Toms River District Owed Nearly 90k in Out-of-District Tuition

The Toms River Board of Education has not decided yet whether to take legal action against nine Seaside Park families who owe nearly $90,000 in tuition from the 2013-2014 academic year, according to attorney Stephan Leone. 

Warning notices about the outstanding tuition were sent in February, July and August Leone said. "There's no surprise that tuition was due. The issue is they apparently had tuition being paid for them by an organization in Seaside Park."

The organization, "Cares," or Citizens Aligned for Responsible and Equitable Schools, was funding the tuition costs for several years, but has since dissolved, according to the Asbury Park Press. "That doesn't change the fact that tuition was being paid and due to the Toms River School system," Leone said.

Leone said tuition has been paid since 2011 for all of the students from Seaside Park in 7th through 12th grades. In 2012 to 2013, because of homelessness created after Super storm Sandy, students were allowed to attend Toms River public school without paying. In 2013 to 2014, tuition resumed again.

"Some of them paid." Leone said. "It's done in installments. Some of them started to pay and then they stopped paying." Had the tuition payment been current, those families would have been able to pay on an installment basis for the year 2014-2015, according to Leone.

"It's unfortunate the children are caught in this situation," Leone said. "Everybody is very sympathetic to them, but the fact is that in fairness to the students whose parents pay tuition that come from out of the District and in fairness to the taxpayers of Toms River, this is a policy that has to be enforced," he said.