Port faces $1.8M tuition loss

PORT JERVIS — New Jersey’s Montague School District plans to pull all of its students out of Port Jervis secondary schools by 2018.

PORT JERVIS — New Jersey’s Montague School District plans to pull all of its students out of Port Jervis secondary schools by 2018.

The loss in tuition revenue to Port Jervis will be about $1.8 million by 2018, said Debbie Jackson, Port Jervis school district spokeswoman. Jackson said the district plans to spread that loss out over several years.

As of 2013, 128 students in grades seven through 12 from Montague attended Port Jervis schools. Several messages left for Montague’s chief school administrator, Janice Hodge, were not returned.

In December, the Montague school board agreed to begin discussing sending students in grades nine through 12 to High Point Regional High School in Wantage, N.J. Talks are ongoing between Montague and the Frankford Township school board to take-in Montague seventh- and- eighth-graders.

In January, Montague told Port Jervis that it will pull about half of its students out of Port Jervis schools by the 2014-15 school year. Montague will keep reducing the number of its students in the Port Jervis schools over the following two years until 2018, when none from Montague would attend, Jackson said.

Montague parent Tasha DeGeorge said she was willing to explore other school options after she learned that Port Jervis’s graduation rate was 73 percent in the 2011-12 school year compared with High Point’s 95 percent graduation rate, according to a report in the New Jersey Herald.

Port Jervis Superintendent John Xanthis defended the district’s academic programs, saying Montague students in Port Jervis had an 82 percent graduation rate in the 2011-12 year.

“The Port Jervis School District has a long-standing history of providing a quality education to generations of Montague students,” Xanthis said.

The Montague district educates elementary students at the Montague Township School, then sends most of its secondary students to Port Jervis.

It’s about 12 miles from Montague to Port Jervis High School and about 10 miles to the Port Jervis middle school. The High Point school option has been explored in the past, but foundered on transportation problems. It’s about 15 miles from Montague to High Point High School by Deckertown Turnpike, a steep road that cuts through High Point Mountain, the highest elevation in New Jersey.

During bad weather, the road can be treacherous.

John Mannion of Montague is the parent of Port Jervis senior Sarah Mannion and 2012 graduate Joseph Mannion.

He said he was happy with the education his children received at Port Jervis and felt the Montague district wasn’t being transparent enough with parents about its intentions.

“There’s nothing wrong with this arrangement,” Mannion said. “Why fix it if it’s not broke?”

jnani@th-record.com