State and local education officials traveled to Washington on Friday to salvage a $4 million federal grant that they lost for falsely reporting the township school district’s graduation rate.

The U.S. Department of Education decided not to renew Lakewood’s School Improvement Grant for a second year because the district inflated the number of students not getting a high school diploma in its application which was uncovered by an Asbury Park Press investigation.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-NJ has taken up Lakewood’s cause. The congressman arranged the Friday meeting with Deb Delisle, assistant secretary of the federal Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Also at the meeting were state Commissioner of Education Christopher Cerf, and school officials from Lakewood including interim Superintendent Laura Winters, Lakewood High Principal Angela Stewart and school board president Carl Fink.

“Everyone understands the uniqueness of Lakewood, and everyone is really concerned right now about the movement of Lakewood for the better,” Fink said. “Everybody is on board in what is happening in Lakewood.”

The grant program, commonly called SIG, targets low-performing high schools with graduation rates of 60 percent or less. Lakewood applied for  a SIG in 2011, using a graduation rate of 37.5 percent, which was the same rate for the Class of 2009 that appeared on the school’s state School Report Card. But that figure was based on overstated drop-out rates for the 2006-07 school year, the Press found in its series, “Cheated.”

The true graduation rate was likely well above the 60 percent threshold, the Press found.

Smith said Lakewood’s high poverty rate and large number of students for whom English is a second language motivated him to get involved.

“I care about the district and about young people getting a world class education and excellence in their studies,” Smith said, “so they have every opportunity to go forward, and these children deserve the best. They are getting some real leadership.”

Cerf, too, has taken a personal approach with Lakewood. He has visited the school district on at least two occasions in the past few months to meet with concerned parents about the district’s problems. Cerf made the trip Friday keeping his promise to stand behind the districts efforts to continue reforms.

Pastor Glen Wilson is a member of the United Neighbors Improving Today’s Equality, a grassroots organization that heavily criticized the previous school administration. Wilson said the group met with Cerf and “pleaded with him to not allow Lakewood to lose that grant.”

Smith’s office also sent a representative to that meeting, Wilson said.

“The turnaround that we are having in our school today was initiated by the (grant),” Wilson said.

Smith pointed to the district’s new leadership, which came to power in April as key to drastically changing how the public schools system in Lakewood conducts business.

The SIG grant was supposed to last for three years, totaling $6 million. The turnaround plan for the high school, now in its second year, includes a longer school day, technology upgrades and intensive teacher training.

Smith has acknowledged the school district has already spent $2 million in SIG money. But the district won’t be required to repay, he said.

“The SIG grant is part of the solution. All of that was conveyed in facts, figures and a great deal of persuasion,” the congressman said about the meeting Friday with Delisle. “Now we want all of that to settle in and have a positive impact. We are encouraged.”