Kids in the Union City public schools return to class on Tuesday, Sept. 6, while in West New York, they return on Friday, Sept. 9.
Students who were playing or hanging out at various parks in the area last week talked about what they’re anticipating for the new year, and a local school official gave details as well.
“I’m looking forward to doing more science,” said West New York resident George, 17, who will be a junior at Memorial High School this year. “Learning more subjects and getting to see my friends.” He was with two friends at West New York’s Christopher Columbus Park.
“I enjoy it [school]. It’s not that bad,” said Edgar, 15, an incoming sophomore. “At least it gives me something to do.”
“It keeps me occupied,” added Pedro, 15, an incoming sophomore with Edgar. “It’s pretty quiet [here.] I’m looking forward to it.”
At the 24th Street Playground in Union City, sisters Ashley Morales, Evelyn Morales, and Keilany Vega were enthused at getting back into the classroom.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my friends again and learning,” Ashley said-between darting around the playground’s splash section. The incoming third grader, who attends Robert Waters School with her siblings, is also looking forward to her favorite activities: art and music.
Sister Evelyn, who will enter fifth grade, says her goal this year is “to get good grades and to learn more math and science.” Though her school didn’t give her study packets for the summer, that didn’t stop her from “studying my multiplication and my division and also. I [wrote] three paragraphs writing that I did over the summer.”
Debuting first-grader Keilany added to the conversation that she was looking forward to “playing with crayons and on the [school] playgrounds.”
Superintendent speaks
Union City’s Superintendent of Schools Silvia Abbato shared upcoming program initiatives for the district.
“We’re going to have a computer application course for the first time in Union City High School,” she said. “It is a course where they’ll learn about coding and programming. We’re one of the few districts to offer that statewide.”
Elementary and high school students in Union City can also look forward to a new Mandarin Chinese language program. Also, iPads will greet all second-grade students in the district; and a S.T.E.M program is coming for elementary and middle school students.
“School’s helpful. I mean, it’s gonna get us somewhere in life.” – Delby Olivero
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Recently, the district also received a $1 million Individualized Education Program Transition Grant. Charles Webster, director of grants and innovating programming at the Union City Board of Education, said the grant will go toward helping special needs students, ages 18 to 21, transition from school to the real world by infusing them with a “host of different skills, from social and communication skills to transportation skills to hygiene. It is a full holistic approach to put that student in the community and make them a contributing member of that community.”
The Union City school district has 14 schools: 11 elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school.
West New York’s school district has eight schools (six elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school).
West New York Superintendent of Schools Clara Brito Herrera did not respond to interview requests.
Football heroes
“School’s helpful. I mean, it’s gonna get us somewhere in life,” commented Delby Olivero, a 15-year-old incoming junior at Union City High School, outside Danny’s Place Barber Shop last week. “It’s not like I say, ‘Damn; school’s coming.’ I look at it like, school’s positive to me.”
While Olivero cited getting good grades, staying focused, and positive as objectives upon his return to school, one activity drives his anticipation for the first day even harder: the gridiron.
“Football’s my favorite subject,” Olivero said. Not only is he on UCHS’s football team, he even has a dream of one day signing an NFL contract.
He won’t be alone in that quest. Sitting nearby was Francisco Acevedo, who has taken it upon himself to “guide him [Olivero] to where I wasn’t guided. I’m a kid just like him who came out of the same city, Union City. I had an opportunity, but didn’t have the right people around me to steer me the right way.”
He added, “He knows that the hard decisions are to make now; the easier ones are later. I just don’t want him to be another statistic or number in Union City.”
Acevedo wants to remind him that “Not just talent takes you to these D-1 schools, and to be successful in life. [It’s] more the grades, the discipline and the knowledge you take from those things.”
Better grades were on the back-to-school goals list for Union Hill Middle School student Cynthia Contla, who says she got B’s and C’s last year. The 13-year-old debuting eighth-grader also wants to join her school’s basketball team.
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