That’s a great suggestion and something tangible for taxpayer to see where the money is going and will be put to great use. They have a near $90 million of surplus state money that per trustee Alexander Hamilton’s AMA they don’t know where to spend it on. You should email him as he’s been pretty good with listening and communications. Also in my experience if one’s child is excelling his or her peers the system is too rigid for bright kid to be appropriately challenged so parents get outside tutors or change districts.

Thank you for your brutal honesty. The school decided to introduce it to 9 year olds while stats show students are struggling with core academics. Their misguided priorities are maddening. Wait for middle school or high school maybe to introduce this stuff and allow opt outs for parents. Let kids be kids at that age for crying out loud.

Alexander Hamilton was voted in Nov of 2019 as a trustee board member. And not actually in office until 2020. Those layoffs happened before he got elected so if I were you maybe ask the superintendent who is a 40 year lifer.

You should re-read what candidate Hamilton on Change For Children slate wrote on AMA last week - he’s very clear on where he stands w teachers (off limits) and accountability(hiring a budget offer to oversee). He’s also left his email on there in case you’re on the fence and need things clarified.

Handing back control to taxpayers not LeFrak. Pull your paranoid socialist head out of that rabbit hole. Union mafia has had multi decade run to separate your money from your wallet. Wake up and smell their bullshit already.

I would also recommend in JSQ Little India:

Dum Biryani (goat or chicken) from Pariwaar Delights
Samosas and mixed plate(kebabs/rice/salad) from Samosa Paradise
Crab Curry, mutton chukka, fresh parotta, from Masala Cafe
Dosas at Sapthagiri

not Alex but based on his other answers it sounds like he values and respects teachers. The budget is near a billion dollars and your administration has decided they rather waste it on deadweights, nepotism hires and unscrupulous vendor contracts instead of improving the pay scale of all teachers that actually do the real and tough job of teaching urban kids. As a taxpayer I wish teachers call out their union for this gross mismanagement.

Wanted to add while there are no guarantees that this year’s Change For Children reps will not turncoat like Noemi Velasquez did stabbing the taxpayers in the back last year voting YES to near $1B budget and now flipped to Education Matters slate that is funded by the union aka JCEA, NJEA, Jersey City Together or some variation thereof, rest assured we have a board member who is named after a founding father who has always voted with his heart against the budget increase. In 2020 he was the lone dissent 8-1 vote. In 2021 he was dissent in 6-3 vote. And most recently NO vote in $1B budget. And just as an FYI total enrollment in JC public schools including charters has dropped the last 5 years but BOE increased the budget near 50% in the same timeframe and they have used desperate parents with children in schools without drinkable water and leaky roofs that they willfully ignored for years despite more money being poured in, as marionettes. And when you see the same sheep copy and paste tired old links from well known pro budget and union activist civicparent.org or jcitytimes.com to spread the “underfunded” or “first time in years the schools are fully funded” spin please smack them in the face for being the mouthpiece of very people who want to steal from your hard earned paychecks every pay period.

Thx. Didn’t realize that was the set up before. Do you have any links I can dig deeper into?

How about letting voters decide to approve school budget each year? Like they do in Secaucus and Weehawken in Hudson County and many others within NJ. The board is 8 out of 9 union endorsed so they are big enablers of financial mismanagement and misbehavior. There needs to be a hard cap like 2% to force them live within means. We need smart, honest finance person to run for some of those seats to fine tooth comb through all the vendor contracts and check for conflicts of interest and overpayment & identify all the deadweights in administration.

You must be a baller!

To Koreans there is no such thing as old kimchi that you throw away. If it gets too pungent you can make kimchi pork stew or kimchi pancakes or even stirfried kimchi pork bellies. Extra sour quality of past its prime kimchi cuts pork fat richness.

Super Hmart in Ridgefield has a nice selection. They have several variations of napa cabbage kimchi (oyster, country style, uncut, white) as well as other vegetable variations like young radish, cucumber, radish cubes, chives, etc. And surprisingly Costco kimchi is pretty decent, very inexpensive but past peak ripeness side. 99 ranch’s offerings are horrid.

Cangianos has very solid all around breakfast sandwich lineup including BEC SPK on house baked bagel. I like their SEC and western.

That sounds like a question only your union benefit planners or reps can answer. I dont think the board has any control over that.

You’re asking a different question. How much do you pay for monthly health insurance premium exactly? Do you think it’s fair employees in private companies pay in some cases $2000 per month for family health plan? Many employees in public sector also do not have free health insurance. They also do not have summers off. You sound awfully entitled.

Quite shocking! Thank you for your response.

I see now why the board half assed the new superintendent search and instead just decided to go with Dr Fernandez, a 40 year lifer in public school system. It’s mind boggling nobody at the board or media or mayor’s office even questions this publicly. So incredibly, deeply corrupt!

I like your ideas! But sadly unions rule this state and politicians. They will never say yes to less memberships.

Who said they shouldn’t? My main point is as a large city in NJ we generate ton of tax revenue, addition revenue other municpalities do not collect plus sizable population not using public school services. OP’s graph hints as if we’re still underfunded based on pie chart of state averages of the breakdowns. Families move to burbs for better schools and burbs logically have higher relative percentages for school budget because of larger % of population using public school services. In summary, burbs are full of families with school age children. JC not so much on a relative basis. Pie chart to push underfunded narrative is part of a union spin game.

Are you still trying to justify outrageous $33K per student spending as still underfunded again? There are tons of families who send their kids to one of 28 JC private schools and elsewhere, there is 1% payroll tax other municipalities do not collect, we have higher percentage of empty nesters, seniors and singles than average municipalities that are subsidizing school budget at no benefit to them. HALF the kids can’t read, TWO THIRDS can’t do math at grade level. That is what $33K per student produces for taxpayers of Jersey City and you want to justify more funding?

You must be a JCEA union member or Norma’s groupie. Study your history of JCPS on why it’s easier to send a man to Jupiter than fix the corrupt and dysfunctional public schools. Let’s throw more money at the incompetent idiots bc $1B is not enough to make schools FANTASTIC.

What percentage of students in JCPS have special needs to base your entire argument on some likely tiny fraction outlier? You do know that charters are lottery based right? Like random, luck of the draw admission. In NYC charters cater predominantly to low income black and hispanic students bc their zoned public schools are such shitshow which is the case in many poor or working class urban neighborhoods. Apparently to you it’s some fraudulent capitalist endeavor but the reality is the charter students outperform their public schools peers in NYC.

Here’s most recent data from our neighbors in NYC. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2019/08/23/2019-new-york-test-scores-charter-school-students-compared-to-public-school-students

“63 percent of the charter students in grades 3 through 8 passed the state math exam this year, compared to 46 percent in traditional public schools. And 57 percent of charter students were proficient in English Language Arts, compared to 47 percent in regular public schools.”

Also important to note majority of NYC charters cater to low income Black and Hispanic students, historically lower achievers than White and Asian students. Charters are popular for this very reason and very necessary when public schools are such shitshow.