School District's Spelling Bee tonight

Spelling Bees helped market Noah Webster's spelling books.

Plainfielders have an opportunity to participate this evening in the local expression of the country's original 'American Idol' event: the Plainfield school district's Spelling Bee.

Spelling Bees were a great attraction in small-town and rural America beginning in the 19th century. In the days before mass entertainment, they would draw audiences from the surrounding area to lively evenings centered on the elimination of challengers by increasing the difficulty of words to be spelt, arriving finally at a single winner.

These Spelling Bees were made popular in conjunction with the spelling book of Noah Webster, a staple in American schoolrooms throughout the 19th century. Webster is considered the father of American English, having set himself the lofty goal of distinguishing English spoken in the United States from that of England.

We have Webster to thank for many of our peculiarly American spellings -- color instead of colour, theater instead of theatre, and many more.

Webster is the subject of a new and fascinating book by Joshua Kendall, The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture (see here)

If you want to get a glimpse of America's original 'Idol" culture, come on out this evening.

PS: I still have the Merriam-Webster dictionary I won in a Western New York Spelling Bee in the early 1950s.

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Plainfield Public Schools
SPELLING BEE
Today | 7 PM Sharp

Board of Ed Building
1200 Myrtle Avenue

All are welcome!

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• Joshua Kendall:  "The Forgotten Founding Father"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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Renata bludgeons bloggers, press over PHS production

A Victorian-era truncheon.

Never one to use a scalpel when a truncheon will do, fellow Plainfield blogger and Board of Ed president Renata Hernandez chose on Saturday to lambaste the rest of the blogging community and the press (see here) for failing to attend the 'final run' (I assume she means final performance) of the PHS production of 'Doubt' --

PLAINFIELD we are SOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo Failing our YOUTH with our lack of support! There was neither any of our infamous bloggers nor reporters in sight. In total, there MIGHT have been 15 people! What an absolute miss for this community!

Take that, bloggers! Take that, reporter!

I don't know about the rest of the bloggers, but I felt mugged. (Maybe they don't read Renata regularly; I read each of the blogs every day.)

First of all, who knew?

I am sure Mark Spivey would have put up a story as he has for recent school events such as the Youth Summit and tonight's 'Plainfield on Stage'. I'm guessing no one ever passed the word to him (nor to the rest of us).

If the intent was to support the production, why wouldn't folks have been invited to the dress rehearsal (the next best thing to the actual performance) to write it up BEFORE all the performances in order to give the blog audience a chance to get organized to go see the production?

Plan ahead?

Renata herself has a mixed record on that score. While she beat the drums for weeks for the recent Youth Summit (to good result it seems), she only noticed the fundraiser PAAAS carwash last Saturday on the day of -- and not only that, since I checked the blog shortly before 10 AM and the post was not up, her post appears to have gone up as the carwash was getting under way.

Is that any way to give readers a chance to support a worthwhile activity?

And if 'support' is measured by turnout of parents and community members, what is one to make of the fact that I appear to be the only community person who turned out for the administration's presentation to the Board on restructuring Hubbard and Maxson (see here)?

Meanwhile, today I learned by reading Dr. E=MC² (see here), that after lengthy preparations the Robotics Team showed up the day of the competition to find there was NO BUS TO TRANSPORT THEM.

What kind of support of our kids does that show?

The kids got their bus, but only after it appears (read the blog carefully!) the Interim Superintendent had to intervene to overrule her own administrators.

The Board made nice by inviting the Robotics Team to the April 19 session where the Cardinals boys basketball team and the Cheerleaders were honored. I was there, and I thought it was great the team was recognized (see my post here). Little did I realize it was a sop for their being previously mistreated.

Renata is right about the need for the community to show more support.

But the first responsibility is for the District to show its own support.

Should the Robotics Team have been better treated? What guarantee is there it won't happen again?

Would the student production of 'Doubt' have benefited from more and better ADVANCE promotion? And what guarantee is there future productions will get that promotional help to build support?

But accountability needs to start where it should: with the District administration and with the Board of Ed which is responsible for overseeing it.

I am reminded of the old joke about the man who complained bitterly to God each week the lottery winners were drawn and he did not win. Each week he offered to give a larger share of his winnings as the Lord would direct, if only he would win. Finally, when he got up to offering God a 75% share, a loud voice came from heaven: 'You have to buy a ticket first, dummy!'

Support for the kids begins by taking responsibility for the duty of building that support and then doing it. And don't bludgeon the people who might be helpful in the process.

PS: If you check the District's website out, you will see two news items on Middle School restructuring: Tuesday's Board meeting and Thursday's community meeting.

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• Standing in the Gap --
• 'Doubt':  "Ali, Graves, Nicasio | Remember these names"
• Carwash:  "What's good??!!!"
• Dr. E=MC²:  "This should be our focus" -- Revealing the Robotics Team mistreatment.
• Plainfield Today --
• Restructuring:  "BOE 'restructuring' presentation mystifies"
• Robotics:  "PHS Robotics Team recognized"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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Unnamed Plainfield schools official involved in sports equipment fraud against District

An unnamed Plainfield school official allegedly took part in fraud against District.

 
Plainfield's school district was among a number in New Jersey allegedly defrauded by a sports equipment distributor, according to reports in today's Courier (see here), Lehigh Valley Live (see here), the New York Times (see here), and Forbes (see here).

An extended version of the story in the Courier's PRINT EDITION ONLY, lists the gift of golf clubs and a PalmPilot device (correction, only golf clubs were involved -- see 'NJ School #12' on page 19 of the indictment) to an unnamed Plainfield High School official as among the many items in the indictment (see here, PDF) against two of the firm's executives.

The firm would routinely engage in double-billing the victimized school districts -- apparently with the collusion of school athletic officials -- and would recoup the cost of such gifts as those given in the Plainfield case by submitting inflated bills.

In the same way, the firm would recover amounts donated to school fundraisers such as golf outings.

The investigation has been going on for about four years.

While many school officials are unnamed, it would not be unusual for the feds to pressure those who accepted gifts or participated in the fraud into testifying against those indicted in exchange for lesser charges against themselves.

So far, there has been nary a word from the Plainfield school district about who the official involved is (or was), when the alleged incidents happened, or what action has been taken.

Look for the Plainfield angle on this story to expand as the case unfolds.

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• Courier:  "Two indicted in fraud against NJ schools"
• Lehigh Valley Live:  "Executives accused of double-billing schools almost $1M"
  
• New York Times:  "Circle Systems Group accused of defrauding many schools"
• Forbes:  "2 sports gear firm execs charged in NJ fraud"
  
• Federal District Court, NJ:  "Indictment: Kurlander and Abeshaus (PDF)"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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BOE 'restructuring' presentation mystifies

Hubbard Middle School, along with Maxson, must be restructured.

My guess that there would be a large turnout at Tuesday's Plainfield Board of Ed meeting seemed to be confirmed when I arrived at the High School to find a sign taped to the door advising the meeting would be held in the Media Center instead of the Conference Room.

To my surprise, there never seemed to be more than about 15-20 people at the meeting, and I appeared to be the only non-staffer. (Given that 'restructuring Hubbard and Maxson' was on the agenda, I can see why staffers wanted to see and hear what was up.)

After Board of Ed President Renata Hernandez' remarks, the floor was given to Interim Superintendent Anna Belin-Pyles to make the presentation.

With a team of district administrators taking the lead, the PowerPoint presentation eventually got under way.

(Advance preparation should have included knowing exactly how to control the room's lighting so that attendees could actually SEE the presentation. As it was, half the slides were so washed out they couldn't be read, until half way through the lighting was finally adjusted. Let's hope the presentation is made available online.)

The slides built up a picture of two Middle School buildings running at half of capacity (or less), and severe overcrowding in almost all of the ten elementary school buildings. There was a slide showing the 'negatives' of having 7th and 8th graders in the elementary buildings, and another proposing the 'positives' of having grades 6-8 together. Call it 'special pleading', since there were no counterbalancing views that I could see.

Mandated by the state to restructure the two Middle Schools on account of continuing failure to make AYP (adequate yearly progress), the proposal seemed milquetoastish, to say the least. Then it was pointed out that the elements are constrained: the principals have tenure and can't be simply tossed aside; the teachers are either at Hubbard or Maxson, and if they are moved (as the Trenton bureaucrats leave as an option), that would mean they would be shuffled from one situation needing restructuring to another situation needing restructuring. Does any of this sound like a recipe for real change?

To be fair, the presenters offered that there would be extra resources available to the teachers and that reporting and support would be reconfigured.

Nevertheless, I was recalling the phrase an old friend used to use: 'rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic'.

I was mystified because I expected to hear a clear plan about what is going to happen in September. What I heard was a list of the problems and issues ... with the unspoken possibility that the outcome will be to undo most of the shifts from the Middle Schools to the elementary buildings, returning these students to the Maxson and Hubbard facilities.

I think the plan to eliminate the Middle Schools had merit (for precisely the reasons it was badmouthed in the presentation), and was maybe one of the best ideas Dr. Gallon had. Too bad it seems on the way to the dustbin of history.

While easing the overcrowding at the elementary buildings can only be beneficial, the taxpayers, the Board and the administration are still left with the puzzle of what to do with the Middle Schools.

Board President Renata Hernandez, however, did offer some interesting ideas in her remarks at the beginning of the meeting, including developing a 'scorecard' for Board members that would include attendance, participation, training, community involvement and committee participation.

Hernandez also wants to institute 'Board Briefs' as a way of informing the public of issues resolved and pending (she noted that approval of minutes is a slow process, up to eight weeks or so).

She also advised that she and Interim Superintendent Anna Belin-Pyles would be taping videos to be run on the city's Comcast and FiOS public access channels, as well as an email 'Ask The Board' feature, where questions can be emailed, to be answered at Board meetings (and maybe posted to the Web?).

Lastly, a very effective move -- Hernandez wants to have a podium in place for the 'privilege of the floor' segment, but off to the side, so that the public can address the board AND the public without having to turn backs on attendees.

Simple and brilliant. If only the rest of the District's problems were so easy.

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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BOE: Food service on the chopping block?

Logo of the Plainfield school district's longtime
food services provider.

Is the Plainfield Board of Ed putting its longtime food services vendor Sodexo on the chopping block?

That's the hottest rumor from the teachers' lounge this week, and that the rumored move is to make way for another food vendor with whom a longtime Plainfield entrepreneur has a business connection.

And you thought the business of the schools was educating the children?

This is New Jersey, where every stool has three legs: contracts to the politically juiced, jobs to the politically dependent, and whatever the third leg is.

Not to worry, the 'i's will be dotted and the 't's will be crossed, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, the Interim Superintendent is slated to make a presentation on 'restructuring schools' at tonight's Work/Study session. To include Maxson and Hubbard Middle Schools, and Cook Elementary School.

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Board of Ed Work/Study Session

Tuesday · May 10 · 8:00 PM

PHS Conference Room
950 Park Avenue

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• Website:  "Sodexo USA Food Services"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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State to District: Use $1M in Stimulus funds, or lose 'em

 

With nearly $1 million in Federal Stimulus (ARRA) monies showing as being unspent by the Plainfield school district, the state is warning it that if the monies aren't spent down by August they will be lost.

This is the end of the much-vaunted (and later reviled) ARRA, or Stimulus, program undertaken by President Obama soon after taking office.

The idea was to pump monies into local governments and schools districts to help stave off job cuts and stimulate the flagging economy in the depths of the 'Great Recession'.

Monies allocated to the Plainfield school district and remaining unspent as of April 2011 are as follows (see list by district here) --

PROGRAM	ALLOCATION	UNSPENT	%
IDEA Basic ARRA	$1,948,710	$271,972	14%
IDEA Preschool ARRA	70,038	61,870	12%
T1 A ARRA	1,652,096	955,588	42%
T1 SIA ARRA	105,673	0	0%
TOTAL	$3,776,517	$976,648

The State Department of Education is at pains to point out to local school districts that the ARRA funding does not contain the usual waiver allowing for a drawdown after an 'expiration' date providing programming is already in place and drawing on the funds.  As an article today on NJ Spotlight points out, with ARRA, if its not spent down by August, tough luck (see article here)!

Nor is the school district the only Plainfield recipient of ARRA funds. The city set up a special, separate web subsite to track its Stimulus/ARRA applications and funding (see here). Unfortunately, it has never been updated, so you will not be able to find out a) how successful the City was with its requests, and b) whether or not all monies received have been spent.

One item that comes to mind immediately is the $345,000 requested for a CCTV system to allow video monitoring of the downtown business district and high-crime areas.

City asked for $345,000 for camera system in 2009.
What ever happened?

Did the City ever get the grant? If so, has it been spent? Or is it in danger of being lost in August, along with the rest of unspent ARRA monies?

Another item was the job training grant. Originally awarded to PAS (Plainfield Action Services), there was hanky-panky with the grant while Marc Dashield was City Administrator (see here) and the grant was finally made to The Incubator (see here).

I have been told that among the questions FBI investigators have been asking in recent Plainfield interviews are plenty concerning the grant to the Incubator and the circumstances surrounding it.

I am sure the District, under the leadership of Acting Superintendent Anna Belin-Pyles and BOE President Renata Hernandez will be updating the public with the status of the District's ARRA monies.

Would be nice if Mayor (and Acting City Administrator) Sharon Robinson-Briggs would do the same for the City side.

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• Dept. of Education:  "Spent and Unspent ARRA Funding, by District" (PDF)
  
• NJ Spotlight:  "State urges school districts to spend ARRA funds"
• City of Plainfield:  "Recovery Act (ARRA) Funding for Plainfield"
• Plainfield Today --
• "Somethin' funny with the (PAS) Stimulus money"
• "Incubator contract renews question of 'missing' money"
• "FBI in Plainfield investigation?"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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PHS Robotics Team recognized

Members of the 2010-11 PHS Robotics Club were honored Tuesday evening.
Club faculty advisor Deborah Johnson is front and center.

While Plainfield High School's Cardinals boys basketball team has garnered much attention for its Region 3 state title (the first in 27 years), I was pleased to find the District's Robotics Club team also being honored at this past Tuesday night's Board of Ed meeting.

Club members were invited to the front where they received individual certificates and shook the hands of Acting Superintendent of Schools Anna Belin-Pyles and Board of Ed members while basking in a hearty round of applause from the audience.

The club, which has participated in the annual high school robotics competition since 1997, has 43 members enrolled this year, including students from the Union County Magnet School and Union County Vo-Tech, according to faculty advisor Deborah Johnson.

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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School District's multi-cultural festival Friday

The Plainfield Public Schools will celebrate its first annual Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening at the Board of Ed Administration Building at 1200 Myrtle Avenue.

The public is invited to attend the event, which will include music, dancing, a student-produced video montage, activities and games and food from around the world.

Those planning to attend are encouraged to RSVP to the district by clicking the link at the bottom left of the home page here.

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PLAINFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS
FIRST ANNUAL MULTI-CULTURAL FESTIVAL

·  FRIDAY · APRIL 15 ·
6:00 - 9:00 PM

  BOE Administration Building
1200 Myrtle Avenue
Plainfield

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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PHS Assembly: District's responses raise more questions

The flap over the assembly program at Plainfield High School last week that included local representatives of the Nation of Islam continues.

Courier reporter Mark Spivey has a story in today's print and online editions (see here), in which PHS principal Brian Bilal, BOE president Lisa Logan-Leach and BOE member Renata Hernandez defend the program.

Maria Pellum thinks that better communications by the District would have helped avoid misunderstanding (see her blog here). Olddoc is spurred by the incident and the reporting of it to ask plenty of questions (see his post here).

After reading the Courier story, I have even more questions.

Why are we just now being told that the program was put together by the guidance department? Both Ms. Belin-Pyles and Principal Bilal left us with the impression at the Board meeting Tuesday that the Assembly was in the principal's bailiwick and of the principal's doing. So now it's the guidance department? (NOTE: The commenter at 9:08 AM says Dr. Bilal did say the guidance department put the program together; I do not have that in my notes. I stand corrected on the commenter's say-so. -- Dan)

Spivey writes --

...several schools officials all described the assembly as a secular anti-violence program coordinated by members of multiple religions...

This is not exactly what was conveyed at Tuesday night's board meeting, at which Minister Muhammad spoke as though he was the sole organizer of the project. It was only later mentioned in passing by Board member Rasheed Abdul-Haqq that Chamber of Commerce president Jeff Dunn was a presenter. If it was indeed broadly based, why wasn't that brought out clearly at the Board meeting?

Lastly, the matter of whether boys and girls were separated for the Assembly has not been addressed at all. As I said in my previous post (see here), that seems to have been the matter that set off the wave of rumors, confusion and misinformation in the first place.

It still needs to be addressed in a straightforward manner.

Were the boys and girls separated during the Assembly or were they not?

If they were not, why not just say so outright?

If they were, please explain the basis for doing so.

As I said in my previous post, better communications would have shortstopped the matter.

They are still lacking.

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• Courier:  "School officials denounce criticism of assembly involving 'Nation of Islam'"
  
• Maria's Blog:  "More on ... the Assembly"
• Doc's Potpourri:  "Sidetracked again"
• Plainfield Today:  "Better communications by schools could have prevented kerfuffle"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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Better communication by schools could have prevented 'Nation of Islam' kerfuffle

The Plainfield High School complex. (Google)

An event last week at Plainfield High School that caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the community was discussed at Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting, leaving more questions than answers and highlighting how better communications by the District could have avoided the confusion and rumors that were spread.

At the privilege of the floor, Minister Mustafa Muhammad told the audience briefly of an outreach to high school students made last week in an effort to engage them in a discussion about gangs and street violence, making good choices and what could be done to help. He thanked the District's administrators for the opportunity to hold the program and said he was anxious to build a citywide effort including all sorts of organizations to help address the issues of gangs and violence plaguing our youth.

In responding, Acting Superintendent Anna Belin-Pyles alluded obliquely to building principals' having considerable latitude in setting up assemblies for their buildings' students. But that was it.

Maria Pellum related concerns that had been shared with her, especially that she had been told boys and girls were separated for the event.

PHS principal Dr. Brian Bilal offered more clarity. Saying he didn't often take the floor in this manner, he added he felt it was important to clear up some misconceptions.

It was not in any way a 'religious' event, Bilal said, but was an attempt to meet and talk with 10th grade students about stopping the violence on Plainfield's streets. Attendance was voluntary (one girl chose not to attend, and was accommodated in another class instead). Board member Rasheed Abdul-Haqq and an unnamed City Council member were said to be in attendance.

All of this helped settle things down, as far as I was concerned.

However, there are still unanswered questions, and it strikes me that the District could do a better job at communications by giving some thought to programs like this in advance and at least preparing a fact sheet that could answer any questions the public may have instead of letting rumors circulate for days before addressing the matter.

Unanswered questions include: Was a written proposal for the program submitted? How was the decision arrived at to have the program? Were the students given advance notice? Did it take the place of any scheduled instruction that will have to be made up? How many students were involved? Where was it held? Did anything emerge from the session that will involve followup or creation of some task force, etc.?

Board member Renata Hernandez asked the District's attorneys if the law had been violated and the Board was reassured that it did not appear to be the case, based on what had been discussed.

Board member Abdul-Haqq praised the program as one of the best he had ever witnessed in his twenty years of involvement as a parent and advocate, saying he was unaware of the boy-girl separation question, and adding that while he was there the principal speaker was Jeff Dunn of The Incubator -- a Christian, as Abdul-Haqq pointed out.

The possibility exists that some of the confusion and rumors arose because STUDENTS themselves weren't clear about exactly what was going on, and why boys and girls were separated.

That last seems to have been the key, as I had received a couple of phone calls after school that same day from folks who could only have gotten bits and pieces about what happened from those who could only have gotten it from students. I suggested these folks call the District administration and not just assume that they had gotten the facts straight as they had heard them.

How much simpler if there had been a one-pager put up on the District's website. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

For an institution whose mission includes teaching young people to communicate clearly and effectively, you'd think the adults would want to model best communications practices for the students.

The report card on this one has to read 'Communication: Needs improvement'.

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-- Dan Damon [follow]

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Board of Ed's proposed rent to charter school raises eyebrows

Plainfield's Lincoln School occupies the entire block
of Berckman Street between East 2nd and East 3rd. (Google)

Plainfield's Board of Ed is proposing to lease the now-vacant Lincoln School at Berckman and East Third Streets for a rent that is an absolute steal, given what Plainfield's other charter schools are paying to rent their spaces.

A resolution to lease the property for FOURTEEN months for $122,000 ($104,571 for TWELVE months), exclusive of utilities, was presented at Tuesday's Board of Ed meeting.

Despite the building's age (it is over a hundred years old), it has been thoroughly updated and is spacious, airy and well-maintained throughout. The only negative I can think of is that there is no elevator (as I recall, having not been inside for a couple of years).

It has had various uses over the last decade or so, the most recent being to house the Barack Obama Academy. Moving that school to the old Jefferson School building on Myrtle Avenue has left the Lincoln School vacant.

This may be a win-win for the district (income from an empty facility) and the Barack Obama Green Charter High School (room to grow), but the rental fee should cause raised eyebrows.

Maria Pellum recently posted the annual rent figures (for 2010) for three of Plainfield's four charter schools (see her post here).

(The Barack Obama Green Charter High School only opened this year and its report is not yet available.)

Here is what she found --

School	2010 Rent
Central Jersey Arts CS	$655,319
Queen City Academy CS	$329,000
Union County TEAMS CS	$475,274¹
¹ Includes $62,401 for building maintenance.

I know this is just a raw comparison, which should be fine-tuned with comparisons of number of classrooms, square footage, and amenities; nevertheless, one has to wonder how the Board of Ed arrived at the proposed rent, and if it is supposed to be 'market rate', who did the rent comparisons.

Seems to me this will be hard to justify given both the fiscal constraints the District is facing and the actual going rents for charter schools in Plainfield.

Or am I being unfair? And if so, to whom?

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• Maria's Blog:  "Charter School rental fees for 2010"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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School Aid: 2010 and 2011 (proposed) compared

Figuring out state aid comparisons is so simple!

 

With Maria (see here) and Olddoc (see here) keeping an eye on Plainfield's school budget (Renata does not discuss Board of Ed BUSINESS on her personal blog), I usually leave it to them to do the digging and reporting.

However, since the vast bulk of the school budget comes from state aid, and Gov. Christie's proposed FY2012 budget INCREASES state aid to most school districts, including Plainfield, I thought to do a simple comparison from the state documents for last year and the proposed budget to see where the increment comes in.

'Simple' comparison? Not on your life.

Going to the State's website, it was easy to find the PROPOSED state aid figures for 2011-12 (see here).

Getting last year's numbers was another matter altogether. After mucking about on the website for a few minutes and not finding anything, I did a search for '2010-11 State Aid', exactly matching the term under which the propose aid is found, except of course for the years. The search returned 11,071 results (see here), ranked by relevancy, with my desired document coming in NINTH, after items going back as far as 2003-04. Guess what, someone changed the file naming protocol since last year. Go figure!

Opening the documents and printing out the Plainfield page should give me an apples-to-apples experience, right?

Guess again. The two years do not line up exactly, as you can see from the table below (links to the data are at the end of this post).
 

CATEGORY OF AID	2011 PROPOSED	2010 ACTUAL
Equalized Aid	88,174,647	88,174,647
Educational Adequacy Aid	1,400,178	1,400,178
Choice Aid	0	0
Transportation Aid	0	0
Special Ed Aid (no line in 2010)	4,186,736	0
Preschool (no line in 2011)	0	17,740,239
Security Aid (no line in 2010)	1,862,131	0
Other Aid (no line in 2011)	0	9,204,511
Adjustment Aid	0	0
K-12 TOTAL	95,623,692	94,378,350
TOTAL CHANGE	1,245,342	?

First off, PRESCHOOL AID is not included in the 2011-12 proposal (which truthfully advertises itself as covering 'K-12'), but is in the previous year. If it has not been cut, as Maria says, you can't figure it out from this data set.

Next up, I noticed that the 2011-12 proposal includes over $4M for 'Special Education Aid' and nearly $2M for 'Security Aid'; with  no corresponding line items in the previous year's aid data.

Last year's aid also included a line of over $9M in 'Other Aid', with no comparable line in the proposed data.

The 2011-12 proposal and Maria both cite the difference as an increase of $1,245,342 for the upcoming year.

That is, in fact, the difference between the figure for last year shown in the 2011-12 proposal, $94,378,350, and 2011-12.

But you'd never figure it out from looking at LAST YEAR'S AID DATA SET (see here), where no such number can be found or interpolated.

So, is it on purpose that we aren't given an apples-to-apples picture year over year?

In the 'Boardwalk Empire' state?

Are you serious?!

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• "Maria's Blog" | "Doc's Potpourri" -- Both have several recent posts on the school budget.
• NJ Dept. of Education:  "2011-12 Proposed Aid" | "2010-11 Aid"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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On reading Renata on youth employment issues

Three generations of Albaneses: Donna, her parents Adele and Joe, and her son Richard.

Plainfield youth could certainly do worse than have Renata Hernandez in their corner.

Renata, a Board of Ed member who also mentors a group of young women, posted on her blog (see here) regarding youth employment issues in the Queen City as she sees them, citing some of her experiences.

Renata is right that young people need to be given that 'first' job opportunity, and the kinds of local businesses she mentions (C-Town, McDonalds, Dairy Queen) are often the point of entry into the job market for Plainfield youngsters.

But Renata links her less-than-ideal experience with C-Town to McDonalds and Dairy Queen in a way that can leave the reader thinking these businesses don't offer opportunities for youngsters trying to get into the workforce.

Nothing could be farther from the truth!

Both Angela Adderly (at her South Avenue and downtown McDonalds franchises) and the Albanese family make it a point of giving Plainfield youth their first jobs, and with them opportunities for picking up invaluable life skills that will serve them however far they go in their adult lives.

In particular, I can commend Donna Albanese (as if she needed it, having been recognized by the Dairy Queen organization for the family's OUTSTANDING community service), through my own personal experience.

In the early1990s, I helped form a community outreach nonprofit at Grace Episcopal Church. Among our programs was a girlchoir, composed of Plainfield girls from grades 4 to 12 who became part of a choir that concertized extensively throughout the tri-state area.  The girls received a small stipend and, besides singing, were given homework coaching, recreation activities and what I suppose you could call 'life skills coaching': timeliness, accountabililty, good grooming and carriage, leadership opportunities, and pathways to excellence and recognition through a recognized international musical organization.

Besides that, as the girls matured and move out of the girlchoir experience, several found employment with Donna Albanese at the Dairy Queen.

Over the years, many of Donna's employees (including the girls from Grace) would move on to college and other career options; but one of the amazing things is the sense of 'family' that the Albanese's former employees have, coming back for visits, even bringing their own children in and explaining this was where they got their first job opportunity.

Bernice Paglia, in a comment on Renata's post, pointed out all the Albaneses have done; Renata picked up on that without actually apologizing for included them in with her C-Town experience.

That is unfortunate, because advocating for a good cause (giving young people a crack at their first job) was marred by implying that McDonalds and Dairy Queen (along with other, unspecifed South Avenue businesses) are doing less than their share.

As for employing young people, I am surprised Renata doesn't mention the school-to-jobs opportunities that are open to high school students. I shop several times a week at Twin City on Seventh Street, and there is at least one young cashier there whom I have learned works there as just part of such a school-to-jobs program.

Business people have to run their businesses so that they can keep the doors open. It doesn't help the situation in a fragile economy to suggest -- without any detailed analysis, only an unhappy experience with ONE business -- that our young people are being let down and these businesses are putting their very futures in peril.

How is this helpful, and is the assertion justified or hyperbolic?

First of all, the unemployment rate among Plainfield ADULTS is higher than the state average of 9.1%, and many of these people have mouths to feed at home. What about them? And then there is the matter of UNDEREMPLOYMENT, folks taking on part-time or temporary work to get by when there are no full-time jobs available. What about these folks?

Employment -- youth and adult -- are big issues, big challenges and big opportunities in Plainfield.

Renata is right to challenge Mayor Robinson-Briggs to get to work on this matter; it is one that is only belatedly getting any attention from this Administration. And Renata's offer of help is reassuring.

However, berating businesses who may be doing everything you think is good -- and even more than you know -- is hardly a way to win friends and influence people.

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• Standing In The Gap:  "What 'We' Need"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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No Plainfield school construction money; Christie payback to Jerry?

During his campaign stop in Plainfield, Christie visited
with a number of local business owners, including author J.M. Benjamin.

NOTE @ 11 AM: The following additional stories have come online:  "NJ Spotlight" | "Ledger"

Plainfield school officials have been on tenterhooks for months about state funding for school construction projects in Plainfield.

On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie finally released the list of schools getting funding this year and Plainfield was not among them (see here).

In its coverage, PolitickerNJ notes that the new procedures, adopted after a lengthy review of the Schools Development Authority ordered by Christie, are supposed to be 'politics free' (see story here).

This being New Jersey, you can file that in the 'tooth fairy' folder.

What does appear to be happening is that all the proposed projects are being evaluated by the same criteria, which is a good thing. Also, that it appears the SDA will have available a variety of 'templates' for schools.

That is also a good thing, I think. Under the Corzine administration, a lot of money went down the drain for politically-connected contracts to individually design and construct schools.

While the new regimen does not mean there will be no politically-motivated contract awards (this is New Jersey, after all), the excesses which previously brought the agency to its knees seem to be addressed in the new plan.

As for why Plainfield didn't get tapped for this round, one has to wonder if it isn't because of the famously embarrassing public scene Assemblyman Jerry Green made when Christie campaigned in Plainfield in July, 2009 (see my post at the time here).

Christie is known to have a long memory and eventually settles scores, as the Ledger's Tom Moran has recently noted in his columns.

But of course the Christie administration will deny it, plausibly.

Puts me in mind of the quip J. P. Morgan once made: 'A man always has two reasons for the things he does; a good one...and the real one'.

During the campaign stop, Christie worked the crowd at Bill's Luncheonette
and chatted with Lisa Cohen of Suburban Jewelers.

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• PolNJ:  "Christie announces 'politics free' school construction"
• NJ Newsroom:  "Christie releases aid after shaking up SDA"
• PolNJ:  "Diegnan (D-South Plainfield) blasts Christie school plans"
• Plainfield Today, 7/15/2009:  "Mr. Christie goes to Plainfield"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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