State Continues to Fund School Projects in Suburbs, While Leaving Poor Districts Stranded

Section 9 aid is a local school construction bond which is appropriated each year by the Legislative from the property Tax Relief Fund in the State Budget. Only non-Abbott districts are able to obtain local bonds to finance school construction. State school construction programs now only fund projects in upper and middle income suburban districts. Their are over 100 urban schools in desperate need of Section 9 aid and Legislation refuses to help these poor districts.
The refusal to fund stalled projects prompts Abbott Court action. They asked N.J. Supreme Court to set December 31 as the deadline for Legislation to provide funding to restart stalled construction projects. These school districts pleaded with Governor Corzine to help, but he has taken no action. It is unfair to the children that attend these overcrowded unsafe schools. As a teacher I believe before anything else safety is the most important thing for our students and by not fixing up the schools there are many dangers surrounding them each day. It is just not fair!

School Violence

I thought I would share something that happened in the High School that I did my 30 hr. field work last semester. My best friend and boyfriends mother are both teachers at the H.S. On Friday about lunch time the office was notified that one of the students had a gun! The student text messaged one of his friends saying that he was going to kill another male student. The friend who received the text went right to the Principal and sure enough they found the gun in his locker. The school went under lock down. The steps you take as a teacher during a lock down is turn off the computers, lock the doors, turn off the lights, and take all the students on the other side of the classroom in a corner away from the door. Can you imagine trying to control 30 H.S. kids in a corner during a lock down. The school eventually was shut down and students were sent home. They found the kid with the gun and he was arrested. He wont be returning to school, so we hope, who knows if he will return!? It is so sad that their is actually a drill for teachers and students just in case their is shootings in the school! There use to be drills from war with other countries and the normal fire drill, but can you imagine a lock down drill because of shootings in schools. What has the world come to! It is so tragic. Becoming a teacher is such an exciting and wonderful thing for me, hearing things like this does scare me, but it makes me want to be an even better teacher. I want to help kids grow and maybe try to see early signs of problematic students and try to guide them in the right direction.

The Arts H.S. Orientation

The Arts High School experience was amazing. The students are so talented. I am a Fine Art Education major and could definitely see myself teaching in a school like this one. The A, B Block scheduling is a great idea especially in the Arts subjects. I went to a regularly scheduled high school, but I did fieldwork at an A, B Block schedule and I feel it works well. From what I learned from a teacher’s perspective it does work better but it is a challenge to keep the students attention.