five-year notice of termination.
In 2013, Montague negotiated a new agreement to send students to High Point Regional High School in Wantage, N.J., instead, transitioning grade by grade until 2017 when all students would attend High Point. Those attending Port Jervis as of 2013 would be allowed to finish out their school careers in Port Jervis.
Montague filed suit in October in Sussex County, N.J., against High Point and its superintendent, as well as Montague’s former lawyers and New Jersey state and county education officials. The lawsuit says Montague’s school board discovered that the lawyer who negotiated the 2013 deal for the district has been High Point’s lawyer since 2007. The lawsuit called the deal the product of “unsavory legal maneuvers, shady backroom deals, lawyers conspiring with state education officials” to unlawfully “boost the flagging numbers of a regional high school.”
In New Jersey, state aid levels and superintendent salaries rise and fall based on enrollment. Montague’s 10-year contract with High Point is worth about $10 million in tuition, according to court papers.
The lawyer, Cherie Adams, successfully sought to have New Jersey Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf withdraw consent for Montague’s out-of-state agreement with Port Jervis, nullifying the contract.
High Point and the New Jersey education commissioner have moved to bar Montague from paying Port Jervis tuition for current freshmen and sophomores, under threat of sanctions that include the withholding of state aid money. Court papers say the commissioner stated – incorrectly – that all Montague high school students should be attending High Point.
Montague has asked the Sussex court to rescind the High Point contract as fraudulent, and to allow Montague to pay Port Jervis the overdue tuition for 10 freshmen and three sophomores, for whom the quarterly tuition totals $41,210. Montague’s court papers say the district intended to pay Port Jervis by December for the current students in eighth, 11th and 12th grades.
Montague budget documents list 42 regular education and 13 special education students attending Port Jervis, with a tuition budget of $675,283.
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