Well, my understanding is that one of the problems is that there will be only a local search done, not a state wide or larger search, so your candidate pool is very small.

Currently three applicants have been selected. However, as i am slowly learning this process, parents of the school can network and demand a wider search even this late in the game.

There seem to be a lot of excellent efforts underway by some great people (with a lot of energy!) starting to graasroots organize.

Organize people, get them to BOE meetings, get them to go out and vote, network, research, lots of stuff that is simply hard for a small group of parents to do, let alone one or two, are starting to shift onto the shoulders of a good sized group of people with a lot of connections and will power.

The key here is to go out and vote for the educational minded, not politically motivated candidate in the next election. There will be 18 candidates for 3 positions on a 9 (elected) member board.

But things seem to be changing and I will post soon how to get involved on any level, even if just informational.

Althea

Quote:

If the parents rally together and get involved - the principal's departure will only be a bump in the road for your childrens education. I would make it clear to the new principal, that parents do have an expectation and prepared to participate for positive development and learning for their kids. Start a PTA if there isn't one already!

What was scary for me as a kid, was the fact my mom got involved beyond the call of duty and knew all the teachers names that dealt with me and their phone numbers. She also had a list of all my friends and their numbers too. These days it appears that kids are sent to school and parents cross their fingers and hope for the best.

I'll never forget when the 'old man' visited the school and wanted to know what the school was doing to help me improve my math skills and what could be done at home. He 'chewed them out' and an after school class was setup for kids needing improvement at the school - there was a small fee, but I still recall both my parents very proactive in my schooling - especially in primary school.

My little reflection highlights what an influence or 'force' a parent or group of parents do have with education.
I look forward to impersonating John Candy from 'Uncle Buck' visiting the principal, if my child is floundering at school or the school is not providing added help OR direction to ease the stress of learning for my child.

I remember reading somewhere that the former Mayor of Jersey City Frank Hague, back in the 1920's and 1930's, had an agreement with the Catholic church, where public schools were delibratly underfunded, so that parents would get fed up and send their kids to Catholic school instead.
Also, lots of poor working class Jersey City kids go onto to College look at Jersey City University...

PS 3 does have a good reputation and there are a few others around that do also, but it is not enough. As for PS 3, this is from the mouth of one of our member parents:

"I did not go to the open house for PS3, but I met with the principal last year. She is very aware of the changes that Jersey City is going through and was very encouraging for our group of educated parents to get involved in
the school and their PTA. She said that the parents that are there are already VERY involved and that is why the school even survived let alone got a beautiful new building."

I'm in a strange spot as I have always planned to homeschool (specifically, unschool) my kids. However, one never knows what turn of events may occur and as suggested in the letter I forwarded, property values on homes might very well benefit from a good school system.

People are definitely looking to model LCCS, which by the way, is not in a very good building, and lacks a lunch room and a library. They need and deserve a new building.

There are several movements afoot to start more charter schools, some modeling LCCS and others trying to form from a deferent educational method, such as "ethical culture." As well as there have been efforts to start other private schools, such as one utilizing the Waldorf method, which got as far as having a full time teacher and space in position, but lacked enough students to make it worthwhile.

There are big debates over even starting charter schools when we should be focusing on our already existing public schools and insisting on change. It's a tough call and I would like to see what ideas our mayor and council people come up with.

There is a meeting tonight at 8 pm. at the Garden Preschool Cooperative and here is the email about it:

"Last week I sent out a message to a few .... parents whom I know to be interested in possibly starting up a new charter school in JC.

We recently learned that a group of educators from NYC is already working to open an ethical culture charter school in fall 08. These folks are coming to JC tonight to meet with parents interested in learning more &/or getting involved (I apologize for the last minute notice - I didn't have the Yahoo site info last week when I sent my message and unfortunately it didn't get forwarded as I had hoped it
would).

The meeting is tonight [2/26/07] at 8pm at Garden Preschool Cooperative - so please join us if you can (and we will be sure to send out a report to everyone who
cannot make it).

And for those of you who need clarification, the meeting is at the Garden Preschool's new school, on Erie at the corner of 8th Street (across from Basic). Use the buzzer to get let in, then come to the 2nd floor."

I'll make sure I post the report on JC List.

don't be so quick to paint all jersey city teachers with the same brush. some of us bust our butts day in day out and work in pretty bad conditions (no heat, a/c or fans in 100 degree weather short supplies, lack of professional considerations). i teach at a very good public school in a magnet program (so most of the parents are pretty involved)--and I work with a lot of veteran teachers (some have 30+ years experience) and get there before me and leave after me--and grade papers at night and on the weekends. sure there is a lot of dead weight all over the district, but there's also a lot of teachers doing a lot with a little. if you've never taught you don't know what its like--sure we get summers off as well as other breaks, but i consider them well deserved for a tough job--just my 2 cents.

My daughter attends the free preschool program at PS3, and it is wonderful.

Prior to this school my daughter attended Beyond Basic Learning in Hoboken, a 'high end', and expensive (one of the most expensive in the area), daycare. The programme at PS3 is leagues ahead of Beyond Basic Learning. My daughter's teacher is loving and enthusiastic.

Has your friend who is leaving Jersey City, and the others on your mailing list, actually tried the public shools?

Robin.

Better schools are critical to JC's future.

I will consider very strongly the mayoral candidate's position on JC schools in 2009. I will give it equal consideration with the candidate's position on further dynamic Real Estate development in JC.

The candidate that convinces me on BOTH counts gets my vote.

I thought I would forward this on to all who might be concerned. The topic of high tuitions for private schools and the state of public education in Jersey City is one often debated on the Jersey City Family Alliance list and is of grave concern to parents throughout the City. What is especially distressing is that while tax abatements have been given out like candy, the State of New Jersey is looking to slowly return the JC schools to the city, which will further exacerbate this problem.

While this email was originally addressed to Councilman Fulop, I strongly encourage anyone wishing to write a similar letter to address it to the mayor and the entire Council.

Sincerely,

Althea

\"Dear Steve [Fulop]-

I wanted to tell you about a call I received from a neighbor yesterday. We are good friends with this family and they had called to tell us that they are leaving Jersey City, because they can no longer afford to stay. Very sadly they can no longer afford putting both of their daughters (6 and 4 years old) through private schools.

This is not the first of my friends to leave Jersey City because the lack of good public schools and it certainly will not be the last. The exodus to the suburbs is in full swing. My husband and I will also be facing this same horrible situation come next spring when we try and figure out where our daughter will go to kindergarten.

The dearth of good schools in Jersey City really has reached a crisis level for many, many families and there seems to be no solution in sight. The choices are few.

There is the wonderful Learning Community Charter School, which has become completely overwhelmed with applicants, this past February they had 108 applications for 15 available Kindergarten seats. There is, if you have the financial resources to pay over 10K a year for private school, Stevens Cooperative which has had a 50% increase in their applications for the 2007/2008 school year. Some families in the Hamilton Park area have tried to get seats for their children in PS 16 (because of the good reputation) but this is very, very difficult.

And this is not just limited to elementary school, the situation for preschools is just as bad. All of the quality preschools have waiting lists as far as the eye can see. The
Garden Preschool had over a 50% increase in applications from the previous year and regretfully we have only a few precious seats available for the next school year.

All of this is to say, what is the political leadership in this City doing to address this issue?

The situation only stands to get significantly worse as new housing development in Downtown is exploding. This development, while very exciting, it will certainly only burden the system further, increasing the demand for quality education will make competition for the very few existing seats even more fierce, ultimately driving many families out of the area. It will be extremely difficult families to grow their roots in Jersey City when they have no place to send their children to school.

I think this poses a very important question to the City leadership, what sort of community does it strive to be? A city that\'s citizenship will almost always be in a constant state of transition. Or a community of families settling here for the better part of their adult lives who will give back to the community in a variety meaningful ways because they are truly invested in its success.

Please also let us not forget that quality education makes sound fiscal sense and not just for the people with children -- property values only stand to increase when having high quality schools are available. Further more people would be much more comfortable paying the high property taxes if they were getting good schools in return.

Running parallel to all of this frustration is the very steady rise in property taxes. So far we have seen very little movement from city government on this issue and it is extremely troubling.

I hope as our Councilman and local advocate you will take steps to address this very serious issues.

Sincerely,

Shelley Skinner
Concerned Parent and Co-President of The Garden Preschool Cooperative\"