The Sea Girt Elementary School was the source of controversy in 1966, just as it is today. Today our problem is too few students. In the mid-sixties, it was too many.
Nelda (Murray) Ragan born in 1922 in Newark summered in Sea Girt as a girl. Her father, Walter Murray purchased 221 Chicago Blvd. in 1950. While attending Rosemont College and studying art, Nelda Murray met and married WWII veteran Frank X. Ragan Jr. in 1948. In the early 1950’s the couple moved to her family’s Sea Girt home. Together they had nine children.
The community was growing. In 1937 a kindergarten with 12 students began on the second floor of Borough Hall, and 90 older kids attended other schools, When the baby boom came to Sea Girt thirty years later, there were now 300 elementary-age children. They mostly attended Manasquan and Spring Lake elementary schools in a 60%-40% split. It was a cooperative agreement, formalized in a ten-year send/receive contract in 1959.
By 1966, Mrs. Ragan and a dozen other active parents in the community felt the town needed to educate its own children. Her kids went to St. Catherine’s, along with 75 of the 300. But she thought it important for the town to have a school, and kids to avoid the bus.
Nelda and several other neighbors began a campaign to build a school. Many taxpayers, particularly those with summer homes and older residents were vehemently opposed. The Borough Council understood both sides, as did the School Board, and action stalled.
Manasquan was also growing and needed an expansion. The taxpayers there questioned why they needed to teach the students of Sea Girt. The new Broad Street Elementary School was not big enough to close the old Talyor Ave. school. The town was also renting space in the Presbyterian Church. A Civic Association organized to oppose the referendum to add six, and then twelve classrooms to Broad Street. Spring Lake indicated they were no longer extending the agreement at Mountz, and Sea Girt officials convinced Manasquan to take all the children. But the Civic Association in Squan beat the expansion back twice.
In 1968, facing the loss of agreements, no school for their children, and a new mandate to accommodate bussing for all eligible public and parochial school students, pressure built. There were discussions with Brielle and Point Pleasant, an even further bus ride for children. Sea Girt appealed to the County which instructed the neighboring communities to keep the status quo for one more year.
In 1969, Sea Girt agreed to spend $750,000 to build a school on Bell Place on borough land between Crescent Pkway and New York Blvd, at the former location of the Spring Lake and Sea Girt Country Club.
Mrs. Ragan stepped up her commitment and volunteered. She was the first president of the PTA of the new Sea Girt Elementary School which opened for classes in the fall of 1970. Frank served on the School Board as its President. Sidewalks were ordered cleared, and kids happily walked or biked to school. Moms provided lunch, and on nice days, students ate outside. The early controversies were minor.
In 1974, the state forced the school board to change its dress code to allow girls to wear slacks. Then the state required the school to provide cafeteria services due to mandated federal free lunch programs, even though no Sea Girt students qualified.
Nelda volunteered to staff the art room. For the next 36 years, she curated bulletin boards and instructed children in arts and crafts. She continued after the hiring of a paid art teacher and even after she sold her Chicago Blvd house to her son Peter Ragan and Susan (Mckinley) Ragan.
The small school thrived and has won numerous awards for excellence. The teachers are ranked #3 in the state, and performance is A+ in every ranked category except diversity. There is still not one student on free or reduced-price lunch.
Since Nelda’s retirement in 2006, and passing in 2015 at age 92 the school has slowly lost enrollment. The cost of real estate in the beach community has driven affordability out of reach for most families. The school has adapted by opening enrollment to students from other areas, but the demographic trends seem stacked against SGES.
Art is part of the rich legacy of the SGES
John Clark of Spring Lake recently described the problem in great detail in an opinion piece in the Coast Star, highlighting the low enrollment problems of the small schools of Avon-by-the-Sea, Spring Lake and Sea Girt. This has triggered a discussion of possible cooperation with other districts, as we approach 1937’s numbers.
The School Board and the Borough Council will have to balance the needs of the children and their fiduciary obligation to the taxpayers, while they still have an option to get the best solution for all parties. State politicians have threatened to force the issue in tiny districts. Cool heads and enthusiastic, giving residents like Nelda Ragan made it work before, and any child would be blessed to grow up here, wherever they get to learn.
A tree was planted for Nelda Ragan on Arbor Day 2007