REMINDER: TOWN HALL TONIGHT ABOUT THE SORRY STATE OF OUR SCHOOLS

goodjob said:

Coffeegretchen said:
It was a very confusing exchange. The panel played 'hot potato' with the answer, Memoli answered a different question than was asked, which I understood to be about the MMS student not the CHS student, and Ms Aaron (because it wouldn't be correct or reasonable for her to) did not offer a definitive 'no'.
What I found surprising, or sad, was that though the board took the time to prepare that little Q&A with an email before they opened the floor to parents, providing Memoli the opportunity to appear to actually answer questions, no one seemed to anticipate this question and they were all unprepared to answer it.

thats the funniest part of it all. they werent prepared to answer the most obvious question in the world. this is why the admins fail us and their students.

Finally, a moderately intelligent and non-belligerant post from you. Keep up the good work.

The various administrators seemed to think that stating the student "will never return to MMS" was sufficient. I don't understand why they didn't think parents would ask the next logical question. Clearly there is a legal process that needs to play out but at least have a prepared answer that explains that.

goodjob said:

Coffeegretchen said:
It was a very confusing exchange. The panel played 'hot potato' with the answer, Memoli answered a different question than was asked, which I understood to be about the MMS student not the CHS student, and Ms Aaron (because it wouldn't be correct or reasonable for her to) did not offer a definitive 'no'.
What I found surprising, or sad, was that though the board took the time to prepare that little Q&A with an email before they opened the floor to parents, providing Memoli the opportunity to appear to actually answer questions, no one seemed to anticipate this question and they were all unprepared to answer it.

thats the funniest part of it all. they werent prepared to answer the most obvious question in the world. this is why the admins fail us and their students.

Coffeegretchen said:

mamabear said:

Coffeegretchen said:
Is there any evidence that the kids causing the problems are out of district kids? I don't see the connection, though I spoke to a woman out front who seemed convinced that the problem was these out of district kids who went home to the ghetto and brought it with them to school every day.

No. There is absolutely no evidence that these kids are out if district. They're not. Please stop spreading rumors.

I'm not spreading rumors, I clearly said "I don't see the connection." I'm frustrated because it keeps coming up and it's clearly NOT the issue. The woman I spoke with persisted in believing it even when I pointed out that kids whose parents snuck them into the district were likely to live in homes where education was valued and UNlikely to be violent, she agreed and then went right back to believing it was kids from somewhere else.
Perhaps the persistence is due to a reluctance to believe that these are kids from our community. It's easier to think they came from outside".

Funny, I just had this conversation with a friend of mine. I recently met a woman who is a social worker living in WO but used to be a long time SO resident. She said that when she speaks to her kids about school, home life, etc., some of the ones entering HS tell her that they are attending CHS when she knows for a fact that they live elsewhere. She said many of the students at CHS live in Elizabeth. Did she show me proof of this? No. Was she angry that this was in her words, "still going on"? Yes. And she said that this was one of the reasons why her family left SO before her children entered into HS.

Funny you should bring up Elizabeth. I know of one family's shared arrangement with Elizabeth residency, and its wholly above board.

Problem with the residency bogeyman (well one, anyway) is that the info is: a) often anecdotal, b) a lot of times coming from kids, c) based on the flawed "I see them walking home" declaration, d) presumes the district hasn't already vetted a given student, and/or e) doesn't take into account the private and unique situations any given family situation might present.

I'll withhold comment regarding the bizarre rationale for leaving SO schools by the woman cited above...makes no sense to me.

ctrzaska said:
Funny you should bring up Elizabeth. I know of one family's shared arrangement with Elizabeth residency, and its wholly above board.
Problem with the residency bogeyman (well one, anyway) is that the info is: a) often anecdotal, b) a lot of times coming from kids, c) based on the flawed "I see them walking home" declaration, d) presumes the district hasn't already vetted a given student, and/or e) doesn't take into account the private and unique situations any given family situation might present.
I'll withhold comment regarding the bizarre rationale for leaving SO schools by the woman cited above...makes no sense to me.

There are so many anecdotes...I know a kid...blah blah blah. People think they know a persons situation because they see something or hear something but have no idea what that kids situation is. Many kids have dual residences due to divorce, custody arrangements that people have no clue about. Just because a kid might travel to Irvington or Newark after school doesn't mean they don't have a parent living in maplewood. And if people no so many kids who are illegal why aren't they reporting it? And don't tell me that they are reporting it and the district isn't doing anything. Why would they do that. They are finding some kids, because they do that report every month at the Boe meeting. They definitely do residency checks, because a friend of mine just got checked. So if you report a kid and he remains in the school, it's because their residency checked out.

ctrzaska said:
Funny you should bring up Elizabeth. I know of one family's shared arrangement with Elizabeth residency, and its wholly above board.
Problem with the residency bogeyman (well one, anyway) is that the info is: a) often anecdotal, b) a lot of times coming from kids, c) based on the flawed "I see them walking home" declaration, d) presumes the district hasn't already vetted a given student, and/or e) doesn't take into account the private and unique situations any given family situation might present.
I'll withhold comment regarding the bizarre rationale for leaving SO schools by the woman cited above...makes no sense to me.

Are you trying to tell me that if you knew that CHS was filled with Elizabethans, you wouldn't move to another town?

ridski said:

Are you trying to tell me that if you knew that CHS was filled with Elizabethans, you wouldn't move to another town?

I know I'd feel safer if Chris Marlowe were a hall monitor.

ridski said:

ctrzaska said:
Funny you should bring up Elizabeth. I know of one family's shared arrangement with Elizabeth residency, and its wholly above board.
Problem with the residency bogeyman (well one, anyway) is that the info is: a) often anecdotal, b) a lot of times coming from kids, c) based on the flawed "I see them walking home" declaration, d) presumes the district hasn't already vetted a given student, and/or e) doesn't take into account the private and unique situations any given family situation might present.
I'll withhold comment regarding the bizarre rationale for leaving SO schools by the woman cited above...makes no sense to me.

Are you trying to tell me that if you knew that CHS was filled with Elizabethans, you wouldn't move to another town?

I was going to bring up the same concern, but it sounds better coming from you. To bad we don't also have neighboring towns named Georgia and Victoria.

DaveSchmidt said:

ridski said:

Are you trying to tell me that if you knew that CHS was filled with Elizabethans, you wouldn't move to another town?

I know I'd feel safer if Chris Marlowe were a hall monitor.

This kind of attitude is just what makes the world so dangerous today!

Your kind would have our innocent, lamb-like youth exposed to a dueling, brawling, rakehell occultist with a penchant for smoking psychoactive substances from exotic overseas locations!

If there IS an Elizabethan problem at CHS, it's probably the result of some tear in the fabric of space-time created by this Marlowe character and his fellow traveller, John "Doc Faustus" Dee.

Touche!

Not to mention how quickly the whole school would be shot to ruin if Lord Flashheart appeared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKfbSHW9uGA

So none of you believe there aren't children using addresses of friend/relatives in MW/SO at CHS? I'm not talking about children of divorce with dual addresses, I'm talking about children who other than an address hook up don't belong in our schools?

Of course there are children using addresses of friends/relatives.

The key question is how prevalent is this?

kibbegirl said:
So none of you believe there aren't children using addresses of friend/relatives in MW/SO at CHS? I'm not talking about children of divorce with dual addresses, I'm talking about children who other than an address hook up don't belong in our schools?

yahooyahoo said:
Of course there are children using addresses of friends/relatives.
The key question is how prevalent is this?

kibbegirl said:
So none of you believe there aren't children using addresses of friend/relatives in MW/SO at CHS? I'm not talking about children of divorce with dual addresses, I'm talking about children who other than an address hook up don't belong in our schools?

This...of course there are, but the district has a system that works that removes them from the school. It's just every time any issues come up it's the fault of nondomiciled students. The way people talk you would think half our school system is made up of illegal students.

kibbegirl said:
So none of you believe there aren't children using addresses of friend/relatives in MW/SO at CHS? I'm not talking about children of divorce with dual addresses, I'm talking about children who other than an address hook up don't belong in our schools?

I think the risk and consequences of detection are both significant, and the investigations continuous, so the numbers are low. There are certainly cases that are caught each year, either of kids who have relatives in town, but don't have the correct custody arrangements, or of people who move out of town and try to lay low and finish out the year, but I've seen no real evidence of significant numbers, in spite of people who are convinced of it based on hearsay or partial knowledge.

There are plenty of kids (some of them very middle class) who go to relatives houses in other towns after school, or who are dropped off at school by a grandparent who lives a town over, or by a parent who drives a Newark taxi, or kids who are homeless and thus still eligible for school where they last lived (by law), or whatever.

I actually suspect (without data) that the ex-resident issue may be the bigger one. We've seen it here on MOL. I remember one poster who was upset that there wasn't an exception for her kids to stay in the schools tuition-free when they were briefly living out of town (between houses?), and another who really wanted an ex-patriot kid to be allowed to return from Europe for part of high school. Both seemed to expect that exceptions should exist for them, based on attachment to the community and/or previous property taxes paid.

But no matter what the numbers, it a red herring to imagine that it has anything to do with issues of violence, bullying, substance abuse, inappropriate touch, etc. in our schools.

(duplicated instead of editing...oops)

susan1014 said:

kibbegirl said:
So none of you believe there aren't children using addresses of friend/relatives in MW/SO at CHS? I'm not talking about children of divorce with dual addresses, I'm talking about children who other than an address hook up don't belong in our schools?

I think the risk and consequences of detection are both significant, and the investigations continuous, so the numbers are low. There are certainly cases that are caught each year, either of kids who have relatives in town, but don't have the correct custody arrangements, or of people who move out of town and try to lay low and finish out the year, but I've seen no real evidence of significant numbers, in spite of people who are convinced of it based on hearsay or partial knowledge.
There are plenty of kids (some of them very middle class) who go to relatives houses in other towns after school, or who are dropped off at school by a grandparent who lives a town over, or by a parent who drives a Newark taxi, or kids who are homeless and thus still eligible for school where they last lived (by law), or whatever.
I actually suspect (without data) that the ex-resident issue may be the bigger one. We've seen it here on MOL. I remember one poster who was upset that there wasn't an exception for her kids to stay in the schools tuition-free when they were briefly living out of town (between houses?), and another who really wanted an ex-patriot kid to be allowed to return from Europe for part of high school. Both seemed to expect that exceptions should exist for them, based on attachment to the community and/or previous property taxes paid.
But no matter what the numbers, it a red herring to imagine that it has anything to do with issues of violence, bullying, substance abuse, inappropriate touch, etc. in our schools.

+1000

Thanks for the great feedback.

Okay, so if the numbers are low and many of us love our neighbors, know our neighbors and love our 'hood, then WTF is going on with theft, violence, etc? Someone must know these kids, right? Someone must be able to tell someone in authority that these kids have displayed issues in the community, right? When you speak to your kids about these incidents, what do they say about the perpetrators? Do they live w/in the towns? Are they troublemakers on their blocks?

I would never portray our towns as utopia but do we really have that many kids w/in them that cause this much trouble? If it's a small population of students causing trouble then is there no way to legally remove them?

I guess my issue is this: are these indeed OUR KIDS effing this up for everyone?

Yes.