For the third time this year, Red Bank public school parents, this time joined by five members of the borough council, boarded a bus to Trenton to appeal for increased financial aid Tuesday morning.

About two dozen parents gathered at the primary school for the trip to the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, where Acting Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington was expected to testify.

The district has been shortchanged more than $6.4 million in required funding over the last decade, even as enrollment has soared by nearly 60 percent, school officials said. The repeated trips to the capitol, said board of ed President Fred Stone, are part of an effort to obtain “at least equitable funding” relative to other districts.

Also on the bus were all but one of the council members: Kathy Horgan, Mark Taylor, Mike Whelan, Erik Yngstrom and Ed Zipprich. Because they constituted a quorum, Whelan said they would have to “not sit together” to avoid violating the state Open Public Meetings law. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)