>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Monday.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Tonight, a few stories we'll get into later in the broadcast.

A crowded race is already taking shape in the state's 11th congressional district where Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill has yet to resign.

We have the latest on the fast-moving fight for her seat.

Then, Bergen County is stepping up food support ahead of Thanksgiving, getting fresh produce on the shelves of pantries straining to meet demand.

And later, New Jersey lags behind the rest of the nation when it comes to releasing student test scores.

We'll break down what that means for concerns around transparency and planning in local districts.

But first, a few of today's top headlines.

Authorities are releasing new details about the deadly weekend shooting in Newark that claimed the lives of a 10-year-old boy and a 21-year-old woman and wounded three others.

The Essex County Prosecutor's Office says surveillance video from Saturday night shows a group gathered outside a liquor store on the corners of Leslie Street and Chancellor Avenue when two gunmen opened fire, killing 10-year-old Jordan Garcia, a Newark youth football player, and injuring his 11-year-old brother, who officials say is in stable condition.

According to reports, the boys were walking home with a teammate from a recreation center around 7 p.m.

when the gunfire erupted.

At a press conference this morning, authorities said 21-year-old Kaya Scott was also killed, while a 60-year-old is listed in stable condition and a 19-year-old remains critical.

Community members held a vigil on Sunday as investigators continue to track down the shooters.

Grief counselors were on hand at Newark Public Schools today, and the superintendent says support will be offered to students and staff this week.

City leaders, including Mayor Raz Baraka, who visited the victims' families at the hospital over the weekend, called it devastating.

The Essex County Sheriff has posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Also tonight, the FAA has given the green light for our airways to return to normal, lifting its emergency order on all flight restrictions as of 6 a.m.

this morning at 40 major airports, including, of course, Newark.

Those restrictions, again, were put in place during the government shutdown as air traffic controller staffing levels dropped and safety concerns grew, leading to mass cancellations and delays for travelers across the country.

Now, at its peak, reductions reached 6 percent at airports and canceled flights surged to nearly 3,000 scrubbed in a single day.

The agency says staffing has been stabilized, and so-called safety trigger events, those have fallen sharply, from a high of 81 to just one on Sunday.

U.S.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says lifting the order allows federal officials to refocus on hiring more air traffic controllers and modernizing the air traffic system.

It comes just as a record number of Americans prepare to hit the road or skies for Thanksgiving.

AAA projects nearly 82 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home over the holiday period.

That's the most ever on record.

And at least 73 million will go by car.

Now they say that number could grow if lingering concerns over flight disruptions push more people to take a road trip.

Travel by other modes like bus and train.

That's also expected to see an uptick.

And activists and elected officials rallied in Liberty State Park this weekend to protest a massive boat storage facility proposed for the north end of the park.

Now the three acre seven story building would include spaces for 500 boats and would be built under a new 60 year lease with Texas based company Suntex.

Money from the lease agreement would go toward improving park infrastructure and developing new recreational facilities.

The State Department of Environmental Protection declined to comment today but has defended the deal as necessary to bring in funding to continue costly revitalization plans for the park.

But critics say the proposed building would be roughly the same size as a home depot and argue it would block views and undermine efforts to keep private development out of the park.

That's something DEP Commissioner Sean LaTourette has said he would prevent.

But a bill to block plans to commercialize or privatize the park has failed to pass the legislature.

Protesters are calling on the Murphy administration to hit pause on the deal and let Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill's incoming administration review the proposal and hopefully kill it.

Coming up, a political scramble is underway to replace Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill in the House.

Who's on the list and when will Sherrill resign?

That's next.

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Well, Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill hasn't even resigned from her congressional seat yet, and there's already a crowded field of contenders lining up to take her spot.

The fast-moving contest in the 11th district is drawing big names, party heavyweights, and a list of lesser-known hopefuls eager to seize the moment.

With no more party line to shape the ballot, this race is far more open than past cycles.

Our senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the latest on who's jumping in and what's at stake.

Big questions there.

Hey Brian, what can you tell us?

Hey Brianna.

So the race to succeed Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill in Jersey's 11th congressional district can already list more Democrats than a rugby scrum, which it's likely to resemble once the campaigns really get going.

Voters can expect some lively interaction amongst the 11 Democrats who have declared or are expected to soon.

Sheryl can announce she will resign her seat in Congress this week, and Governor Murphy is expected to waste no time in calling for a special election to fill that vacancy.

After Sheryl's 13-point victory in the race for governor and with Donald Trump's 55 percent disapproval rating in New Jersey, many Democrats see a golden opportunity for a blue wave, according to political analysts.

So, after what we saw in New Jersey and Virginia last week, Democrats are looking at next year and saying, "This looks like a wave election.

We think we can do really well."

And as a result, Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to run for office in 2026.

Of course, there's going to be a ton of buzz about it, given that this is the governor-elect's former district.

And so, and we know this is a district she flipped back in 2018.

So, there's a good media narrative behind it.

There are going to be candidates that are going to be better known, and they're going to have a better chance to tell their story, raise more money and get better known.

Name recognition, especially without the line, name recognition is the first order of business, for sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Writers Micah Rasmussen says New Jersey's ballot no longer offers preferential placement to machine candidates on the so-called county line, but endorsements still count.

And on that long list of 11 candidates, a few enjoy instant clout.

That includes Montclair resident Brendan Gill, Essex County commissioner since 2011, already backed by dozens of Essex Democrats, and Governor Murphy, whose campaign Gill managed in 2017.

His campaign launch talked about affordability and the American dream.

The reason that I'm running for Congress is because we know that is slipping away.

We know that for my own two, Gabriel and Kristen, for my own nieces and nephews, for your family, that that promise is under attack.

So I'm running for Congress again to pick up where my friend Mikey Sherrill left off.

Now, that's former Congressman Tom Malinowski, who served two terms in CD7, but lost after it was redrawn to no longer favor Democrats.

He's another top contender endorsed today by Senator Andy Kim.

Malinowski doesn't actually live in the 11th District, which includes parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties, but says he'll move before the primary.

My job is in the district.

I'm teaching at Seton Hall University in South Orange.

And as I just mentioned, I will be the only candidate in the primary who can say I've actually represented parts of this district in the Congress.

People know me very well in the towns in the 11th and in Morris, Essex and Passaic County.

Now, two other Democrats on the list hail from Passaic County, Lieutenant Governor Tahisha Way, a Wayne resident and current New Jersey secretary of state.

She's an attorney and a former county commissioner, and she's expected to declare she'll vie for votes against a current county commissioner, John Bartlett.

I'm John Bartlett, husband, dad, county commissioner and voting rights lawyer.

Too many politicians say they're in public service when we know it's really their own self-service looking after themselves at our expense.

Now, this long list also includes a couple of former mayors, Dean Daffis of Maplewood, who wants to be Jersey's first LGBTQ member of Congress.

Jeff Grazel, former mayor of Morris Township.

Zach Beecher, a former Army paratrooper and venture capitalist from Morris County.

Chatham Borough Councilman Justin Strickland.

Social activist Anna Lee Williams, who declared her candidacy this past summer.

And Mark Chabann, who once interned for Mikey Sherrill.

Also, Cammie Croft, who served in the Obama administration as deputy new media director.

Also being mentioned as a possible candidate, Annalilia Mejia, a progressive activist.

In terms of contenders, it's an embarrassment of riches that reveals a power struggle amongst Democrats.

This also is turning into a real fight between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the institutional wing of the Democratic Party, which is the underlying story of news media politics in the last 10 or 15 years.

We're going to have people coming in and fighting for that nomination because the institutional party, basically through the media and the party line, isn't able to totally control who the nominee is anymore.

It is the Wild West out there.

Everybody's taking their shot.

So this means a lot of candidates have to work very quickly, at least on the Democratic side, to differentiate themselves from one another and to kind of stake their claim among the eligible electorate in the 11th District.

Now, as for Republicans, one has said he's running in the special primary, and that's Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway.

So far, he's unopposed.

Now, this is going to be a battle amongst Democrats, with an eye on eventually trying to reclaim the majority in the House.

But Sherrill's resignation will subtract one more vote for Democrats in the meantime.

So there's some urgency to fill that seat.

This is a very closely divided Congress.

Every seat and every vote counts.

And you don't want that seat left open and that vote left open any longer than you absolutely have to.

And so, you know, they've made the decision a special election is the way to go.

That hasn't always been the case with vacancies in the past, but a special election in this case.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, if governor-elect Sherwill resigns this week, as predicted, and Governor Murphy quickly declares a special election for the 11th CDC seat, the rules put a special primary on the calendar at maybe the end of this coming January or early February and the special election in late April or early May of next year, Brianna.

So Bren, remind us, because this is a little bit of a convoluted process, what happens then to whoever wins that special election?

It gets really complicated.

So the winner serves out the rest of Sheryl's term through January of 2027.

Who will take office then?

That will be determined by the regular primary next June and general election next November.

But whoever wins this special election will actually run as the incumbent.

Which, of course, we saw just in the last couple of years.

With Lamonica MacIver, exactly.

Right, with Donald Payne, the late Donald Payne's old seat.

And, of course, there's a bill in the legislature that would address how some of this happens, or at least the speed with which it happens.

To speed it up significantly, right.

Although at this point, it looks as if this is going to be happening with great dispatch.

Yeah.

All right.

Senior Correspondent Brenda Flanagan, Forrest Brenn, thanks as always.

Thank you, Bree.

With Thanksgiving just days away, Bergen County is launching a major push to help families feeling the squeeze.

The county's Office of Food Security this morning teamed up with the Community Food Bank of New Jersey for a massive distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables heading straight to local pantries as demand surges and shelves run low.

As Raven Santana reports, volunteers and local officials all turned out to make sure no family heads into the holiday season without support.

A line of cars and trucks rolled into Overpack County Park this morning where food pantry workers loaded vehicles to the max with boxes of fresh produce.

More than 90,000 pounds of food is being delivered to over 40 food pantries across Bergen County.

How many boxes were you able to fill in that car?

We have 30 boxes in the car and that'll get us started anyway so then we'll see where we go from there.

I can see you made sure that no room was spared.

You got that right.

We have to do what we can to get as much as we can to feed as many people as we can.

We have 70 municipalities here in Bergen County and every one of them has food pantry and food security issues.

And so it's our job as the county government to help these folks and that's what we're doing here today.

The event is in partnership between the Community Food Bank of New Jersey and the county's Office of Food Security.

It comes just over a week after SNAP benefits resumed on November 7th.

<"850,000 of our New Jersey neighbors participate in SNAP.

And when the government was shut down and SNAP benefits were delayed, that meant they didn't have access to a monthly benefit that they're eligible for.

We like to say you can't eat retroactively.

So their inability to purchase groceries for their household was incredibly impactful.

"> Pantries across the state saw more people seeking food assistance when their SNAP benefits were shut off.

And today was an opportunity for them to restock ahead of Thanksgiving.

Bergen County Commissioner Traci Zerr says the push here today is about more than meals.

It's about ensuring no family feels forgotten.

"I think half the people who receive SNAP benefits are children.

Senior citizens are about a third, 20 percent disabled.

These are our veterans.

These are our folks in most need.

And these boxes that we're distributing today are really going to not just give them a happy Thanksgiving, but give them vital nutrition.

It's potatoes, it's onions, it's apples, it's oranges, it's -- I think it has cabbage or broccoli.

Some eat -- they're each a little bit different, but all of them have produce, fresh fruits and vegetables that are going to be nutritionally sound and give people that, you know, ability to have healthy foods on their plates.

And behind me, you can see some of those more than 50 volunteers help unload 4,500 boxes of fresh produce to support those pantries.

Okay, today we received 95 boxes for our pantry and this is one vehicle that I could show you out of five that we brought with us to receive these boxes of produce.

Food pantry coordinator Joe Velardi says as inflation continues to squeeze household budgets, the distribution is a reminder that hunger doesn't take a holiday.

People have been on the increase coming to our pantry.

Every distribution the numbers are going up.

We're seeing new people come.

So we're expecting 40 today but we know that the other 30 are also getting food in different ways and we have over 70 food pantries in Bergen County.

Any pantry will tell you how exponentially the people lining up for food have increased.

Everywhere I go they say the line was around the block, it's so many more people and people don't come to these places unless it's the last straw.

Nobody wants to go and stand in a pantry line.

They do it because this is they are forced to do it.

They have to feed their families.

They have no choice.

Even with SNAP benefits restored food insecurity is still a reality for hundreds of thousands across the state.

And with Thanksgiving days away pantry leaders say every box counts.

For NJ Spotlight News I'm Raven Santana.

Well New Jersey goes to great expense and effort testing students each spring.

But families board of ed members and taxpayers they wait nearly a year to find out how their schools performed.

That long wait has become a major point of frustration for education experts who say timely data is critical for budgeting, planning and spotting which districts need help.

Our urban education writer Julie O'Connor joins us now for more on why New Jersey lags behind most of the country in releasing test results and what the delays mean for transparency in your school.

Julie welcome.

Welcome to the team as well.

It's great to finally have you on an excellent reporting.

Walk us through this process though that you uncovered these test scores.

These tests are primarily given on the computer.

And so I would imagine that the results are near instant.

Why does the state say it needs month months to validate them.

Yeah it's not clear why.

I mean they say it's about making sure all the data is accurate and up to snuff and ready for public presentation.

But the question is why does that take us longer than other states.

That's a question that the state deal we just would not answer.

And we know that larger populations had these statewide scores out in June.

So it just isn't clear why we have to wait until December and have had to for the past few years.

I mean you spoke with former education officials who said this data used to be readily available by September ish.

What changed.

Yeah you know the only thing that I've heard that has changed is that the data used it used to be that the test state tests were at least partly hands hands scored.

And so I spoke to an official you know who was the deputy commissioner under Chris Christie who told me that you know they used to have these these statewide results out in September instead of December and that you know it basically makes zero sense to him that now we wait till December when the scores are you know the tests are all computerized.

So you know I've he says that it's very bizarre and we just I don't have an answer as to why that's the case.

Yeah.

And how does that affect schools and what does it matter for families for taxpayers for people within the school system.

Yeah, I mean, districts got their individual results back on August 27th, which, you know, Peter Shulman, he's the former former deputy commissioner of education that I spoke with.

He says that's really too late to plan for the school year ahead, which starts in September.

The parents got their kids scores back in the in the fall.

But you know, that's really too late, again, to talk to your child's teacher about what happened last year.

Practically speaking, it really doesn't happen.

And so on all these fronts, he and other experts say we should be getting these scores back sooner and we still don't know at this point how we did, how New Jersey schools did as a whole.

And we didn't know earlier this month either when we were, you know, choosing our next governor.

And so experts say really that, you know, there's no excuse for that.

Some of the folks you spoke with suggested that this could be like a fox guarding the hen house situation.

What indications if any did you have that this is a deliberate move, that there's an effort here to really conceal or to try to lack some transparency?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the former deputy commissioner I spoke with, Shulman, feels that it's a matter of inefficiency and not a deliberate policy choice.

But I did speak to other people who aren't so sure.

You know I spoke to some folks who feel that the delay is deliberate, that it's a policy choice.

One person was from the data quality campaign which advocates for better use of data in education.

Paige Kowalski tells me that we should be outraged in New Jersey, that if the score show declines there's really little incentive to release bad news.

She feels that it's absolutely intentional.

You know, I spoke to other people who wonder if it's political.

You know, I spoke to the head of the education reform group 50Can.

His name is Darrell Bradford.

He says that since the pandemic, states and districts have delayed the release of test data in ways that have made it look political and that the less clear that state agencies are about the why, you know, the more people are going to come to their own conclusions.

And this is just inevitable.

You reported that this information was also not available ahead of the race for governor, ahead of the elections for school board members.

Why is that significant?

Yeah, I mean, this information, the statewide data is important because it allows you to say, well, is my district doing better or worse than my neighbor's district?

And this is key.

I mean, the states are, the stakes are high in urban districts because they get a lot of aid from the state.

And some of them have done really well with that, like Union City, while others have struggled, say like Asbury Park.

And so, you know, this would allow districts to look at the bright spots that they can emulate and the success stories.

And so that's why it's so important to get it out quickly.

And again you know when when people are choosing their school board members choosing the governor you know they they want to know how New Jersey schools did last year.

What would it take or what did education officials tell you it might take for the state to release these results earlier than.

They said that basically, you know, there's a process that they follow every year that typically the results in New Jersey are released in December.

They sort of go through all the data.

They make sure that everything is accurate and they prepare it for public presentation.

So I guess what's just still not clear is why that takes New Jersey so much longer than other states with large populations and why that needs to happen again this year.

You know the DOE says that it is again preparing to release these results toward the end of the calendar year.

So you know we'll see.

Will they release them earlier than they usually do or will it take you know until December like it has in years past.

We will be.

Yeah we'll be watching and we know you'll be reporting.

You can read all of Julia O'Connor's work on our website and Jay Spotlight News dot org Julie.

Great reporting as I said.

Excellent work.

Thank you so much.

Thanks Brianna.

And a programming note before we leave you tonight.

This Thursday we'll have a special edition of NJ Spotlight News featuring a conversation with Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill from the League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City.

We'll discuss a wide range of issues from how she'll tackle the budget deficit and deliver on her promises to make the state more affordable along with top priorities once she assumes office.

If you have a question for the Governor-elect, send us an email to info@njspotlightnews.org or message us on social media.

Watch the conversation Thursday at 6.30pm right here on NJPBS or stream it on our NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

That's going to do it for us tonight, but a reminder, you can download our podcast wherever you listen and watch us anytime, again by subscribing to the NJ Spotlight News YouTube channel.

Plus, you can always follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky to stay up to date on all the state's big headlines.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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