Some Jersey City schools, like Public School 16 on Washington Street, hold extra classrooms in trailers in a courtyard because there are not enough rooms in the regular school building.
But P.S. 16’s courtyard is really supposed to be a park for the neighborhood, meant to complement the other three corners of Washington and Grand Streets known as Paulus Hook Park.
There have been discussions in recent years among P.S. 16 parents, the Jersey City Board of Education, and city officials about the city reclaiming the courtyard for a playground in order to avoid a state lawsuit.
The pre-K-through-eighth grade school was supposed to shrink to a pre-K-through-fifth grade school starting in September 2010, and the district was planning to remove the trailers then.
“I worry about work going on while there are classes and disrupting them.” – Sterling Waterman
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In addition, the trailers are now expected to be removed sometime during the school year, possibly distracting students while they learn, parents say. The pre-K and kindergarten students currently in the trailers will be moved to empty classroom space later in the year.
Parents of P.S. 16 students say the early change came from Schools Superintendent Dr. Charles Epps. They say that Epps promised two years ago that the trailers would be dismantled in the summer of 2010, then changed his mind in the past few months.
Sticking to the original plan
Sterling Waterman, the father of a P.S. 16 second-grader and the president of the school’s Parent Teacher Association, said a number of parents joined him at the Board of Education meeting in June to discuss why the trailers were being removed a year early with very little advance notice.
The meeting didn’t go well, according to Waterman. He said parents were not allowed to speak about their concerns, and Epps told them the trailers would be removed without offering a sufficient reason.
At this point, what Waterman hopes for is “better communication” between the school district and the parents, especially if the school district is going to proceed with its plan to take down the trailers.
“I worry about work going on while there are classes and disrupting them,” Waterman said. “Also, we don’t know when they will actually start doing work because there seems to be a breakdown in communication between the school district and the parents.”
Waterman isn’t the only one expressing frustration because the school district is not sticking to its original plan.
‘Livid’
Longtime school board member Sue Mack, who had been working with parents to empty the school lot and facilitate the move from the trailers into the school, also expressed her frustration at the board’s meeting in August about the P.S. 16 situation.
She said she was still “livid” when interviewed last week. She said the district sought approval from the state this past June to dismantle the trailers, hoping approval would be granted before the new school year. But Mack said approval was not granted until the end of August. She said she warned them that would happen.
“It upsets me that [the school district] didn’t send out letters to parents that there was a delay in taking down the trailers,” Mack said. “They should be accountable to the community and to board members who care about this issue. I am very discouraged by what has happened.”
She wants the school district to put together a chart and other information on when and how the trailer work will take place, so the community is better informed.
And the school district did provide information on Thursday, scheduling 12 weeks for dismantling but approvals are needed from the city as well.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.