Talk:List of school districts in New Jersey
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[edit] What should be included
Should the List of school districts in New Jersey page come from a directory of schools, or should there be an entry for every municipality. I can think of many municipalities that don't have any schools (e.g., they're part of a regional / consolidated district or they have a sending relationship), yet there is an entry in the list?!?! This would be a far more useful list if it represented what really needs to be filled in from an education standpoint. Alansohn 15:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- If you're talking about the recent additions for districts that don't have high schools, I think the additions are appropriate if correct. These towns often have local elementary and middle schools that are in a seperate town school district. For and example I am familiar with, River Vale belongs to the Pascack Valley Regional High School District for grades 9-12. Grades K-8 belong to the River Vale School District (listed here as River Vale Township School District) via 3 town schools.
- So perhaps the better question is whether this list is intended to be for high school districts only. If so, we should move the article to change the title. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 16:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- The list originally appeared to me to be just lists of municiplaities with School District appeneded to the end. After further review, it does seem that those municipalities that are part of a regional / consolidated K - 12 district are not listed, but those that participate in a 9-12 high school district but have their own elementary schools are listed. This is as it should be, it's not hust a high school district page (and there's a separate List of high schools in New Jersey for that, anyway). My main issue at this point is the naming standard. It's not always in the form of "Xyz Borough School District." Often it's "Xyz Public Schools," "Xyz Borough Schools," "Xyz Borough Public Schools" or numerous other variations. As the districts have formal names, we should use them. The next question is does each district need a page. I've created pages for 55 of 75 regional districts, and even these are hard to populate. At the local level, some of these districts have a single K - 6 elementary school facility with barely 100 students. Will all of these districts merit a page or should it just be consolidated with the municipality page? Alansohn 17:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. The list will need editing and verification, yes. I'm not sure each district needs a page. I didn't see a need for one in River Vale, but towns with larger school districts might warrant one. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 17:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- I updated River Vale, New Jersey in the same basic format that I've used for other municipalities in regional districts. There's not much there that could be used as the basis for a full page. I could pull the section out into a separate River Vale Schools page, but what else would be in there? With all of the high school-related AfD battles, I'm not sure how these school district pages will fly. On the other hand, perhaps we should come up with a template of additional info to be filled in (administration, history, years constructed, enrollment history over past several years, awards, etc.) that could be completed by folks in the local communities.
- Looks good to me, thanks. I agree, if someone wants to make a full article on the school district, it would require a bunch of additional research. Getting it to survive an AFD would be an accomplishment. I'm not sure it would happen. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 22:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- I updated River Vale, New Jersey in the same basic format that I've used for other municipalities in regional districts. There's not much there that could be used as the basis for a full page. I could pull the section out into a separate River Vale Schools page, but what else would be in there? With all of the high school-related AfD battles, I'm not sure how these school district pages will fly. On the other hand, perhaps we should come up with a template of additional info to be filled in (administration, history, years constructed, enrollment history over past several years, awards, etc.) that could be completed by folks in the local communities.
- Ah, okay. The list will need editing and verification, yes. I'm not sure each district needs a page. I didn't see a need for one in River Vale, but towns with larger school districts might warrant one. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 17:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- The list originally appeared to me to be just lists of municiplaities with School District appeneded to the end. After further review, it does seem that those municipalities that are part of a regional / consolidated K - 12 district are not listed, but those that participate in a 9-12 high school district but have their own elementary schools are listed. This is as it should be, it's not hust a high school district page (and there's a separate List of high schools in New Jersey for that, anyway). My main issue at this point is the naming standard. It's not always in the form of "Xyz Borough School District." Often it's "Xyz Public Schools," "Xyz Borough Schools," "Xyz Borough Public Schools" or numerous other variations. As the districts have formal names, we should use them. The next question is does each district need a page. I've created pages for 55 of 75 regional districts, and even these are hard to populate. At the local level, some of these districts have a single K - 6 elementary school facility with barely 100 students. Will all of these districts merit a page or should it just be consolidated with the municipality page? Alansohn 17:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Just to join in this discussion, I have a suggestion: If a school district serves only one municipality, wouldn't it be reasonable to have the school district's link point to the municipality's article? That way you would not have all these red links. Then if someone decides to create an article on that school district, this page could be edited to point the link to the school district page. Or, the list in this article could just be a list, with the name of the school district turned into a link only if there is an article about the district. I realize that would take a lot of monitoring, I just hate to see all these red links. There are some districts that in all likelihood would NEVER justify their own article, for example as someone pointed out above, some districts have NO schools, I know that Millstone in Somerset County is one and I believe Rocky Hill in Somerset is another. They have sending-receiving relationships with other districts and the sole function of the district is to receive the appropriate amount of tax money from the municipality and send it to the receiving district. They probably have a school board but it probably does not meet very often. Other towns like South Bound Brook have, I believe, one school and it is an elementary school, so again it is difficult to envision a viable article about that district. (I notice that right at the moment South Bound Brook and Millstone (Somerset) are not links at all, is that just a typo?) Neutron 00:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- Rockleigh, New Jersey is an example of a district that has no schools. It sends to Northvale for K-8 and to the Northern Valley Regional High School District for 9-12. Alpine Public School is an example of a single-facility district with just over 100 students. The Bergenfield Public Schools is a bit more substantial. Though, one argument for keeping all of the red links is that it would provide a guide of what is left to be done. This page had about a dozen links when I got started and aded all 73 regional / consolidated districts, assuming that the single municipality districts might be added when (and if) they were created. I'm willing to stick with what's been created, but there's a lot of work left to do.... Alansohn 01:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Non-operating school districts
Well, here we are almost 2 years later, and I had forgotten about the discussion above. What happened today was, I saw this article on my watch list, took a look through it, and noticed the Millstone Borough School District as a red link. This is a non-operating school district (as the Millstone, New Jersey article correctly states.) I also noticed that the intro to this article says that non-operating school districts are not listed at all. I am not sure I agree with this. Having read the suggestion I made almost 2 years ago, which is that the non-operating districts might link to the municipality article, I find that this is what I still think. :) Therefore, rather than delete Millstone, I have linked it to the municipality article and left "School District" in non-linked type, with a notation "Non-operating district." I realize that this creates other issues, like what to do about the other non-operating districts that have been deleted. (The other Somerset County example would be Rocky Hill.) My suggestion is that if someone wants to add it back, they can do so. I also notice that there is still a red-link for the one-school (K-8 or maybe K-6) district of South Bound Brook, which I am going to link to the municipality article. Neutron 18:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
