Dear Editor:
I’m writing regarding the situation at 180 Ninth Street, a.k.a. the Cordero Annex, previously the Golden Door Charter School. This past spring the Fulop Administration and the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) chose not to continue the lease to the Board of Education of four classrooms that had been used for preschoolers. We’re now a month into the school year and the building is standing unused. Meanwhile, at Cordero (P.S. 37), space was found in the main building for the PreK-3 classes formerly housed in the Cordero Annex, however this resulted in four Kindergarten classes being moved to classrooms with no bathrooms, which necessitated a special waiver as bathrooms are required in Kindergarten classrooms. In addition, while Principal Strynar’s willingness to find room for the four PreK-3 classes allowed the teachers to remain at Cordero, the four classrooms he allocated guaranteed PreK-3 spots for sixty neighborhood children while there were over one hundred children enrolled for Pre-K3 this year at Cordero. Children who did not obtain a spot at the school through the lottery are being bused to schools in other neighborhoods.
In June, the JCRA put out an RFP for a five-year lease of 180 Ninth Street. This is a positive step that will hopefully result in a transparent process to find the best use for this space. I strongly wish this action had been taken earlier so that the space could have been used this year. It is frustrating to have a perfectly good school building standing empty when so many of the downtown schools are at or over capacity, and students from downtown are bused across the city where they sometimes displace the students zoned for those local schools. It is even more frustrating that a transparent solution was delayed last spring while the 180 Ninth Street space was used as a chip in a political card game.
I called the JCRA this week to find out the status of the RFP and was told that 3 formal presentations were made and they are now waiting on City Hall to decide who will be awarded the space. I understand it is Mr. Fulop’s job as mayor to consider the best interests of all of the children in the city, and I would expect nothing less. This is also the mission of the Board of Education and the Jersey City Public Schools, who are juggling space issues citywide along with a rapidly growing population of students. In Mayor Fulop’s education platform he emphasized the importance of a strong public school system and made this promise:
“The Fulop administration will always give the right of first refusal on unused municipal property to the Board of Education. Sufficient and well maintained facilities are critical to the health of the school
system, and it is imperative that the City take all possible actions toward achieving that objective.”
I agree wholeheartedly and sincerely hope that the mayor will remember his pledge as his administration and the JCRA make their decision on 180 Ninth Street.
Best wishes,
Emily Williams