When students walk across the hallways of THS, most of their interests concern college applications, homework, or the test they have in a few minutes. However, with the recent passing of the referendum, students’ curiosity about the school’s spending decisions were amplified, leading to heated conversations and heightened interest to understand the matter.
To comprehend the distribution of money at Tenafly, however, it’s important to learn of the spending system of Tenafly Public Schools. According to Mr. Michael Ben-David, the superintendent, the district works with a budget of approximately $90 million, and around 70% of its budget goes to people and benefits. The other 25%-30% goes to facilities, maintenance, supplies, software, technology, and others.
Regarding the displeasure that the student body feels on teams and programs getting cut, Ben-David stated that with a limited budget, there needs to be a balance between the revenues and expenses.
“Every year, [the district] has to look at what [it] wants to add and what [it wants] to subtract,” Ben-David said. “Nobody wants to give up anything—they just want more. So that’s one of the challenges we face. If I don’t make more but I spend more, I’ve got to cut.”
According to Principal James Morrison, the decision to cut the gymnastics team, which was one of the teams that was cut this year, was primarily based on low participation as well as high operational cost. With only three to four students left on the team, the expenses associated with maintaining the program became high, compared to the number of students benefiting from it.
“We hope to not cut any teams,” Morrison said. “[However,] the gymnastics team had only a handful of kids coming back, and when you put on top of that the cost of the coach, of renting the facility, of busing, that was just a program where we were spending a lot of money for only a few kids.”
Nonetheless, the sudden cutting of the team amassed much shock and sadness among students and staff, and devastation to the team.
“From my point of view, the termination of the gymnastics varsity program deeply saddened me, especially since we were not given the opportunity to speak on our behalf to the BOE [or] administration,” Ms. Nicole Abbatemarco, the coach of the gymnastics team, said. “The team consisted of Tenafly’s most athletic students and our awards given within only five years of competition are an indication that the Tenafly school district should have reconsidered [its] decision and granted us the chance to stand up for our program.”
Frustration had also risen among students and staff due to the administration’s decision to stop funding useful programs such as Turnitin.com, Membean, and NoRedInk.
“These programs were useful, especially in the beginning of high school, because it prevented students from getting out of touch with vocab and grammar, and even though many people complained about Membean work, I thought it was pretty useful,” Selah Jain (’25) said. “I think the school needs to reevaluate what programs it needs to fund, especially since there were so many programs used by the English department that helped students [but] that are [now] being cut.”
With regard to the referendum, according to Morrison, the recently approved referendum will help improve many outdated things in Tenafly schools and fields for Tenafly students and staff. Repairing leaky sections of the roof and the ineffective AC and heating units are some projects that will directly benefit students and staff. Furthermore, Morrison also commented that “security meant a very different thing [in the past] than what it means in 2025.” For this reason, the referendum funds will also be used to replace all windows with ones “that are covered with a security film so they’re bullet resistant.”
The referendum also plans to tremendously improve the condition of the school’s outdated gym. Funds will be used to replace the gym floor, lighting, and sound systems in the gym, as well as the bleachers and pads around the walls and the boys and girls’ locker rooms, which have not been updated since 1972. A turf field with a track for sports and P.E. will also be added.
“Tenafly prides itself on the quality of our education and our school system, but our facilities have not kept pace with how awesome our teachers and our program is,” Morrison said. “When people go to buy a house, they have a choice of what community they’re going to go to. And granted, our education speaks for itself, but our facilities are not attracting any. At least now we’ll have facilities that don’t deter people from choosing to buy a house here.”
Some students have speculated that the referendum funds “are biased for the football program,” as stated by Derin Oral (’27), but according to Ben-David, the referendum projects are designed to benefit the entire student body and community, not just specific sports teams. For example, Ben-David explained that the field house will be a multi-use facility for all sports and the new turf field in the high school is not specifically for football and even lacks the football markings.
Additionally, despite the many items covered in the referendum, suspicions have been raised on the authenticity of the vote, as the tally of 1,148 opposed and 1,130 in favor announced on Sept. 20 was updated to 1199 votes in favor and 1187 opposed on Sept. 30.
“I think that the way [the referendum] passed was shady,” Liam Tenenbaum (’25) said. “I do know that there was a margin of victory towards the no side, with not a lot of voting left to happen. Also, it took a lot of time to count those votes, which makes me think that [the administration was] finding the votes [it] needed to flip the referendum.”
Ben-David, however, stated that there was nothing suspicious about how the votes were counted, as it was per the official procedure to count the mail-in votes that arrived after the first count had happened.
At the end of the day, it will be up to the Tenafly community to appraise whether the school will use the $76.1 million school construction to ultimately improve the town’s schools for the better.
