Can anyone recommend a private elementary school in jc? My requirements are
- the teachers can not be priests or nuns
- must be co-ed
- I don't mind a catholic school as long as it allows non-catholic students and doesn't mandate religious studies

I am already aware of Stevens Coop, Waterfront Montessori, and Private Prep. I am just looking for some others as well

I was at the park for the first time yesterday and it was gorgeous. Well done. However, I didn't see any signs about no dogs in the playground area. I saw a one woman take her dog in and hanging out with the children. It was on a leash and didn't seem dangerous but the real issue is what if the dog decided to pee where all the kids are playing. I recommend posting some signs.

ok. I went to Marco and Pepe today. Although the french toast was a bit different than typical, I'm afraid it didn't measure up. Primarily because the portion is so small that I was still hungry after finishing it. My personal preference is thick french toast and theirs was extremely thin.

I also went to Amelia's and there french toast was extremely thick almost too much whereby the insides was pure bread without any taste of egg/butter, etc. The other negative is there service was a little slow and when you are there with 2 young children, quick service is important. However, so far this is the best place I've tried.

I am looking for the best french toast in jersey city. It must be kid friendly as well. I just moved here and looking for my sunday brunch place.

There are lots of misconceptions about the hours, workload of a teacher. Let's put them aside. To the previous poster, as a taxpayer, I am more than happy to pay taxes for good teachers. The problem is that
a) Without a better measure in place to determine the good and the bad teachers, all teachers get put into the same bucket.
b) Teachers must agree to a way to get rid of the bad teachers. You are not going to get the backing of public opinion for raises, etc if we feel that you are protecting bad teachers
c) You must agree to get rid of the pensions and replace them with 529k like plans. When you get something that the majority of tax payers do not, they are going to be less incline to agree to give you something more (i.e. raises).
d) If I went into my boss and asked for a raise, his first question would be "Tell me what you've done to deserve a raise". There needs to be a measure of how well jersey city in general has performed (test scores, graduation rates, crime in school, attendance, etc, etc). Then if these measures have improved then you have a case. Perhaps I missed it but I haven't seen any improvements in these numbers. Instead we are just being told we must pay more more for teachers for our kids.

Personally, I think being a union of public workers hurts you with the general image of the tax payers as most are not in unions and feel unions are out just to protect all members regardless of how hard they work or how good they are - rewarding mediocrity. My 2 cents...

It is not the salaries of the public employees that is the high costs - it is their pensions. The private sector did away with pensions a long time ago due to this reason of run away costs. For those firms that didn't (GM, Chrysler), well we saw how that affected them. Stop the pensions and convert them to 529 accts (or similar) like the rest of us and that will help the most during hard times.

In bad times, rebates of any kind should be the first to go before more taxes. However, with that said, I do think we should both at federal and state level have another tax rate for 1MM and higher.

I am looking for any recommendations of private grade schools in jersey city but I prefer a non-religious one. I am aware of the montessori ones. Any others that people can recommend?

I just moved my family to Jersey City in Paulus Hook with 2 young kids. We are trying to find where all of the local playgrounds are located. So far we've only found
1) one in Liberty state park (but requires taking the lightrail and a long walk)
2) Van Vorst Park (which is still a bit of a walk from the waterfront)
3) Seems like a new playground is being built near Colgate park which is nice but not finished yet.
4) Looks like Paulus Hook park might get renovated with a playground but they don't have funding yet

Please let me know if you are aware of any others??