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Hackensack Discussion / Re: Hackensack schools, facilities upgrade, new school
« on: December 02, 2018, 09:25:12 AM »
The plan to build a new elementary school on a high school athletic field should be considered a loss of open space. It's more than just a loss of recreation for the students.
I also feel that the school system is moving in the opposite direction of neighborhood-based schools. Decades ago, all children K-5 went to schools in their own neighborhood, or reasonably close. The logic was that 6th graders are old enough to walk to or from school on their own, so if they had to walk a mile or two, that was considered acceptable.
Then, all 5th grade classes were consolidated into the Five-6 school on the Middle School campus. So now you have kids a year younger having to walk very far.
Now the Board of Education wants to take that same approach for younger and younger kids. Now they want even 3rd and 4th graders from all over the city to attend a single school. They are essentially forcing all parents to drive their kids to and from school. I am remarried with a 5-year old, and living in Maywood. Thinking of buying a house in Hackensack, which is more affordable than the suburban towns, but I would then be subjected to these education logistics and having to purchase another automobile. The Board of Education should not be complicating people's lives with education logistics.
There are multiple problems with education logistics.
1. First is that it complicates the ability of parents to have employment. The potential employment of at least one parent (sometimes there is ONLY one parent) now has to work around driving a child to and from school. So that leaves not enough daytime hours to work full-time.
2. Second, if there are children in more than one school, the logistics are even worse.
3. Third, not everyone has a car, or perhaps they only have one car and the spouse who works full-time with a good-paying job is using it all day.
4. Lots of parents without cars walk their younger kids to school. It's too much to expect them to walk their small child miles across town. Especially in the cold, in the rain, in light snow when there is no snow day.
All of this really makes life difficult for families in Hackensack. It's totally anti-civic. Maybe this is being done deliberately to discourage families with children from living in Hackensack. And if that is the case, (unsure) that would be simply terrible public policy.
The Board of Education is moving in the opposite direction. They need to go back to having all kids K-5 educated in neighborhood schools, or perhaps K-6. If that means expanding them, expand. If that means building a new school somewhere in the center of Hackensack, do it. If that means to change the boundaries of the elementary schools, do it. The boundaries are non-sensical, having been gerrymandered for racial balance reasons at least 40 years ago, and those demographic issues no longer exist. All of Hackensack is thoroughly mixed. There are Latino's and African-Americans all over Hackensack, in every neighborhood.
Or even better, make all neighborhood elementary schools K-6, and perk the boundaries to make the enrollment numbers vs. available classroom space work. I bet grades 7-8 can fit in the old Middle school building, which was designed for 6-8. The current Five6 school can become a K-6 school for the Park Street area Hackensack, and lower Anderson Street, and moving outwards a few blocks as needed to fill up the school.
There would still be the need to build one new school, I would say somewhere in the area of Kansas Street.
The Hackensack School system should be moving in the direction of neighborhood-based schools, and not in the direction of parents having to drive little kids all over Hackensack.
I also feel that the school system is moving in the opposite direction of neighborhood-based schools. Decades ago, all children K-5 went to schools in their own neighborhood, or reasonably close. The logic was that 6th graders are old enough to walk to or from school on their own, so if they had to walk a mile or two, that was considered acceptable.
Then, all 5th grade classes were consolidated into the Five-6 school on the Middle School campus. So now you have kids a year younger having to walk very far.
Now the Board of Education wants to take that same approach for younger and younger kids. Now they want even 3rd and 4th graders from all over the city to attend a single school. They are essentially forcing all parents to drive their kids to and from school. I am remarried with a 5-year old, and living in Maywood. Thinking of buying a house in Hackensack, which is more affordable than the suburban towns, but I would then be subjected to these education logistics and having to purchase another automobile. The Board of Education should not be complicating people's lives with education logistics.
There are multiple problems with education logistics.
1. First is that it complicates the ability of parents to have employment. The potential employment of at least one parent (sometimes there is ONLY one parent) now has to work around driving a child to and from school. So that leaves not enough daytime hours to work full-time.
2. Second, if there are children in more than one school, the logistics are even worse.
3. Third, not everyone has a car, or perhaps they only have one car and the spouse who works full-time with a good-paying job is using it all day.
4. Lots of parents without cars walk their younger kids to school. It's too much to expect them to walk their small child miles across town. Especially in the cold, in the rain, in light snow when there is no snow day.
All of this really makes life difficult for families in Hackensack. It's totally anti-civic. Maybe this is being done deliberately to discourage families with children from living in Hackensack. And if that is the case, (unsure) that would be simply terrible public policy.
The Board of Education is moving in the opposite direction. They need to go back to having all kids K-5 educated in neighborhood schools, or perhaps K-6. If that means expanding them, expand. If that means building a new school somewhere in the center of Hackensack, do it. If that means to change the boundaries of the elementary schools, do it. The boundaries are non-sensical, having been gerrymandered for racial balance reasons at least 40 years ago, and those demographic issues no longer exist. All of Hackensack is thoroughly mixed. There are Latino's and African-Americans all over Hackensack, in every neighborhood.
Or even better, make all neighborhood elementary schools K-6, and perk the boundaries to make the enrollment numbers vs. available classroom space work. I bet grades 7-8 can fit in the old Middle school building, which was designed for 6-8. The current Five6 school can become a K-6 school for the Park Street area Hackensack, and lower Anderson Street, and moving outwards a few blocks as needed to fill up the school.
There would still be the need to build one new school, I would say somewhere in the area of Kansas Street.
The Hackensack School system should be moving in the direction of neighborhood-based schools, and not in the direction of parents having to drive little kids all over Hackensack.
