Cape May City Elementary and West Cape May Elementary school districts have received a $50,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to consider merging.
The schools have issued a joint request for a proposal from independent consulting firms to conduct a consolidation study, with a conclusion deadline of June 1, 2026. The deadline will allow the school to plan and budget accordingly for the 2026-27 school year.
Zachary Palombo, who serves as the shared superintendent, principal and director of special education for both schools, said the Cape May City Elementary School Board of Education voted Oct. 16 to accept Stockton University’s proposal to perform the feasibility study. The West Cape May Elementary School Board of Education followed suit Oct. 30
Palombo said there are many key things to consider when discussing consolidating the schools, a concept that has been studied in 2010, 2013 and 2014, but was found not to be feasible.
“We’re doing the study for transparency for everyone here on the island,” Palombo said in September. “We’re taking the opinion of community members. It’s going to be a slow process and not everyone is going to be happy with it, but that’s why we have a third party doing it.”
The Southern Regional Institute and Educational Technology Training Center (SRI&ETTC) School of Education at Stockton University will conduct an eight-month study that will analyze and present findings related to facility utilization, relationships between districts, administrative staffing, class size, diversity enhancement and debt obligations.
The study will provide a general description of the community including population, socioeconomic complexity, race and age distribution, average education attainment, median household income, housing units, the median price of single-family homes, and current and projected school enrollment data to provide context for any recommendations.
The information will be provided to help the districts determine:
— What if Cape May and West Cape May were to consolidate or merge, creating one entity, and what would that look like?
— What if the districts continued to share services but expanded the shared services to the maximum?
The SRI&ETTC School Leadership team includes those with expertise in school governance, school finance, curriculum and instruction, and demographics.
Team members will prepare individual work plans as well as the documents and data that will be needed from the districts to begin the work.
Patricia Weeks, director of the SRI&ETTC, will serve as team leader. She has served in numerous administrative roles at Stockton University since 1973.
In 1996, she was the author of a grant request to establish the SRI&ETTC, which remains one of the most successful centers of its kind in the state.
Weeks has served as the primary author and project director for nearly $20 million in externally funded projects over the past three decades.
She has extensive experience in the delivery of a broad range of programming and services to the K-12 community.
Stockton is expected to present findings and recommendations to the boards of education, including the districts’ timelines for implementation, in May 2026.
The fee for this project is $200 per hour with an estimated total cost of $48,000.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Cape May Star and Wave
