Wednesday’s court session started by Judge Doyne asking for clarification on a few things from previous testimonies. State’s attorney did not do a good job in clarifying those issues and, in fact, Judge Doyne had to repeat the question a few times. Although Judge Doyne said he did not want to but had to agreed with David Sciarra on his comment about the lack of funding level and how it impacted the poorest districts. The reduction was done off the formula and was not consistent.

The first witness was Walt Whitaker, Superintendent of Buena Regional School District. This district was one of the 17 Rural Districts that brought a lawsuit against the State on the basis that rural school district suffered as must as urban school district. And listening to him talk about what they lost it sounded like a page from Paterson. They lost music and arts, technology and no world language for K-5. Mr. Whitaker gave a very detailed and lengthy breakdown of his district and what they lost.

Mr. Frederick Jacobs was the attorney doing the questioning because he was one of the attorneys involved with the lawsuit. There were a few times that Judge Doyne had to stop him because he kept bringing up NCLB but he did say he would allow it if he could tie it into SFRA. Judge Doyne asking the State if they had any objections and they did not. At times it seemed that Judge Doyne asked more questions and did more objections than either side. So with that being said I hope that Judge Doyne do the right thing by All Our Children.