The NJSBA School Leader Award is awarded to a district based on the level of innovation and how well the program inspires student growth and development. The NJSBA is a state-created federation of public school boards, created in 1914 to provide governance, training and support for the over 580 public school districts in New Jersey. The HoLa leadership team will be receiving the award at a ceremony this fall and will be featured in the School Leader magazine later this year.
Regular readers will recall that Superintendent Raslowsky and I originally proposed that HOLA be in the Hoboken Public School District. Unfortunately, our decision was voted down by the Hoboken Board of Education in February of 2009. Since that time, Hola has become the premier public school not only in Hoboken but in most of Hudson County and the State of New Jersey- especially in the area of dual language education.
At that February 2009 meeting, the Hoboken Board of Education voted on the Hola dual-language immersion program as follows:
Jimmy Farina -- no
Carmello Garcia -- yes
Theresa Minutillo -- no
Rose Marie Markle - no
Carrie Gilliard - no "We cannot afford to do this - we're going to hurt our children that are here right now."
Frank Raia -- yes
Frances Rhodes-Kearns -- yes
Phil DeFalco was absent
"Hoboken cannot afford a trendy new program where it is wanted but not needed," said Jean Marie Mitchell, a former Board member and president of Calabro PTA.
