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Health & Fitness

BOE Candidates Forum - Anti-Kids and the Big Lie

My child recently started Hoboken High School.  He is thriving in a safe, clean, environment staffed with excellent, dedicated teachers, and a diverse student body. In short, he loves it there, and we are happy we chose Hoboken High.

Some were surprised by our choice, and our son's desire to go there. Anyone who knows my wife and I knows that we seldom make important decisions lightly. We had gone to two Redwing for a Days, spoke with parents of students who were attending the school, met with the Principal, guidance counselors, and teachers, and visited other schools.  Our son and we always got the best feeling from Hoboken High. He didn't even want us to consider the other schools we looked at.

Some have asked us about how safe we think the school is and if we thougt our son would be able to learn anything in such a volatile environment.  After nearly two years of rather intense research and school comparisons, we were not sure where their perceptions were coming from.

Then I watched the BOE candidates forum last night. Now I understand. It's the Big Lie.  Repeat a lie often enough and eventually people will start believing it. I found it disturbing that the anti-Kids First forces (who I now call anti-Kids forces) were portraying Hoboken High School as unsafe and riddled with violence and vandalism. Either they have kids attending Hoboken High in an alternate universe, or they are simply lying. As a new Hoboken High parent, it was very frustrating to watch their performance and continual misleading statements, nasty comments about their opponents, and outright lies. 

I was even more put off by some of the anti-kids forces actually saying they would not send their kids to Hoboken High today.  If that is truly the case, I would not want any of them to be on the Board of Education because they obviously have not looked at the school since Kids First became the majority.

One more point worth making about test scores.  It is true and obvious to any thinking person that average test scores for a public school that admits everyone regardless of income or resources will be significantly lower than schools you have to apply to and are selective about who they admit. Averages mean nothing.  The real test of whether your child can learn, succeed, and thrive at a school is whether the top 10% of students are comparable.  That will tell you far better than averages whether the school encourages and fosters learning.  It seems to me that the anti-kids forces' continued shouting about bottom 10%, violence, and vandalism (all lies) are nothing more than attempts to keep the public schools as segregated as possible, and drive those who can afford it to apply to other schools outside of Hoboken, or go to private schools.

These are insidious efforts by a desperate old guard who knows their corrupt power is waning, and have nothing left but the Big Lie and the hope that a lot of Hoboken residents aren't paying attention to what is really going on.

If you want continued improvement that those of us actually sending our kids to Hoboken Hgh have seen first hand, please vote for the Kids First slate - Irene Sobolov, Leon Gold, and Jennifer Evans.

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