The first day of school, Thursday, Sept. 8, might be the end of summer for Jersey City’s public school students, but it’s a new beginning for the district.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Marcia Lyles said the schools have a number of new programs this year. “This year’s theme is ‘access for success,’ ” she said. “We’re doing a lot to prepare our students for the 21st Century.”
This includes going deeper into various subjects using techniques such as blended learning — in which a student learns through digital and online media with some element of student control over time, place, path, or pace.
This year, the district is increasing access to technology for students and more support for teachers. This includes a program called “Google One to One,” in which students in grades three to five are provided with Chrome Notebooks, and teachers are given professional development that will allow them to stay ahead of students.
Lyles said a lot of the technology study will be concentrated in the third grade.
Students in high schools such as Lincoln and Snyder will also have access to Chrome Notebooks as they enter ninth grade.
Lyles said the district is attempting to close the digital divide that exists there. “Some students do not have access to technology at home,” Lyles said, although she also said nearly all students, regardless of where they live and go to school in the city, are often far ahead in understanding technology than many long-time teachers.
Smartphones and other devices give many students a fundamental understanding that teachers who grew up prior to the explosion of technology do not have. But using technology for personal use is not the same as using technology to learn, Lyles said, so both student and teacher are learning technology to use it in a brand new way.
The district will infuse this technology into schools, where students traditionally have less access. To get a better handle on this, the district conducted a technology survey last year.
Lyles said she and her staff concentrated on four critical areas for the upcoming year. They include building a strong, nurturing teacher-student relationship; identifying a student’s strengths and building upon them; high intellectual performance through encouragement; and developing community partnerships with the schools.
Access to college and careers
Many of the changes this year continue an agenda that Lyles brought to the school district when she arrived as superintendent in 2012.
Administrators have worked with principals and assistant principals to set up what she calls “career pathways,” allowing students access to college and college-type courses, whether they want to get certified in certain professions or to go on to seek degrees.
In the past, she said, the district has worked with Hudson County Community College to provide some high school courses that allow for college credits. These were mostly in areas such as psychology and sociology. Lyles said the school district is looking to expand these offerings with new programs starting in the spring.
She said the idea is to allow students to find the right pathway to a career after graduation from high school. Among other things, the district will provide access to Advance Placement classes in collaboration with the college for students who maintain a 3.0 grade point average.
Tests during school hours
One of the significant changes this year involves the PSAT and SAT tests that are hugely important in determining a student’s figure. Previously, the tests were taken at the same time, generally on a Saturday.
The PSAT (which stands for Preliminary SAT) is usually held in October and serves not merely as a primer for the all important SATs upon which many college admissions are based, but also provides local teachers with an evaluation of a student’s weaknesses and strengths. Instead of holding it on Saturday, the tests will be held during regular school hours when, as Lyles put it, “we have a captive audience” that almost guarantees greater participation.
The students will also get more preparation for the state-mandated, albeit controversial, PARCC assessment tests. The tests are part of a whole new testing environment that requires students to take tests on computers. So the district’s move to prepare students with computers will give them a head start when it comes to testing.
“We want the Chrome book to be a regular part of their education, not just something they use for an exam,” Lyles said. “Students need to be doing a lot more with technology.”
Science
Last year, some students in the district were introduced to robotics and drones. The students learned the technological concepts while building and programming the devices. Some students in the third and fourth grades went on to compete in a program at The Liberty Science Center.
“This year we’re doing a lot more around technology and STEM,” Lyles said.
STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Usually, these lessons involve some real life application so that students learn not just the concepts, but also how they apply to the everyday world.
Lyles said in advancing these concepts, the school district intends to go deeper than in the past, into more concentrated lessons that will prepare students for college and other careers. This also includes introducing basic algebra in the eighth grade.
Historically, girls tended to do less well in mathematics than boys. While girls – who Lyles said tend to be more focused than boys in high school – are catching up, the district is introducing a Latina mathematic academy. While this is also open to boys, the idea is to get girls excited about mathematics, and possible careers that include engineering, technology and such.
To help promote reading skills, the district has introduced a program called MYON. This is an application for a handheld devices that provides access to digital books and matches students’ interests and their reading level to a recommended book list.
A new school and an apt name
Although she’s a huge fan of the poet Maya Angelou, Lyles said she had to step back and stay removed from the renaming of the new Public School 20.
“That was a school-based choice,” she said. “I was delighted, but I didn’t have a say in it at all.”
But in some ways this made sense, since the student population that will occupy the new school building has had a literary focus in the past, often holding programs that involved spoken word and other literary events.
The new pre-k through five Maya Angelou School on Danforth Avenue will open in September. It’s named after the author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” a 1969 account of her the late author’s childhood in the Jim Crow-era South. Angelou is also known for reading her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the swearing-in of Bill Clinton as president in 1993.
Facilities upgraded
Over the last year, and in particular, over the summer, the district has been busy refurbishing some of its facilities such as auditoriums, cafeterias and gyms.
With the main meal for many students in the district coming at school, Lyles wanted this to be an enjoyable experience, so she created a restaurant-like setting for student meals. In many cases, the work to upgrade these facilities was done by existing schools staff rather than contacting out, thus lowering overall costs as well as the time needed to get the work done.
Jersey City, like Newark and Paterson, has some of the oldest school buildings in the state.
“We can’t knock the buildings and rebuild, so we have to fix them where we can,” Lyles said.
Although already known for her impromptu visits to schools, Lyles said she will be part of a tour in early October.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com