The Wall Street Journal reported that parents in Scotch Plains – Fanwood had raised $40,000 for legal fees involved in their suit to reopen schools. This $40,000 comes from the parents’ own pockets. Parents in Montclair and South Orange-Maplewood also had to raise private money to pursue their own lawsuits.
In each of these towns, the local teachers union is blocking reopening, and yet who pays for the unions’ legal fees? The state-level NJEA.
And who funds the NJEA? The very same parents who are digging into their own pockets to try to reopen schools. That’s right: these parents pay property taxes that pass through the district (via withheld dues) directly to the NJEA, which then provides top-notch lawyers to represent the local unions.
The bottom line is that these taxpaying parents are forced to use their own money to try to get schools reopened at the same time that their property taxes are paying for the legal fees of the teachers’ unions, the groups responsible for keeping the schools closed!
Once again, NJ’s rigged system allows taxpayer dollars to be used against taxpayers’ interests.