Submitted by glasssa251 t3_ysfdoi in jerseycity
I see a lot of complaints about the school district here, but very little constructive criticism about what improvements people would like to see. Beyond the budget increase that was voted in, what are some changes you'd like to see for schools here? What can educators/admin do to improve the schools?
Unfortunately changes to the hiring process need to be made for this to happen. Qualified teachers don't want to work here because they would have to start at the first step with their salary, compared to districts that will match their salary to their experience.
You'd also have to pull people away from the NYCDOE.
Sounds like changing the hiring process should be priority #1. If we cannot hire qualified teachers, can we say we are providing a quality education? If we're not providing an education, the money would be better spent paying private school tuition for every kid.
That's the thing, quality of education is likely going to take further blows as brain drain from prospective people who'd go into teaching check out greener pastures.
I know there's ton to wax poetic about when it comes to history of NJ's standing in education and all that but the way the state has gone in terms of opportunity and just the stark cost of living even regardless of how much teachers can get comparatively to elsewhere, it still makes it not exactly the most sexy thing to check out.
Especially if you're conventionally smart in a subject like math or sciences you can virtually go into anything else that values that ability and have a lot of it be worth your while.
A lot of the people I know in teaching atm are completely at the end of their rope ready to bail, or are grinning and bearing it because they grew up with money and the salary isn't entirely the biggest issue or in some cases they got a breadwinner partner making significantly more cash to offset things.
Yeah, it's pretty wild. Admittedly, I haven't done enough research on my own (no kids, no desire to work in education myself) to know the difference in pay between NYC and here, but can we not close the gap? I live close enough to Ferris to see the kids leave at noon with no intention of going back for the afternoon...wtf. I grew up in the suburbs so just a different school life, but if we cannot educate the kids, wtf are we doing. We might as well sell the land the schools sit on and put the money to sending the kids to a place that can offer an education. I don't mean this to sh*t on any teachers in JC public schools, but if the comment above is that we throw our hands up and say we don't have access to a consistent amount of quality teachers, then we need to re-assess.
Governor Murphy announced today a new task force looking into the teacher shortage. Jersey City needs to push for representation on this 25-member task force so the issues you mentioned are discussed and emphasized.
Perhaps NJ standardizes the hiring practices of all public school districts in order to level the playing field, allowing for geographic cost of living adjustments as required.
This only works if the state pays its fair share instead of being a cheapskate.
What about the experienced teachers that’ve been teaching in JC? Why do we need to hire new experienced teachers?
Many are leaving in droves for districts with better pay. I'd be one of them if I wasn't in the middle of fertility treatments and can't allow my health benefits to lapse. I love my students and coworkers, but the lack of cost of living raise is problematic. Inflation is a real problem
What’re your thoughts on JC’s exceptionally poor educational metrics?
To be fair, a good chunk of it is because we give standardized tests that are not designed with esl and sped students in mind. We give them accommodations, but there is no way they can pass. We then use these tests to measure student performance in the state, so we will always fall short compared to districts with smaller ESL populations
Fund extracurriculars above basement levels. We're like 10 of 92 in our group statewide in extracurricular spending, while the reverse of that for salaries. We're prioritizing staff over kids. Extracurriculars like sports, clubs and arts can be what keeps 'non-academic' kids engaged in school.
New infrastructure would help a lot. New buildings. There is a shortage of schools and the ones we have are mostly dilapidated.
This is probably the most concretely helpful thing that could happen.
Up to date textbooks also. I have heard many are very old. But not sure on that. I’m sure about the buildings though .
How dilapidated?
Unsafe or just old/ugly?
Not sure how a newer building helps with education.
How about non functioning bathrooms. Roofs with serious leaks. Like needing lots of buckets. Heat breakdowns.
A downvote with no explanation with how the newer buildings help with education?
I’m okay with being wrong, but please tell me how this solves anything?
I didn’t downvote you I was busy with other things.
Well most school buildings don’t have AC, and many don’t have water fountains still. Many have no play areas. Some are literally crumbling in areas. They are old buildings.
Second , we don’t have enough schools for the amount of kids in jc. It’s a known fact. The physical lack of space means more kids packed into smaller areas and affects the class sizes. More schools = more rooms = better student teacher ratio. This is just to be a normal school district. Kids do classes in “temporary” buildings.
No AC = Kids can’t think well in the heat.
Lack of ventilation and space affected COVID policies and remote learning was extended with that excuse. They couldn’t distance.
The teachers we have are good teachers. The kids who want to learn and have good family support do well. The schools with more families like that do well.
You can’t change inner city social problems, which is a big problem Jersey city has, with money to the schools. I think that if the schools were structurally larger more inviting, comfortable and practical spaces, it would improve kids educations because they would like to be there. Architecture really affects the people inside the building.
Everyone is asking for more programs but where are you gonna have them?
+1, how much benefit is there to new buildings that are going to be very expensive
Well they will not flood and bathrooms will work. They will not have asbestos wrapped pipes and windows that are painted closed.
Air conditioning 😅😅
Ugh don't get me started on that one...
More STEM classes, Gifted and Talented Programs, school vouchers, pre 3K schools where kids don’t need to take a bus, infrastructure upgrades…
Drinkable water
The water has been drinkable since we came back from covid
Tell that to the highschools
You want to be more specific? I work at ferris and mcnair, the water is fine at those schools.
So you speak for DHS where my child and nephews have been told on days the water was turned off or smelled like chlorine?
So you speak for all the schools based on the experience of students in one school?
It is not abnormal for tap water to smell like chlorine since it is often treated with chemicals, that doesn't mean it's unsafe to drink. Plus, the school has no control over that. You can get a free water testing kit at home depot and test it if you're that concerned.
If a pipe is broken or something, of course they're going to turn off the water. What are they supposed to do, not fix these problems right away?
Drinking Water Has Returned to Some Schools but Others Still Thirst
https://jcitytimes.com/drinking-water-has-returned-to-some-schools-but-others-still-thirst/
That at least they are working on
Unpopular opinion probably.
But imo lack of quality education stems from lack of accountability.
Are teachers judged based on students performance?
Do most parents care about their students performance. Are they involved enough?
A new building isn’t going to do shit if the students parents and teachers don’t care about their actual ability to learn
SGOs exist so that teachers can be assessed on student performance
And how is that going?
Also what about my point on parents involvement.
You can build fancy buildings, have a strict sgo process, but if kids grow up in troubled homes or without parent that hold their kids accountable then that doesn’t solve anything.
The problem is much deeper then lack of funding. Throwing money at this solves nothing. Except push out disenfranchised people who can’t afford to live here anymore. Then new/educated families move in. Then test scores go up and we equate it to the funding increase.
That’s not how it works. It’s not a money problem, we’re just making it one
When it comes to parent involvement, you can only lead a horse to water. I have some parents who are incredible at communication and staying up to date on their child's performance in school, and some who can't be bothered to care. I can't force them to be involved.
On point. 👌
Truth. Inner city schools with populations with high levels of poverty and poor/illegal immigrants are always going to get below average scores. Its pretty difficult to expect otherwise.
Stick to crypto bud, sounds like you gotta read up on pedagogy
The teachers at test schools like McNair should be more positive and more energetic.
If teachers at schools with difficult students burn out, OK.
But teachers at McNair have no excuse for phoning it in and acting oppressed.
But, at a more concrete level:
Make sure every grade school has at least a rooftop playground.
Stop calling art, music and gym “specials.” Recognize that those subjects are as core as math.
Move toward upgrading the office support staff. Tie some of those folks’ pay to performance.
Be a little stodgier. I think the Jersey City schools tend try a little too hard to innovate and make half-baked efforts to adopt faddish strategies that sound good on paper but don’t work.
Make sure teachers can send disruptive students out of the classroom. If teachers can be trained to manage disruptive kids, that’s great, but be realistic. For whatever reason, some kids seem to have more behavior problems than they used to. Deal with that.
Try to find and create measures of value-added other than standardized test scores. One reason for the idiotic idea that kids at P.S. 41 should have about the same test scores as kids at P.S. 16 is that the test scores are really the only quantitative indicators we have. We also need student satisfaction surveys; measures of how teachers and schools hurt or helped students’ learning trend (in other words: whatever the scores were at the start of the year, did the students move ahead at a good rate or fall behind?); and assessments by teachers or employers at the next level. How do Jersey City high school teachers assess the alumni of the grade schools? And how do Rutgers professors and various employers see the alumni of the Jersey City high schools?
Find ways to make it easier for community members to go into the schools from time to time and see what’s happening there. Have open houses that are really open to the community.
Pay students at Rutgers Newark, Seton Hall, etc. to come in, talk to some parents and students, and do school reviews that supplement the profiles in the official state school assessments.
F off completely with the idea that the school board members can’t go into the schools and can’t have a say about the small stuff.
A lot more language arts teachers, for both ESL kids as well as teaching other languages of importance for just general usage, but particularly useful in commerce and business, like spanish, mandarin and hindi.
As a teacher what improvements would you suggest? Anything else aside from higher pay?
Education-wise, I would love for the high schools to do a partnership with a vocational school so students can earn their associates degree while finishing high school. I would also like a stronger foreign language department (more languages offered than the standard of French and spanish). I also want to see more variety in sports and clubs for the kids.
Contract-wise, I would love for this district to offer paternity leave, as well as paid maternity leave. I also wish we had the ability to opt out of health benefits and/or make it cheaper to add a dependent.
These are all great ideas. How receptive is the administration to teacher input?
Not at all unless you've got the money to fund the idea.
That's unfortunate to read as some of your suggestions should be standard. I also agree that the pay structure should be one that incentivizes good teachers to want to work here.
The general sentiment I've gathered from the JC Reddit crowd has been disdain toward the Board and the administration, not the teachers. My perspective is that more transparency regarding where the money is going is a good place to start. With a clearer understanding of where every dollar is spent, the hope is that it will be easier to advocate for better allocation of funds. Maybe we can fund some, if not all, of your suggestions.
I really feel for these kids because they truly want these programs. A kid approached me about trying to start a lacrosse team, and I don't even know how we could get the funding we'd need for that. I also used to work in a school where they had a student lounge they kept open until 6 pm for kids that needed a safe place to hang out after school. It was a pretty standard set up...pool table, couple of couches, vending machines, but it was something the kids needed and I wish we had it for our kids, too.
I wish there were more resources for special education, both for the teachers and the students. A long time family friend taught for about 35 years and she’s still in the loop with the education board because she has a lot of friends and families in education in JC still. She tells me a lot about lack of resources and lack of promotional awareness for the resources that are available which I’m Ake it hard for parents. This is bigger than just JC, I’m sure all places have similar issues but I wish JC could tackle it better.
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Because teachers can't afford jersey city housing on a jersey city teachers salary...
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We have many Arabic, black, and latinx teachers in our schools. How does this not match student demographics?
Asians make up around 20% of student population. The leadership and staff do not reflect this fact. I’m anti DEI but DEI hustlers always ignore Asians.
We have plenty of Asian staff in our buildings.
Please keep an eye on SCOTUS ruling on Harvard vs SFFA case. Affirmative action will likely be repealed which means JCPS will not be able to continue to have these race quotas as they receive federal funding. Be prepared to sue the district to keep them honest.
Literally everything
So, you're saying the color of the bricks used in the old building that was torn down 150 years ago, that needs to be changed?
Do you know what "everything" means? Do you understand the purpose of this thread?
Train customer service skills to all the staff in administration and school principals. Being helpful, cordial and patient on the phone when parents need help navigating the often convoluted process of enrolling or transferring their kid should be the standard. What we get now is straight up rude and annoyed tone and employees that act like they’re doing you a favor. It’s like NYC DMV over there.
Hire qualified outside senior level tech staff with solid big tech experience to oversee & implement technology for the entire school district. It should not take 2-3 weeks to set up new students or teachers email accounts and they really need to simplify chromebook learning to single sign on to reduce unnecessary complexity. We have ton of citizens that work in tech and finance sector here and bringing a private public partnership curriculum would really advance education quality imo.
Add Gifted and Talented Programs within each school and refrain from imposing DEI on existing magnet schools like McNair. Merit (not race, gender, etc.) should be the only criteria at top academic schools. Get your DEI hands out of magnets and high performers.
Postpone sex and gender education until at least middle school. 9 year olds do not need to learn this when they should be devoting more hours on core fundamentals.
For the love of god hire general contractor/construction expert and project manager from the private sector to fix lead pipes and crumbling infrastructure. School is flushed with cash but totally disabled in executing anything.
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$70k starting salary, $125k max; more preparation time, class size caps; better extra-compensation;
After the most recent property tax hike I wanna see straight freakn As from every kid in JC!!!
man i miss school lunch
water fountains that work lmao, edible lunches, more after school programs + sports + music & arts. if they put a fraction of what they’re putting into downtown developments and whatever BS fulop is into, there would be positive change
def need newer buildings
Look through all the comments so far, we definitely needs a lot of improvement. just curious where all the fund go, it seems we’ve had very high budget per student compared to other places in NJ.
To stop pushing children with issues up just to get rid of them. My oldest child has special needs and instead of putting him in special education classes. They pulled him out of the class during tests and basically gave e him the answers. They said special Ed classes were for problematic children and he shouldn't be jn there. They also wouldn't leave him back because he was trying. Even though his grades were bad he was still trying and leaving back is a punishment.
Make school lunches free for all. They dispose of the uneaten food anyway or let staff bring them home.
Teach the teachers not to take their home problems to school with them. Some teachers are straight up bitchy because of a bad morning. That's not ok.
In my sons school , idk about the rest, calm the gym teacher down with the children. It's not the fkn army. My sons intestines are weak and full. He's got severe issues and even with a doctors note and a call from me she still told my son that I do not control her class.
Stop rushing them for eating lunch. Some children are diabetic and do need that meal on time. They give them 10 minutes or less!
Have the teachers stop telling their live story during class and actually teach. Or better yet, teach your teachers not to humiliate a child in front of all of the other students because they are slow. Mt son came home and told me his math teacher actually threw a 2 second party because a child actually submitted work on time. It was a sarcastic little party.
Employee more staff. The nurse and anti bully counselor have to run between two schools every day. It mist be stressful on them.
Actually Crack down on those using other people addresses to ve zoned into the better school. It takes away from a child who is actually zoned.
Stop underfunded the schools. They are struggling. Some don't even have toilet paper !
I am sure there's more. I'm just tired right now.
A host of problems exist with the per diem (PD) teacher's aide system.
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Unified county school district
How about an independant school district?
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I think pre-k 3 & 4 are unnecessary in gentrified parts of the city. They were brought it when JC was a poor urban district but its a bit crazy to see families in million dollar condos getting special funding for pre-k. I know NYC does it now too, but doesn't happen in normal NJ suburbs.
I actually disagree, I think all districts should offer free pre-k. The studies that have been done show that pre-k has many benefits that kids can miss out on if parents can't afford tuition
I think its mixed, esp for wealthy families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-kindergarten#Impact . The main problem is its expensive.
Sliding scale?
Moving towards a voucher system and school choice
Successful_Pen_2387 t1_ivypk0h wrote
Hire some qualified Math and Science teachers. There is a shortage so lots of doubling up, relief teachers and going without. (I realize this is a problem across the country too)