regulation incorporating this bar on parental-status exclusion, instead adopting a regulation, N.J.A.C . 6A:24-3.3, that more broadly requires that the district "shall offer" an early childhood program to "all three- and four-year-old children."There is in this record no contention that any district is now excluding children based on parental status. In light of the Court's clear ruling, the all-encompassing nature of the quoted regulatory mandate and the lack of any evidence of a continuing problem, I CONCLUDE that no violation of the Court's mandates has been established.

The crux of the ELC's complaints (and, in some degree, that also of the several participating districts) regarding the adequacy of both direct and supplemental funding revolves around the concern that the districts have not properly examined and assessed the conditions, circumstances, strengths and weaknesses relating to their delivery of an appropriate Abbott-quality preschool program for their children and thereby properly determined their needs, including those of the local community-based centers, and that the Department has failed to insist upon such district activity so that it can properly oversee the planning and implementation process and do all that is necessary to assure its success. The evaluation and assessment process is a procedure ultimately utilized as a means to produce plans for achieving the goals of Abbott and also to assist in assuring compliance with those mandates. In the petitioners' view, the failure to insist upon districts formulating plans and submitting them for assessment has led to inadequate funding being supplied to the districts in a number of Abbott-related areas.

The DOE argues in its brief that the petitioners attempt to foist a responsibility on the districts to assess the students and preschools prior to designing plans or revising them, a responsibility the agency contends is nowhere established in the Abbott cases. Such a reading of the Abbott decisions, especially after Abbott VI , is completely unwarranted. To the extent that the Court plainly requires that the DOE assure that the districts are adequately funded, that they are capable of delivering the level of educational program mandated and that they have the necessary tools to do so, the