The superintendent of the Bayonne schools doesn’t want a new charter school in the district, she said at last week’s Board of Education meeting.
Superintendent Dr. Patricia McGeehan said the state Department of Education seems to be leaning against approving a charter school for the old Mt. Carmel School site on East 22nd Street.
This is the second attempt to set up a charter school in Bayonne, where none currently exists. The Bayonne School District successfully opposed the first one, and has asked the state to reject this proposal, too.
“We do not need a charter school in Bayonne,” McGeehan said.
Charter schools are public schools that are often founded by parents, teachers, and business people as an alternative to the existing public schools. They get most of their funding through the public schools, but do not have to follow all of the district policies.
“This is not going to be left up to the coaches as this was in the past.” – Tracey L. Power
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According to the application, the school would begin recruiting students from Jersey City and Bayonne as early as January 2011, would serve about 306 students from pre-k to fifth grades, and would receive about $1.6 million from the Bayonne School District budget.
Illegal students put out of school
Also at the board meeting, it was noted that the reward program for rooting out illegal students appears to have generated a number of leads. It has led to the removal of three more students from Bayonne schools this month, for a total of 12 since September.
In December, illegal students were discovered attending Bayonne High, Horace Mann, and Midtown Community schools.
“All of these students have been removed,” said Assistant Schools Superintendent Robert Craig.
Since the beginning of the year, illegal students have been removed from Nicholas Oresko School, Mary J. Donohoe School, Woodrow Wilson School, and Bayonne High School.
Craig said that the increase in bounty from the $100 reward to $200 has generated more calls to the district about suspected illegal students.
“These students cost the taxpayers of Bayonne money and services from other students,” said Leo Smith, business administrator for the district. “We want to encourage people to report anyone they suspect of attending our schools illegally.”
Preventing sports concussions
A day after Gov. Christopher Christie signed legislation designed to protect student-athletes and prevent concussions on the sports field, Tracey L. Power, an athletic trainer at Bayonne High School, reported to the Bayonne Board of Education about the district’s protective program that started last summer.
“We started our program six months before the law,” Power said, giving the board a snapshot of the procedures in place to protect athletes.
McGeehan said the law passed requires schools to develop an interscholastic, athletic head injury safety training program to be completed by school physicians, coaches, and athletic trainers of public and nonpublic school interscholastic sports programs.
“When we looked at what was proposed, we realized that we are already doing many of the things that the state requires,” she said. “We started a program here in Bayonne prior to the start of the school year.”
Some of the requirements include determining the appropriate amount of time a student-athlete must wait before returning to sports competition or practice after sustaining an injury.
Power said the danger to many athletes is a second hit causing a concussion that occurs while the body is still trying to recover from the first.
In the past, people referred to the first injury as “getting his bell rung,” and that athletes often simply tried to shake it off, Power said. But athletes often put themselves at an increased risk for what could be a deadly injury.
Power said the program implemented by the Bayonne School District and being brought in line with the new state law will help ensure that school physicians, coaches, and athletic trainers are properly trained to be able to identify a concussion, as well as utilize the proper response during interscholastic sporting events.
A student-athlete who sustains, or is suspected of having sustained, a concussion or head injury will be removed immediately from the sporting event and will not be permitted to participate in further sports activity until he is evaluated and cleared by a physician or other properly licensed and trained healthcare provider. “This is not going to be left up to the coaches as this was in the past,” Power said. “This is big deal.”
Audit questions
The board voted to take steps to deal with four basically clerical recommendations made by this year’s audit. The recommendations deal with various financial accounts, as well as some interactions with the city.
“We’ve already brought this up before the finance committee and will be taking steps to deal with them,” Smith said.
IMTT grants
International-Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT) has given the school district $22,000 in grants for a variety of educational projects.
“IMTT is our biggest contributor,” Dr. McGeehan said.
Teachers create wish lists, which are viewed by members of the Coleman family – the owners of IMTT – who then select which projects they will fund.
A robotics program at the school was funded by one of these grants last year.
The grants this year will pay for two new smart boards – computer interactive boards – that will be used in the social science and world language departments.
Pre-k class reviewed by the state
The State Department of Education’s Early Childhood Department came into Midtown Community School this month to monitor and review operations of a pre-k classroom. The inspection included a review of facilities, as well as classroom activities, and it resulted in a 6.5 score out of a possible 7. Dr. Ellen O’Connor said the half point penalty was because the school lacked outdoor physical education equipment. The state average is 3.5.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.