Four elementary schools change in the district's first redistricting step

What happened

Old Bridge has begun redistricting its elementary schools to cut costs. The 2026-2027 budget the board adopted on May 12, 2026 removes $1,168,436 of spending labelled 'redistricting efforts', including $450,000 from grades 1-5 teacher salaries, $200,000 from principal and assistant principal salaries, $160,000 each from resource room and basic skills teachers, $200,000 from busing and $130,410 from electricity. A May 19, 2026 nurse-staffing table marks four schools as affected: McDivitt, Madison Park, Memorial and Shepard. In August the board amended its 2026-2027 bus contracts 'to reflect the recent redistricting'. Board members have said openly that consolidating schools is the next step being discussed.

Why it matters to families

Redistricting changes which school a child attends, who teaches them, which bus they take and how many adults are in the building. It is also the district's main tool for closing a budget gap, so more phases are expected: the adopted budget's closing message tells the board to keep planning 'future phasing of our redistricting efforts'.

The evidence

The approved May 12, 2026 agenda session minutes list each budget line cut and give 'REDISTRICTING EFFORTS' as the explanation. The approved May 19, 2026 regular meeting minutes contain a table of projected 2026-2027 enrollment and nurse hours for all eleven elementary schools, with McDivitt (525 students), Madison Park (430), Memorial (388) and Shepard (302) marked 'Affected by redistricting'. The approved August 18, 2026 minutes amend transportation renewal contracts to reflect the recent redistricting. At the May 5, 2026 public hearing board members described consolidation and redistricting as the district's remaining options.

The source