The Branchburg Township School District is a community

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

school district A school district is a special-purpose district that operates local public primary and secondary schools in various nations. North America United States In the U.S, most K–12 public schools function as units of local school districts, wh ...

serving students in

pre-kindergarten Pre-kindergarten (also called Pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts). It may be delivered through a preschool ...

through

eighth grade Eighth grade (or grade eight in some regions) is the eighth post-kindergarten year of formal education in the US. The eighth grade is the ninth school year, the second, third, fourth, or final year of middle school, or the second and/or final ye ...

from Branchburg, in Somerset County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States. As of the 2020–21 school year, the district, comprised of three schools, had an enrollment of 1,325 students and 152.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a

student–teacher ratio Student–teacher ratio or student–faculty ratio is the number of students who attend a school or university divided by the number of teachers in the institution. For example, a student–teacher ratio of 10:1 indicates that there are 10 students ...

of 8.7:1.District information for Branchburg Township School District

National Center for Education Statistics The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the part of the United States Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) that collects, analyzes, and publishes statistics on education and public school district finance ...

. Accessed February 15, 2022. The district is classified by the

New Jersey Department of Education The New Jersey Department of Education (NJ DOE) administers state and federal aid programs affecting more than 1.4 million public and non-public elementary and secondary school children in the state of New Jersey. The department is headquartered ...

as being in

District Factor Group {{refimprove, date=February 2013 Membership in a District Factor Group (DFG) is an indicator of the socioeconomic status of citizens in school districts of New Jersey. DFGs were first developed by the New Jersey Department of Education in 1975 for ...

"I", the second-highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common

socioeconomic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...

characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J. The public secondary school serving Branchburg for

ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

through

twelfth grade Twelfth grade, 12th grade, senior year, or grade 12 is the final year of secondary school in most of North America. In other regions, it may also be referred to as class 12 or Year 13. In most countries, students are usually between the ages of 17 ...

s is Somerville High School, which students attend as part of a

sending/receiving relationship A sending/receiving relationship is one in which a public school district sends some or all of its students to attend the schools of another district. This is often done to achieve costs savings in smaller districts or continues after districts hav ...

with the

Somerville Public Schools The Somerville Public Schools are a comprehensive community public school district that serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from Somerville, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2018–19 school year, ...

. As of the 2020–21 school year, the high school had an enrollment of 1,155 students and 92.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a

of 12.6:1.

History

The sending / receiving relationship between Branchburg and Somerville was formalized in a 1956 agreement between the two districts, though Branchburg students had attended Somerville High School before that time. In 1970, the Somerville district determined that rising enrollments meant that it would no longer be able to include students from Branchburg and set 1975 as the end date for the sending relationship. Branchburg started the process of acquiring a site for its own high school that could accommodate up to 950 students. In May 1971, Somerville reconsidered its planned termination of the sending arrangement and informed Branchburg that its students would still be welcome in Somerville even after the planned 1975 date. Despite the failure of a referendum to pay for a new Branchburg high school, the Branchburg district decided that it wanted to terminate the relationship, even after Somerville had reconsidered its decision. Branchburg filed a petition in 1975 with the

seeking to terminate the send/receive agreement. Based on a report by the hearing examiner released in 1977, Commissioner of Education Fred G. Burke issued a 1978 decision that the petition be rejected based on the ability of Somerville to serve students from Branchburg with a quality high school education, the financial impact of higher per-pupil costs to both municipalities and the creation of greater racial imbalance in the Somerville district. The State Board of Education agreed with the commissioner's decision and Branchburg's appeal to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division was rejected in a 1980 decision.''Branchburg Tp. Bd. Ed. v. Borough of Somerville Bd. Ed.''

Justia Justia is an American website specializing in legal information retrieval. It was founded in 2003 by Tim Stanley, formerly of FindLaw, and is one of the largest online databases of legal cases. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, Cali ...

. Accessed December 5, 2017.

Schools

Schools in the district (with 2020–21 enrollment data from the

) are: ;Elementary schools *Whiton Elementary School with 544 students in grades PreK-3 **Dee Shober *Stony Brook School with 287 students in grades 4–5 **Kristen Kries, principal ;Middle school *Branchburg Central Middle School with 486 students in grades 6–8 **Matthew Barbosa, principal

Administration

Core members of the district's administration are: *Dr. Karen Chase, superintendent of Schools *Debe Besold and Beverly Vlietstra, interim business administrator and board secretary

Board of education

The district's

board of education A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...

is comprised of nine members who set policy and oversee the fiscal and educational operation of the district through its administration. As a Type II school district, the board's trustees are elected directly by voters to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with three seats up for election each year held (since 2012) as part of the November general election. The board appoints a superintendent to oversee the district's day-to-day operations and a business administrator to supervise the business functions of the district.Board of Education Members
Branchburg Township School District. Accessed February 9, 2020.

References

External links

Branchburg Township School District
*
School Data for the Branchburg Township School District

{{Somerset County, New Jersey School Districts Branchburg, New Jersey New Jersey District Factor Group I School districts in Somerset County, New Jersey