Local educators are excited about improvements that will enhance the upcoming school year for Hoboken public school students.
Hoboken High School Principal John Lavagnino anticipates a smooth opening of the schools Wednesday and said he is pleased about the hiring of 12 teachers for the high school and the exciting curriculum that will be offered.
In the past two years, Hoboken High School has hired 21 teachers, which Lavagnino said adds a stimulating new dynamic to school. In the last few years, enrollment in Hoboken public schools has increased, reversing a decade-long trend of decline. When there was declining enrollment there were few opportunities to hire new teachers.
"The veteran teachers are mentoring the new teachers," said Lavagnino, "and the new teachers bring a lot of energy and new ideas that will greatly benefit our students."
He added that in the past two years, the school’s English and Social Studies departments have almost completely turned over.
Lavagnino said that he is also excited about several programs that students will undertake this school year. For the second year, the school will be partnering with John Wiley and Sons, an internationally renowned publishing firm that moved almost 900 employees to Hoboken last year. They will partner in a shadowing program in which Wiley employees mentor Hoboken High students.
The school will also be participating in a Junior Achievement program in cooperation with the Hoboken Chamber of Commerce that teaches students about free enterprise, business, and the workforce by creating their own businesses during the school year.
Other programs that Lavagnino talks about glowingly are the schools quickly growing, and the highly respected theater club and the high school newspaper, which was brought back last year after a nearly decade hiatus.
Early childhood program blossoming
Walk down any street in Hoboken and it’s obvious that there are more strollers and more families with young children than there we even five years ago. This fact can also be seen in the classrooms of the Hoboken School district.
According to Linda Erbe, the district’s director of school programs grades pre-k through 5, enrollment in the popular 3- and 4-year old programs has skyrocketed. This year the district is expecting 180 students to participate, which is over 40 more than attended the program last year.
Wednesday, Erbe credited the striking increase in enrollment to two basic factors.
"First of all, people in the community are very satisfied with the program," she said, "but also, more people that are starting new families or that have small children are moving into the city."
The district also has two charter schools for older kids, which means parents might be more inclined to raise children in town if they can choose from a full range of educational options.
Erbe said that that it is essential that the early education program is successful because it influences both how the parent and the students will view the district as a whole.
"It sets the foundation for the system and really sets the pace for everything that comes along after," she said. "Our quality program addresses the needs of the whole child in order to foster the innate abilities of children to discover, explore and understand their place in the world."
Hoboken’s comprehensive pre-school program offers an integrated curriculum with teaching practices that reflect reasonable expectations and age-appropriate principles of Early Childhood Education.
According to Erbe, all teachers are state certified and provide developmentally appropriate activities that are exciting and rewarding.
The program for the 3-year-olds is housed in the Brandt School, and the program for the 4-year-olds is in the Calabro, Connors, and Wallace schools. Hoboken residency is required.
Facility improvements
This summer has been a busy one, with loads of improvements to the district’s buildings. As children wore shorts and played in the parks on their vacation, construction workers were busy erecting scaffolding and working on educational buildings.
"We will be working up to the last minute, but all of our classrooms will be ready for students for the first day of school," said the districts head of facilities Tim Calligy. "Right now we are about 90 percent finished."
According Calligy, all of the district’s buildings had an electrical upgrade in order to accommodate new technology.
Some of the biggest renovations are being done at the Brandt Middle School, Wallace Primary School and Connors Primary School, each of which received new windows. The Connors School also received one new enclosed staircase that replaces an old fire escape and a renovation of the building cornice.
At the Brandt School, two new early education classrooms were added along with a significant amount of brick restoration.
Another large project is the resurfacing the field at Hoboken High School. According to Calligy, the entire field will be resurfaced using the latest-generation artificial turf. This turf, which resembles grass, as opposed to a hard, flat surface, is currently in use at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Calligy added that field should be ready by Sept. 15.
At the Demarest Middle School and Hoboken High School, both of which are scheduled to go offline as district schoolbuildings in the next five to 10 years, Calligy said in addition to some electrical work, only "health and safety" improvements are being undertaken. He added that the extensive scaffolding at Demarest School is merely to stabilize the brick and stone cornice.