Dear Upper Saddle River Community,
Our schools are strong, and the 2026–27 school year is off to a positive start. Recently, however, claims have been circulating in the community about how our schools operate and how our budget was built that do not reflect the facts. Every family and taxpayer deserve accurate information, so we want to share a few key points below, with more detail on the one-page fact sheet linked here.
• Special education is protected by law. Every IEP and 504 plan is followed, and services cannot be reduced for budget reasons and/or changed without the full IEP team, which includes parents. Special education spending rose about 16% this year.
• We review health insurance every year, comparing our costs against the market. To protect our staff, New Jersey law requires that any new plan has to provide coverage equal to or better than our current collective bargaining agreements require. Although our claims experience left no qualified options last year, our targeted outreach this summer to the School Health Insurance Fund (“SHIF”) and five other insurance carriers, along with a review of self-funding, secured a partner that meets our strict standards, and we finalized the new agreement as soon as that option emerged.
• Staffing follows enrollment. We have proactively monitored enrollment for years, supported by demographic studies. The most recent, completed in 2025, projected no significant growth. With that information, we made the difficult decision to adjust staffing levels to better match current and projected enrollment.
• Administration was reduced at a higher rate than teaching. One of 10 administrative positions (10%) was reduced, compared with 8% of teaching positions.
• No academic program has been eliminated. Every identified enrichment program, including the gifted and talented program, continues to receive services.
• Our ACE after-care program has grown nearly fivefold, from 42 students in 2020–21 to 205 today. Pursuant to law, ACE revenue cannot be used to pay teacher and/or aide salaries.
• School funding has not been cut; it has increased every year for the past ten years. We have done this responsibly. The school tax has grown an average of about 2% a year, in line with the state’s cap, or about 22% over a decade. This year’s 3.83% increase, about $189 for the average assessed home ($796,936), reflects rising costs across the board, including health insurance, special education and utilities.
We created a Fact Sheet with more detail on each of these topics. It can be accessed here: Fact Sheet. The budget presentation, FAQ, October 7 letter and meeting minutes are posted at www.usrschoolsk8.com.
We welcome questions at any time, and we keep looking for better ways to communicate, including our opening-of-school letter and a new community newsletter launching soon.
This Board and Administration have acted with integrity and transparency throughout, and we remain fully committed to excellence. Our students, staff and community are, and will continue to be, our priority.
Thank you for your continued support of our schools.
Sincerely,
David Kaplan, Superintendent of Schools
Susan Gandara, President, Upper Saddle River Board of Education