Last night, following an outcry from parents, plans for protests and criticism from local leaders, Superintendent Franklin Walker reversed course and set a plan for reopening Jersey City public schools. What follows is his email.
Dear Parents,
The District’s focus continues to be on doing what is best for children. When The District made the difficult decision to remain closed, that decision was guided by science and the realities of safely staffing a district of 30,000 students for in-person and remote learning simultaneously. I recently met with Members of the Board and the Teachers’ Union Leadership to further discuss reopening schools. The increased concerns of parents, especially those with young children, have made us reconsider the decision.
Starting Thursday, April 29, 2021, we will welcome the students from PK to third grade who selected in-person learning with a 12:45 dismissal. The schools will group students into groups. The all-remote group, a group A and a group B. During their in-person week, students will attend classes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday will continue as a remote day for everyone to enhance our cleaning at the schools. The school will provide parents and guardians with the schedules.
We grouped grades to make the reopening feasible. The first group returning is PK to third-grade students. The tentative return date for fourth to eighth grade is May 10, and grades 9-12 may return on May 10. The District will share more information as we continue the process of making in-person learning available. Parents continue to have the option to keep their children with remote learning through June.
I will send a separate message to the staff explaining their schedules and District expectations. Our custodial and maintenance staff has worked very hard to get the schools ready. Thank you, and stay safe.
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.
Walker said the district was planning to reopen schools for instruction on a limited hybrid model, in which schools would have been open for four half days of in-person learning. At the March 25 board meeting, Walker had said a definitive starting date for in-person students would be announced on April 19.
In March, Walker said $23 million had been spent to get schools ready for reopening, a combination of district funds and money from the federal CARES Act. Custodial staff were being trained on best cleaning practices and plexiglass installation and duct work was being done, as well as installation of thermal scanners at all facilities.
When teachers were called into the buildings last Thursday and Friday to set up their classrooms, however, 500 teachers had requested accommodations.
“The medical department cleared their medical needs, but schools can’t safely welcome students with that staggering number of teachers and paraprofessionals working from home,” he said.
Based on the latest survey, Walker said more than 65% of parents confirmed they would not be sending their children back to the classroom for in-person learning, and 60% of the teachers and staff responded that they would return to work in person.
The superintendent also cited surging cases of COVID-19 as a reason to delay reopening, especially since the city could not accommodate the district’s request to provide COVID-19 testing at the schools.
According to the state Health Department’s COVID-19 dashboard, Hudson County has the fourth highest total of coronavirus activity as of April 20, with 207 new confirmed cases and 1,987 confirmed deaths. At the beginning of the meeting, a moment of silence was observed for a longtime school security guard who had died from coronavirus.
“The risks of COVID-19 far outweigh the potential gains from 12 half days of in-person learning for a small minority of children in the district,” Walker said. Instead, he said the district will focus on a full reopening for the 2021-2022 academic year in the fall.
Board President Mussab Ali said parents as well as board trustees are disappointed.
He pressed Walker about the number of students who did opt for in-person learning and the number of teachers who attended school on Monday.
Walker said 6,000 students were identified to return while the rest would attend remotely. He did not provide Monday’s attendance numbers.
“Based upon the way it was presented to us, teachers were told on Wednesday they had to come into work Thursday in terms of accommodations they may have been denied,” Ali said.
Asked whether the district would consider a “soft opening” with some grades returning to classrooms, Walker said the agreement with the five staff unions in the district would make any partial reopening difficult.
After board Vice President Lekendrick Shaw asked, “how can you ensure the parents that we’re going to reopen in September, barring any catastrophic event?” Walker answered he cannot make guarantees but “we all have to operate in faith, be positive about the way things go and plan for the best.”
Some parents who spoke during public comments echoed the disappointment and uncertainty.
Christine Limbach, parent of a pre-K student, said “I think that the board and Superintendent Walker have completely abdicated their responsibilities to the children of Jersey City.”
“We’re still going to be in a pandemic in September and we will still have underfunded schools,” so what is your plan?” she asked. “What makes Jersey City so unique that we can’t function?”
A group of parents is planning to rally on Thursday morning to protest the delay in reopening.
But the majority of callers were staff members, some of whom are also parents of children in the district. Many said they stepped into buildings with dirty vents and technology that would not allow them to reach remote students.
Diane Mackay, a teacher, said “there’s no shame in waiting until September to get this right,” she said. “The infrastructure of the buildings is not equipped for remote learning.”
Mackay added that students would have eight hours less instructional time in a crucial marking period under the model that was almost implemented.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to be in a normal classroom setting, but this year has been far from normal,” Mackay said.’’
Robyn Henning, a student assistance coordinator, said “we all want to be in school. We want the buildings to be safe. They’re not.”
She said her office is only clean because she cleaned it, and there is no hot water in her building for students and staff to wash their hands.
Jersey City Education Association President Ron Greco said the association takes its direction from the superintendent and has never advocated for schools to be closed indefinitely.
“We support Mr. Walker’s plans, we take his advice and we take him at his word,” Greco said. “We are all for opening, and it must be done safely and properly.”
Ali recommended immediate surveys of teachers regarding their concerns with the school facilities and of those who requested accommodations.
The discussion will continue at the regular board meeting this Thursday starting at 6 p.m.
In a surprise announcement last night, Jersey City Public Schools Superintendent Franklin Walker told parents that schools will remain closed until September.
Franklin had called teachers back to school this week to begin the process of readying classrooms for the return of students. However, according to the superintendent, the high number of teacher absences — 450 on Thursday and 500 on Friday — and a request by another 400 to remain away due to “increased risk due to Covid-19,” led to the decision. “The staff we need for adequate supervision and instruction is not available.”
Mayor Steven Fulop immediately took to Facebook to denounce the decision.
“I don’t know how else to describe this other than an absolute failure in leadership and planning at the JCPS and I’m saddened for the families, children, and those dedicated teachers that were hoping to return. I struggle with the fact that our Jersey City public schools couldn’t figure out some version of in-person learning when Newark, NYC, Hoboken, and virtually every surrounding district has been able to reinstitute some form of in-person learning.”
Many parents expressed outrage as well. Beatriz De Jesus wrote “Very upset by this!!! This decision is solidifying my need to move out of Jersey City to ensure my kids get the best education.”
One parent, who for professional reasons asked that her name not be used, said, “I thought my son was going to start classes on the 26th. We got call the robocall and we flipped out. We’d been planning for him to go back, we need him to go back, we’ve been working this out with our employers for weeks, and then we get this call?”
Jersey City Times spoke with two teachers who were willing to share their thoughts so long as they remained anonymous. Both returned to their classrooms this week to get ready for start of in-person learning at the end of the month.
One felt that the plan to return to classrooms for seven days prior to the return of students was ill-conceived and could explain why many teachers chose to stay home. “I think it was poor planning.” He said the administration should have said, “Lets give the teachers a heads up. Let’s not drag them in for seven days to look at the wall.” Teachers, he said, had asked themselves, “Why am I in a building, risking my health when the kids aren’t here.”
He felt that teachers were ready to return however. “In my school, we’re ready to go back.”
Both teachers complained about poor communication from the administration.
One said, “I can tell you that on Friday, we didn’t know when the kids were coming back.” As to what the plan for instruction was, he said, “Our principal wasn’t even told what the kids would be doing. If I were in charge I would have said here’s when the kids are coming back, here’s what the plan is.”
The other teacher said that many decisions were sprung on the teachers with no notice. “Just don’t drop these things at the last minute. Most teachers just want transparency. When you make these changes at the last minute, it feels sneaky. This isn’t the first time it’s happened.”
One was sympathetic to the superintendent’s dilemma. “It’s a huge task. I don’t envy Dr. Walker.” Nonetheless, he said “He just needs to make a decision. Just do it. I don’t think it’s because we don’t have teachers, I don’t believe that.”
According to one source, a battle also broke out over how to handle “accommodations” for teachers who for health reasons felt they needed to continue to teach virtually. The administration, apparently took the position that such teachers would have to take a leave of absence. The teachers’ union has fought against that policy. This stalemate may, the source says, explain many of last week’s no shows.
Yet one of the teachers felt that a September opening made sense. “A lot of us felt that remote was a good system. Not everyone had their vaccinations yet.”
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.
Reading from a letter Jersey City Together sent to Superintendent of Schools Franklin Walker and the board, Nancy Pokler said, “You can and must propose and pass a fully funded, initial budget, one that meets the needs of our city’s children.”
The group’s request is based on surveys and small group listening sessions with 1,000 residents.
Jersey City Together’s letter says the New Jersey budget is expected to cut $83 million in state aid to the Jersey City Public Schools, as estimated by the Education Law Center, and the city’s payroll tax is expected to deliver approximately $20 million less revenue for the schools in the 2021-22 school year.
Education Law Center Research Director Danielle Farrie was quoted in the Jersey Journal about the potential for the district to lose $83 million in state aid. She said the cut would bring the budget shortfall to more than $350 million and leave the district with few options to fill the gap.
The estimate from the Education Law Center is higher than what the superintendent estimated in November 2020, when he spoke of a coming shortfall due to a $30 million cut in state aid.
Pokler and Brigid D’Souza, who also spoke at the meeting, signed the letter as members of the Jersey City Together Education Core Team.
“As a parent, I am seeing at home the impact of underfunding,” said D’Souza.
D’Souza told the board her son is on a Zoom call with more than 30 students in his fourth grade class each day. “I see him getting lost in the calls, not because of any deficit on the teacher’s part, but just because the class size should be smaller,” she said.
“I ask you to please define adequacy so the public understands what a fully-funded budget should look like,” said D’Souza.
Board president Mussab Ali acknowledged, “it’s no secret that we have been underfunded for more than the last decade.” He said the district is currently underfunded by $57 million from the state, which is below the state’s own adequacy standard.
“We’re expecting between an $80 to $90 million dollar additional cut,” on top of being underfunded, he said. “If we were just to raise taxes $90 million dollars, all we’re doing is catching up from the hole the state’s about to put us in.”
For the 2020-21 school year, the board approved a $736 million budget that increased the school tax levy by 39 percent.
Board trustee Marilyn Roman said in last year’s budget process, the board “bit the bullet” in asking the public to approve a budget that would raise taxes.
“Our children not only have problems in terms of their learning but they are in dire straits in some instances when they are outside of school as well,” she said. Looking toward the future, Roman said the board needs to find a stable source of funding for the schools.
Board trustees said they hoped the district’s three state monitors would communicate the district’s need for more funding.
Also at the meeting, the superintendent said more details on what a school district re-opening would look like will be shared next week. In January, the board decided to keep learning remote for the third marking period at least until April 23.
“Our goal is to bring students in for in-person learning in incremental stages,” Walker said. “All the students will have the option to return for in-person learning, not simultaneously, but in groups.”
He said the re-opening process involves a school readiness assessment using recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), holding meetings with staff, conducting walkthroughs and reviewing the findings with the health department.
Jersey City Public Schools’ reopening plan, which includes a building readiness document, has been posted on the district website.
The man who called himself the “youngest elected Muslim in America” after winning a seat on the Jersey City Board of Education in 2017 now heads up that body.
At its annual reorganization meeting held last night, Mussab Ali edged out incumbent Lorenzo Richardson by a 5–4 vote to gain the presidency of the school board.
Lekendrick Shaw, who ran on the same slate with Richardson in last year’s BOE election, took over as vice president, turning aside challenges by the current vice president Gina Verdibello and by Noemi Velazquez.
Ali and Richardson had been on opposing sides on several key issues on how best to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on city schools and on relations with the city administration.
Two members of the public who spoke after the board’s actions expressed their displeasure with the results.
Monique Andrews interpreted the vote to mean that Mayor Steven Fulop “now has control of the board,” adding that “taxpayers and the [city teachers’] union are in jeopardy … Politics is still here. Everybody is just trying to move up the ladder, and no one cares about our kids.”
Charles Balcer griped, “To have [Richardson] tossed aside leaves the board in uncharted waters. It’s a sad commentary.”
But after the reorganization voting, Richardson and Ali pledged to work together for the betterment of the local district and its approximately 30,000 students.
Richardson, a Ferris High School graduate who got an accounting degree from St. Peter’s College, said 2020 “has been a difficult year” for the district. A youth mentor, Richardson added that “God saw us through it. We hope that in 2021 we can move the district forward.”
Ali, who heads the city’s Immigration Affairs Commission, is a McNair Academic High School alum and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University in Newark where he led the Muslim Students Association. He is working to develop a non-profit to train grassroots leaders of the future.
Acknowledging that he and his colleagues face tough times ahead given state school budget cuts, Ali said he hoped that with the ultimate distribution of COVID vaccines, “by the end of the year, we can see kids back in schools.”
Board members and the public may gain more insight into how learning will proceed when the board next convenes on Jan. 21. Franklin Walker, the district’s superintendent of schools, said he expected to share more details on that topic at that time. Since the pandemic hit, public school students have received virtual instruction.
Factions on the board have debated whether to reopen schools now or to wait until the district could adequately clean and ventilate classrooms and ensure that students would be re-entering a safe and secure school building.
Acknowledging that board members “don’t always get along, and that’s okay,” trustee Alexander Hamilton said, “Yeah, [our] leadership has changed, but we’ve worked together before.” Now, he said, “we need to work in a civilized way to make sure kids are our number one priority. It’s good to see two guys from the local school system as board officers …. Let’s put a smile on our face and get behind them.”
The Board also heard public comments from Mary Cruz, who congratulated Ali and Shaw and urged board members to unite to develop a strategy to “close the gap on student performance, which has been getting wider” since the onset of the pandemic; and from Robert Knapp, who lauded Superintendent Walker for “balancing the budget without a single layoff,” for re-launching, with New Jersey City University, the special needs program based at the A. Harry Moore School, and for securing free Wi-Fi hotspots and thousands of meals for children in need.
Following the public remarks, the board participated in a training session conducted by Charlene Peterson, a field representative of the N.J. School Boards Association, who reminded the trustees that their road to success depends on working together as a team. She added that their power derives not from the community that elected them, but from the legislature, and that it falls to the superintendent, not the board members, to run the schools; they should hold him accountable for the outcome.
