The Jersey City Board of Education – with a push from the advocacy group Jersey City Together and financial help from the city’s Municipal Utilities Authority – is soon to start the final phase of a multi-year campaign to ensure that students are drinking clean, safe water in their schools’ water fountains. At a press […]
Education
Weingarten, AFT Call on Trenton To Avert Closure Of NJCU
As the New Jersey Legislature prepares to reconvene and finalize the state’s fiscal year 2024 budget, union leaders with a stake in New Jersey City University are telling the state Senate and Assembly that there is an urgent need to address NJCU’s well-documented financial crisis. “For Trenton, this is a ‘what side are you on’ moment. […]
Board of Education Approves Contract Raising Teachers’ Salaries Across District
The Jersey City Board of Education approved a renewed four-year contract that will give Jersey City teachers long-awaited raises. Under the new contract, teachers will receive a yearly salary increase of four percent until 2027. The Board of Education and the Jersey City Education Association (the union representing Jersey City’s district teachers) negotiated the agreement […]
Students Blossom With New Music Program at Lincoln High School
Access to the arts is a requirement for high school students in New Jersey. But at Abraham Lincoln High School in Jersey City, Crissa Dragotti is the sole music instructor for about 950 students. She teaches keyboard and guitar classes, music exploration, and drum line. There are no official choir or band programs. This year, however, ArtSmart has come in […]
State Report Faults NJCU’s Prior Administrators for Bad Management
The New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller concluded that New Jersey City University’s “improper budgeting” of federal COVID-19 relief funding led to a $14 million deficit one year later. Acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh said his office found that NJCU had planned to use its $14 million in federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund allocation […]
Two McNair Students Compete in National STEM Competition
Two McNair Academy High School students, Aditya Jain and Ehtesham Suhail, will compete in this year’s Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Dallas May 14-19 after emerging as gold-medal winners at the Hudson County 65th annual STEM Showcase earlier this year. The Jersey City Medical Center hosted the showcase this year for the seventh year […]
Officials Break Ground on New STEM High School at Science Center
Officials gathered yesterday morning to break ground on the construction of Liberty Science Center High School, the first of several buildings that eventually will comprise the ambitious “innovation hub” called SciTech Scity adjacent to Liberty Science Center. Slated to open in 2025, officials hope to establish LSCHS as a world-class public magnet STEM academy providing […]
Racially Charged Debate Overshadows Budget at Board of Ed Meeting
The adoption of the Jersey City Schools’ first $1 billion budget was overshadowed last night by angry, racially charged denunciations and passionate defenses of Superintendent Norma Fernandez and an all girl’s school slated to open this Fall. Touched off by a rumor that a faction of the board would call a no-confidence vote on Fernandez, […]
Tempers Flare at Board of Ed Caucus over Charges of Racism
Several members of the Board of Education expressed frustration with the schools’ administration during last night’s caucus after hearing renewed allegations of racism and favoritism in hiring and promotion. Madonna Morris, a twenty-year employee in the the schools’ human resources department, singled out the director of human resources for criticism. “Most of us within and […]
Bank Gifts Building to After-School Program for ‘Under-Resourced’ Youth
A Jersey City faith-based nonprofit recently learned it can bank on the good will of a local lending institution. Provident Bank has gifted its former branch at Bergen and Harrison Avenues, to New City Kids, which offers after-school musical and academic classes to urban “under-resourced” kids and teens. (The bank will continue operating five locations […]