It is unfortunate that real educational innovation and addressing the academic needs of Hoboken are emerging from parents and community leaders and not from the Board of Education and its educational professionals.

The problem is funding. The money ends up coming out of the Public Schools to support a specialized institution. The Public Schools have mandates to support special needs kids, developmental services etc. that a charter school doesn't have to do, By taking money out of public schools for these charter schools, you are devaluing and defunding the public school system to a dangerous degree. They have to make cuts and since the mandates don't change, the general education , science and technology classes are hurt even more. More students are hurt to help the few who end up in the charter program. I think charter schools are a fine idea as long as someone else is paying for them.

A series of public forums by Dr. Toback, Mr. Howard McKenzie and other district STEM leadership outlining THEIR vision for STEM education and a plan for its effective implementation for the district's students to the community would likely be more effective than a protest letter to the state.

I wonder whether articulating potential financial problems for the district based primarily on not meeting the curricula and instructional needs of its constituents (parents, families, community at large) will find a sympathetic ear in Trenton.

Journey, you can cut out the middle-curiousgal and go straight to Kim's source. http://uteachpbi.blogspot.com

Kim is characterizing this as an oversight, miss, poor implementation by KF. And you'll recall all the many, many posts Kim has on STEM, SRI, and FOSS where she now hopes to pass herself off as an expert and long-time champion.

You're putting your child in the schools. She isn't.

To go or not to go to this meeting tonight.

I'd have to bring my daughter and explain the Russo mob's behavior to her. So want to shelter her from that till she is bit older.

Did it ever occur to Prosbus and Not So Curios Kim that The curriculum put forth from Petrosino while he worked from Florida wasn't worth implementing fully or even at all in the opinion of some? Holy Purple Pillows People! More Pimping for Pupie's Pal Petrosino from Prosbus on Patch. Perfectly predictable.

I mean Texas. Not Florida.

The critics here are dead wrong when they say the charter schools cost the public schools money. Quite the opposite--the public schools save an enormous amount of money when a student doesn't attend a public school--where the cost in Hoboken is $24,000 a student--and instead goes to a charter school, where the school board kicks in only $12,000 and keeps much of the rest. The public schools save even more money if the student goes to a Catholic school or private school--that's zero cost to the board. Despite plummeting public school enrollment the last few years, the board hasn't cut its budget at all, so it has just as much money as ever but many fewer students. No financial hit there.
Instead of trying to block a new charter, the board should focus on turning around its steadily failing schools. It certainly didn't encourage anyone to stay in the public schools when it fired Paula Ohaus and Mrs. Hillenbrand.

So using Journey's numbers, between 2007/8 and 2010/11 the enrollment dropped 21%. Sounds like a plummet to me. And I believe the district officials projected the enrollment to drop again next year as Hola Charter increases in size.