With the Jersey City Board of Education nearing a vote on the 2021-2022 school budget, board trustees continue to discuss funding options with members of the city council. Representatives of the two governing bodies met for the second time Tuesday, while members of the public expressed skepticism in comments on the livestreamed session.
Leaders of NJ 08 for Progress and Progressive Democrats of Hudson County are not discouraged after local progressive candidates came up short in the 2020 election.
As Jersey City Superintendent of Schools Franklin Walker explained his decision to delay reopening of the public schools until September, he received sharp questioning from some Board of Education trustees and parents, but thanks from teachers, at the board’s caucus meeting Monday night.
Jersey City Board of Education trustees and city council members who met for a joint session on Wednesday are in agreement: to solve the public schools’ funding crisis, they must work together.
It took the Jersey City Board of Education five attempts to approve a budget for the 2021-22 school year. After spontaneous motions for funding arrangements outside the proposed budget failed, the board approved by a 5-4 vote the $827,401 budget presented by Superintendent of Schools Franklin Walker, which officials and activists say comes the closest to full funding the district has had in a decade.
The Jersey City Board of Education has until tomorrow to decide whether to approve a $681 million budget that fully funds the city’s public schools and raises the school tax levy by $103.7 million.
As Jersey City Public School students hit the 100-day mark of attending classes remotely, many frustrated parents called into the virtual Board of Education meeting Thursday pleading for in-person schooling for their children. As long as the district’s plans are successful, teachers and students will be able to enter school buildings in April.
Members of civic group Jersey City Together urged the Jersey City Board of Education to fully fund the city’s public schools at Monday’s listening session on the 2021-22 school budget, at which board trustees said the district is in need of more money from the state.
At Speranza Theatre Company’s virtual premiere of its film “Votes for Women” last Sunday, many viewers learned for the first time about New Jersey-born Alice Paul, a leading figure in the struggle to extend voting rights to women.
The election and inauguration of Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, the first woman, South Asian American and Black vice president, sent ripples of pride through Jersey City’s Indian American community.