Just so it is clear, this ranking is one year behind. This was as of 2010-2011 School year.

Yes. you are correct. A revolving door of adminstration, consistantly changing rules and procedues, no clear chain of command, a micromanaging board, and most administrators coming from failing districts. You are right, its the parents and teachers. Clown.

If I am not mistaken, Raia has been sitting on the Hopes board for some 20 years.
He is also, currently, a school board member of Hola- (a public charter school in Hoboken).

When Principals retire or leave they must be replaced- are you suggesting they not be replaced?

franksinatra, I believe that retained 10th graders refers to those required to repeat the tenth grade rather than move to the 11th in order to avoid testing. I'm surprised someone with your level of knowledge of process missed something like that. A case study showing a Texas school doing exactly this is here. It results in student disenfranchisement and high drop-out rates:
Julian Vazquez Heilig and Linda Darling-Hammond, “Accountability Texas Style: The Progress and Learning of Urban Minority Students in a High-Stakes Testing Context,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 30, no. 2 (2008): 75–110.
http://www.uscrossier.org/21stcentury/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/heilig_darling-hammon_accountability1.pdf

I'll call your attention to the statistics that shows an alarmingly low number of grade 11 students compared to other grades, prior to 2009.
http://education.state.nj.us/rc/rc11/rcreport.php?c=17;d=2210;s=005

Is he just making excuses or was something going on, and if something was going on, what about the children?

The only people hurting the schools are the people who keep falsely claiming Ohaus was fired. She was not fired. She was denied tenure AND offered a job that had no tenure protections where she would continue directing plays. She declined that offer and got a job elsewhere. Stop with the lies already.

And here is the link with the facts, read it and weep: http://hudsonreporter.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Ohaus-+Hillenbrand+to+leave-Board+votes+down+tenure+for+two+popular+teachers-%20&id=14551957

ok dimwit so if I understand, you assert that TOBACK should have a connection to the 2010-11 school year test results because he was hired in March 2010 and the tests were taken In April 2010- THUS he is is responsible for those test scores?

who was the principal in 2010? Cella.
When did Cella leave HHS? Spring 2010.
So she was principal from 08- spring 10.

But, no- somehow a supt with 1 month on the job is to blame
- only in your world.

Retained 10th graders? Yeah those were the students who were supposed to be tested in 11th grade but were retained to 10th retained classes- (cause the admin thought said students would be at high risk for not passing the tests?.).IRONICALLY those" retained" 10th graders (some 40% of the grade pop, in some years) somehow never did have to make up that 11th grade missed year- they were amazingly skipped right ot the 12 th grade the following year.

Its was an amazing "situation", Raslowski and the prior admins had going- removed the district from state take over. Well, that all stopped in 2009- when there was the first "shock and awe" of lowered hspa scores. Then, to further bring reality into line-in the 2010 year, the alternative school was brought back into HHS and now those students scores could no longer be hidden either...and gee..hmmmmm/// Now all the 11th graders who attend Hoboken's district schools, are for the first time since 2002 (?) being tested- just like most all other districts in the state of NJ.

"By firing Paula Ohaus last year (2011/12) he's done far more to hurt the high school than help it."
Ohaus,was a HHS teacher, in HHS for the 2009 and 2010 school years- the very years you complain about?
You also speak about the 2006-07 Gagliardi years- the AUDIT YEARS- with millions for steak dinners, vacations, no show jobs, cell phones( apparent rampant fraud from every corner years)also the same years as the10th grade retainer years,as the BANNER year?????????????
And finallly conclude with "And what difference would it make anyway? All the alternative students still have to take the hspa test whether they're in Demarest or the high school. " The difference DIMWIT-as you already know- is that any grade with a student population below 30- DOES NOT have ACCOUNTABLITY for AYP- they simply are labled as "Too Few" or NA. ANY school/ANY grade.

Given your comments, a thinking person might conclude- this dimwit believes that Ohaus was a saviour of the district- even thought the dimwit complains that district scores were "horrible" during those same years, and that dimwit wants rampant waste and abuse to come back, he also believes that test scores should be hidden and that the lower High school test scores are the fault of someone who did not work for the district the year of the test scores nor any of the other prior 12 years of education before the test was taken. .

Sorry-as usual, dimwit's stories just don't make any sense.

There is a reason I do what I do and you troll online all day. You have no idea how to read a budget or understand the concept of overhead costs. No, the cost to the BOE for things like providing classroom space is not captured in that $9mm. The cost of providing utility services to those classrooms is not captured in that $9mm.

Sorry lady, I am going to take the word of the BOE budget over you b/c you conveniently get your facts wrong way too often.

http://64.106.242.36/hoboken/BOARD%20OF%20EDUCATION/Financial%20Information/Fiscal%20Year%202012-2013/User%20Friendly%20Budget%202012-2013.htm/_top

Sorry Scott, don't confuse the issue. The Hoboken District is spending the MINIMUM it is mandated by law to spend on its public school (essentially, the Abbott mandated levy--about $36 million). The rest of the money ($27 million) comes from state and federal sources. The last time I checked, I pay municipal, state and federal taxes. Kids First is more than able to reduce the $27million part of the budget but they (and you) evidently see this as "free" money.

Ohaus and Hillenbrand both were excellent. It is clear Kids First are either incapable of recognizing or loath expertise. Witness the flood of hires from Keyport, Newark, and Roselle.

Scott Siegel --- A quick estimate shows per pupil costs in Hoboken over $30,000 per student. I'll explain. The approved budget for 2012-13 is $63million. Subtract $7million for charter schools and another $9million for preschool and that leaves $47million. There are 1512 students in the district (K-12). That leaves a per pupil cost of over $47million spent on 1512 students or roughly $31,300 per K-12 student.

Details:
1) Preschool population (649) is left out of calculations since the $9million was also taken out of the total estimated budget. These students are taught by contracted providers. Costs are much lower ($13,900 per student).

2) Charter schools are servicing about 750 children for $9million ($12,000 per student)

thriving ? or barely surviving ? does the lowest spending apply to legal fees ? violate the law ? is that the same as "almost" violating the law ? Like waiting for the Interim SBA/BD secretary's term to end...then have him GIVE THE GREATEST PERFORMANCE OF HIS LIFE at a May BOE meeting to support the Kids Last oops i mean first ( yeh right) belief on charter schools or was it magnet schools ? And then the very next 2 meetings his Daughter is appointed to a newly made up position that is designed to DUMB DOWN EDUcATION.. and that is not putting KIDS FIRST...that is putting a crony first...

Good thing Curiousgal isn't in finance b/c she forgot to leave out all the overhead costs associated w/ running & hosting pre-K programs when she did her analysis. I guess in her analysis, the cost of providing heat, electricity, water, maintenance & not to mention support services from other BOE personnel is just free to the pre-K kids in BOE buildings.

No curiousgal, you don't take out the Pre-K kids when doing the math b/c that $47mm also goes towards helping to cover the costs of the pre-K programs.

I am Spartacus/others- it's all included in the per pupil cost. At the end of the day, the taxpayers of Hoboken are paying $31,333 per child for a student enrolled in the Hoboken Public Schools grade K-12 (heat and electricity included) ;-)

Then please explain the very strange enrollment numbers?

Posters have been bringing up the 10R issue for months if not years, and posters like TBurns have not public ally denied that it happened.

I'll search for the numbers I have previously posted, but the decline in enrollment from 10th grade to students listed in 11th grade, and then an increase when those same child enter the 12th grade was far beyond the standard deviation.

frank, who says it's just for NJ monthly ratings. If you were dishonest enough to game the test scores (like the anonymous school district in Texas, the state from which one of our adminstrators came), and then you got ousted for whatever reason, you would know that all you had to do was wait a few years for your mess to be cleaned, and test scores would drop. Then just deny, deny, deny and pretend, pretend, pretend. I'm not saying it happened, but it could have. Given the known entity of steak dinners, cell phones, and employees without names, I put nothing beyond our former school board.

The tax levy is fixed at a certain minimum. No argument there. But you are lying my friend when you say the Board cannot reduce its budget. It has a lot of room to reduce its budget. Especially at $30,000+ per K-12 student. Keep cheerleading-- you word on the budget is about as good as your word is on the quality of the high school.

Isn't the point of a minimum levy such that the budget can't be cut? What happens if the budget is cut, yet we can't collect less money, does the school board just sit on cash? If so, what's the benefit of that.
While I agree that the system is a bit crazy that says that we need to collect more money than we want to use, I assume it is in place to stop cities from overly cutting education.
My suggestion is that we ensure we are spending every dollar we have to in ways where we expect to get the best bang for our buck.

....and over $30,000 per student.

Scott- Don't use complicated concepts like exponential growth if you don't know what they mean. Also, don't put words in my mouth. What I said is that the per pupil costs for K-12 students in the Hoboken Public Schools is over 30,000 per student. $47,000,000 spent on 1501 students....I welcome anyone to do the math.

FYI, the Abbott minimum levy is to assure that all Abbot districts pay what the state believes is a minimum dollar amount for effective instruction for students from high poverty backgrounds. A district can appropriate more than the minimum, but it cannot appropriate anything below the minimum.

franksinatra- Scott also said that the high school was "doing great"-- 3 months later we find the High School is now among the bottom 50 high schools in the state of NJ. Scott is a cheerleader, his opinions are not to be taken as anything approaching objectivity.

Scott says that the Theater program under the new director is "thriving"-- maybe Scott would like to point out the NY Times article Ms. Miller has inspired ? Maybe Scott would like to point out the statewide awards the theater program has won? Maybe Scott would like to point out the revenue generated by our current program vs. the last 3 years under Ms. Ohaus? Maybe Scott would like to count the number of students involved with the theater program for the past 2 school years vs. the previous 2 years. Maybe Scott would like to share his definition of "thriving" or is this simply a cheerleading term?