N.B.O.E. Meeting Blog Post

 

 

NBOE Speaker Queue 

allows members of the Newark community to voice their opinions on the issues addressed during the Board meeting, and any other concerns. I will address in this post the first batch of public volunteer speakers of the board meeting (for the sake of keeping the post at the 500 word minimum lol).

Of the first 10 speakers that were given 3-5 minute intervals to speak, 3 were not present, 2 spoke of a personal matter of their thoughts on the return imposed by Chairwoman Garcia to face to face learning on April 12th (one that stood out to me!), 5 spoke of Newark BOE Head Chair Josephine Garcia and implored that she resign from her position of power in the Newark Education system. They claimed her to be “unfit” to lead the education system of the city, and even implied she is unqualified for her position. And 2 were students who had personally conversed with Chairwoman Garcia, and while they don’t agree with he Olán of action go return to physical learning, they disagreed with the comments made pushing her to resign, and argued that her characters personality is exactly what Newark needs leading its BOE.

1 teacher from a Newark Public School, Christopher Canik, highlighted the fact that surveys for return to school received high interaction from students, even though the survey was intended for parents to choose whether or not their children would return to school. 

He states: “there were statements made by board members who mentioned they were proud of the students who selected to return to school, and applauded parents for getting students out of their houses..”

The condition of the COVID-19 Pandemic in New Jersey is in no way appealing to have students back in school buildings! 

Professor Canik goes on to say:

“ This is extraordinarily concerning to [students returning to physical learning], my reason for concern is simple. When we return there is nothing to be enjoyed. The experience upon return to schools and hybrid learning has been described by educators across the nation as the worse education experience of their lives. When stuck between a rock and a hard place it is not the right decision to celebrate the hard place or the rock. As a school district we must be honest with students and parents, they will go back to prison like conditions if they return to schools... there is nothing fun or enjoyable about that.”

I couldn’t agree more. The past year of the pandemic have been nothing but pure “adjusting” on behalf of both educators and students. To ask them to return to face to face learning with no hazard pay efforts, no efficient training, and insufficient health policy and implementation this is simply setting up the education system for exhaustion in the months to come. There will be a time for teachers and kids to share a common space once again as we once did, that time however is NOT now.