Aight Hoboken some of y’all are getting it twisted about the new Hoboken High School proposal. First and foremost the children of Hoboken deserve and are entitled to a new High School, period. In 2017ish, I advocated for a new High School as a racial equity issue. Some of y’all forget what life was like for students during that time.
A decision was made to basically warehouse middle schoolers at the high school, mainly as cost savings to taxpayers. The district had a gifted and talented program to help segregate predominately white children from the impacts of this decision- sort of. There was basically no principal, high teacher absences and turnover, and academic and social dysfunction. Meanwhile the high school students felt like the lack of supervision and academic and social programming undermined the culture at the high school.
Many Hoboken High School students work, play sports, and take care of their families. Because of a lack of inadequate facilities, they often had to wear their work clothes under their athletic uniforms (for gym and practice/games), which was under their school uniform because the locker rooms are non-existent. The cafeteria is in terrible condition. Many students that are on free and reduced lunch would literally go without lunch. The storied Hoboken football program weight room is not up to par. Because of some developer deal, Hoboken decided to take land away from JFK field to accommodate a residential building and as a result doesn’t have a regulation track. So the high school track team can’t host any meets at home.
After raising holy hell, the district made a decision to give up district offices to make room for a few floors in Demarest dedicated to the middle school students. They had to share recreation space with a pre-k program in the building. They weren’t allowed to use the public park across the street due to complaining residents and racist council members like Tiffanie Fisher (by the way her recent piece about the high school is dog whistle racist garbage). Again, these decisions were made as a cost savings to taxpayers at the expense of children.
It really was such an injustice but because the vast majority of the students impacted were Black and Brown no one gave a damn. So no the children of Hoboken shouldn’t get a Honda, they should get what they deserve- a state of the art high school.
Some of y’all keep talking about the numbers and the burden to taxpayers. As part of the “fiscally responsible” so called reformists, Hoboken has skating its obligation to adequately fund the district for a decade and a half. From PILOTs, to monetizing Black and Brown and low income students to get extra aid from the State of NJ to cover free pre-k, segregate Brandt, and after school programs from the state has already saved Hoboken tax payers lots of money. The most vulnerable and underrepresented paid the price.
Now in all fairness a school alone won’t solve the education inequities of the district. So for those of you pushing for the new high school or those of you questioning the school equity agenda, make sure y’all ask for the district to hire a third party to conduct a education equity audit that includes demographic breakdown, specifically by race. The kids deserve a brand new high school but they also deserve education leadership that doesn’t have a history of marginalization and underperformance. With that being said how much more should the kids have to sacrifice to get what they deserve. Some of y’all have created real wealth from real estate values and suppressed property taxes as a result of underfunding the district. As far as I’m concerned you can all take several seats. -Courtney Wicks
