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The 18 regional day schools slated to close by the state Department of Children and Families will stay open at least through December 2010.

Contract agreements reached with state workers promise no layoffs through the end of 2010, and that includes employees of the 18 schools for severely disabled and at-risk children. Local schools are in Egg Harbor Township, Middle Township, Toms River and Vineland.

"The transition plans have been halted and everything will stay as it was," DCF spokeswoman Kate Bernyk said Tuesday.

She said parents will get letters within the next week or so formally notifying them of their school's status.

Parent Grissel Ayala, of Bridgeton, whose disabled son Jose, 9, attends the Regional Day School in Vineland, said she had heard talk that the schools were going to stay open but was waiting to hear something official.

"It would be good to have something in writing," she said.

Ayala said she is very happy the school will stay open for now but is still concerned about long-term plans.

The Communications Workers of America contract agreement says the DCF will commission a study on future operations of the schools with representation from all stakeholders, including the CWA. Bernyk said there are no details yet on how that study will be conducted.

The DCF had announced in March that the schools would be phased out beginning July 1 because enrollment was shrinking and they were no longer serving their primary mission of educating children who were wards of the state. Many of the more than 560 students in the 18 schools are now placed there by their local school districts, and parents said that was because there was no other school that could provide the specialized services their children need.

The DCF also runs the TEACH program for teen mothers and their babies that allows the mothers to attend class and provides child care. The Egg Harbor Township and Cape May Court House schools house that program. There had been a proposal to have the Atlantic City School District take over the Atlantic County program, but it will stay in Egg Harbor Township for now.

Mattie Harrell, president of AFSCME Local 2215, which represents technical and food service workers at the Egg Harbor Township and Vineland schools, said the local supported keeping the schools open. She participated in an informational picket outside the Vineland school in May to raise awareness of the traditionally low-profile schools.

"I am just so happy for the kids," she said. "Closing those schools just wasn't sitting well with me at all."

E-mail Diane D'Amico:

DDamico@pressofac.com

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