By Kendi Kajogo
The Board of Education’s recent decision to change Nyack High School’s open campus policy for freshmen and sophomores came as surprise to students and the administration alike. With no prior announcement that they were planning to hold a vote on the matter, and going against the advice of both the principal and the superintendent, the board passed the motion, five to two, on July 6.
The previous policy regarding the open status of the campus allowed all students, regardless of age or grade level, to leave the campus during their designated lunch periods and eat elsewhere. While there have been claims that the board only enacted this change as a “test” in order to see what kind of responses the decision would garner, there have been others who claim that this will be a long-lasting decision made as a result of the large number of freshman and sophomore students who were failing during this past year.
If there is truth to the claims that there a large number of underclassman failing, then it is reasonable to understand why the board would feel the need to exclude them from the policy. Being able to leave the campus to eat elsewhere is a privilege, and if the underclassmen are abusing it, then why not take that right away from them until they prove they deserve it?
Amy Applebaum, former president of the school’s board, wrote an open letter to students, parents and school faculty alike to describe exactly what was wrong with the change. “This decision was made without input from the High School committee that’s been working on safety issues, without input from staff… without any input from students, parents, or community members, with no plan in place to implement it and no information on what’s needed, and without even allowing community comment before it was voted on at the meeting”.
Applebaum goes on to point out that by enacting this change, “They’ve utterly overstepped by doing the administration’s job as well as their own, but without worrying about any of the details”.
And she has a point; regardless of whether or not changing the status of the campus policy is a good or bad change for the high school and its students, the fact that the board went about it without first taking account of the opinions and suggestions of the students, faculty or parents raises obvious concerns. The main issue with the board’s decision to implement this change is mostly one of enforcement. How will they do it? Who will do it for them? Through what methods do they intend to inspect the grade levels of each student who wants to leave the campus during the school day?
In recent years, the administration has attempted to keep track of its students through the use of color coded ID cards that indicate the name and grade of the wearer, but speaking from experience as a student currently attending NHS, the implementing of this process lasted somewhere around the first two months of school before teachers stopped demanding that they be worn in class and security guards stopped asking to see them.
It is also important to consider that since this decision was made with little to no input from those who it would be directly affecting or from those who would be in charge of enforcing it, expecting full cooperation from everyone who is involved is highly unlikely. Specifically, expecting this year’s freshman, who will now be sophomores, to readily comply with the change after a year of being given the freedom to leave the campus during lunch will undoubtedly be met with resistance and anger from the majority of underclassman.
With the next Board meeting scheduled for August 24th, there is still time for those who are concerned with how the situation is being handled to come and let their opinions be heard before the start of the new school year.
Kendi Kajogo is a senior at Nyack High School and an editor of the school’s newspaper, The Spectrum.
See also: “An Open And Shut Campus,” 7/29/2010
Steve Covello here – Class of ’82, and a biker kid. During my years at NHS, I left campus for lunch many times. The thought of cutting class was never an option. I listen to this debate and see behavioral solutions proposed for what is clearly a values-oriented issue beyond the scope of public school responsibilities. This doesn’t preclude NHS from exercising the right to close campus for practical reasons, given that the “new” campus is less embedded in the community than the old Midland Ave. campus.
But what matters here to me are the messages being sent to the kids and families: (a) Students cannot be trusted to adhere on their own to one of the most basic expectations of young adulthood – showing up; (b) This is because parents are not competent in instilling the appropriate values needed to control their children’s behavior in their absence. Thus, NHS becomes the nanny. This is a slippery slope – what else will the school control? Perhaps it should control even more student behavior if the community’s families aren’t up to the task?
I’m being rhetorical here to make a point. The decision in this argument should be weighed against incentives/motivation for students to *stay* on campus despite an open campus policy. If a student feels there is a compelling reason to stay, a good amount will, and perhaps the academic achievement will follow. I don’t have the answer for this here, but that’s how I feel, anyway. For me, the thought of missing Bert Hughes’ Jazz Ensemble, Joe McDowell’s art classes or Joe (?) Peroni’s Creative Writing class was *unthinkable*. – Steve Covello (graduate student at Syracuse Univ./Instructional Design, Development & Evaluation)
If this was brought up without the knowledge of the board members or at least some of them, they should have put forth a motion to table the item.Then should have put forth a motion to have the item added to the agenda for the upcoming meeting.
You are absolutely correct that Dan is only one voice on the board and should not be singled out in this discussion. It does appears that this issue is very important to him.
You have to admit that the community’s voice was not actively pursued by the Board on this issue. Input from members of the community voicing their concerns at board meetings does not translate to allowing the community’s voice to be heard. No action item on the agenda, no prior notice to the Superintendent, the HS Principal or the committee that the Board just a few months ago asked for recommendations on this issue. I wonder if all of the Board members were informed that the resolution was going to be presented for a vote that night.
The process raises a number of questions that I hope the board will address at their next meeting. It appears to be an example of power politics in action. I hope our board does not resort to this type of process. It is not a great example to our students or our community.
I wonder if there are other surprises in store for our community.
The open campus was expanded to include study halls in addition to lunch in the 1968-69 academic year. The changes were for seniors only. The “Senior Privilege” was limited to those that were academically eligible for co-curricular activities.
The open campus is not to blame for students failing. Nyack has had an open campus for over 60 years that I can account for. The school will no doubt point to “cuts”(most likely a dramatic increase) as reason for the change. The robo calls from the school claiming “your child was absent from one or more classes” are a farce. Our children would have to get the absence removed more times than I can count. It was always some “error”. It came to the point where my wife and I did not believe the veracity of the calls at all. No mention of cuts or absences on progress reports, no communication from the teachers to that effect.
If you don’t want your child to leave campus tell them not to. Take responsibility of your own child’s boundaries.
If this was open input from the public it would have not passed. This reminds me of those that move to Nyack because it is so quaint, diverse, “progressive” and then want to change it.
A few comments – what is the real intention of the Board’s wanting a closed campus? I cannot, for one instant, believe that they honestly (operative word here folks is honest) believe that a closed campus will have that much impact on our student’s grade at NHS. It seems to me that freshman & sophomores are failing because either a) they are not prepared properly from the middle school education received or b) the teachers in the freshman & sophomore grades are not teaching them adequately.
There are many problems in our school systems these days, finances being a major hurdle to overcome, parents working, overburdened kids, drugs, etc., DRUGS a huge problem, very much so here in Nyack and the middle school and freshman/sophomore years are especially key. However, closing campus will not necessary solve those issues and dividing the community is certainly not going to achieve anything. Need better plans all.
These kids dont know how lucky they have it – I’m all for closing the campus and having the kids eat lunch on premises. If this is the worst thing that happens to them how lucky in life they are and will be.
In response to bud…. Dan Juechter is only 1 voice on the board. The vote on this was 5 to 2. People who were on the board 2 years ago and voted it down changed their vote this time around. There has been input from members of the community at Board meetings calling for the closing of the campus. Some parents felt it was unsafe and a problem if something happened. Also, closed campus does not mean that the kids can not eat outside. Hopefully they come up with a nice area outside for the kids to eat.
What evidence is there that closing the campus will address all these issues–safety, failure rates and the achievement gap, etc?
Do schools in the county with closed campus do better in these areas than Nyack? Has this been examined?
Let’s be careful before making new rules. If they aren’t enforced consistently or don’t have a clear purpose they can undermine students’ and parents’ respect for all the rules and for the school itself.
The high number of freshman and sophomores failing classes is alarming, and this clearly needs to be addressed. However, I wonder if there is a direct correlation between these student grades and going off campus for lunch? Are students failing in classes only following their lunch periods? This would be useful information to share with the school community as decisions and policies get made.
If class failure cannot specifically be linked to the open campus policy, then it is irrelevant with regard to whether or not students go to the deli for lunch.
Of greater concern is the way in which the Board decided to make this policy in the first place. The Board says they want community input but they don’t seem to be acting that way. Dan Juechter’s website says: “Community input is essential to all decisions. It is time to allow the voice of the community to be heard.” Hmm… I’m not sure what happened between the time of his Board election in May and this vote in July, but whatever it is, it isn’t about community input.
I’d like to state for the record — to all past and future board of education and administration members — that saying “listen to the podcast” isn’t an effective form of public communication.
To be clear, I’m not complaining about Amy’s last comment. She is no longer a member of the board of education. Although I did grouse to her about this statement when she was on the board!
I’ve heard that same comment A LOT lately from people who are still actively involved.
Why can’t we use that same whiz bang technology that records the podcast to create a transcript of the session so that people can find the wheat without having to wade through the chaff which public meetings require? Yes, I know the transcript will have errors and won’t be perfect. And certainly not official. But isn’t this feature built into some versions of Windows, anyway? So this can be produced for no cost?
I know we want people to be involved in the process. And I know community outreach is a difficult and often frustrating process for public officials. But if it’s easy to do (and I’m pretty sure that it is) isn’t it worth a try? Because for most people, when a school official says “listen to the podcast” they hear “go away and leave me alone!”
Which I don’t think is their intent. At least, I hope not!
-dz
ps: Speech Recognition is built into Windows 7 and Vista as well as standalone products like Dragon Naturally Speaking (you can buy the Dragon product for about $37 on Amazon — if that is of any help!)
If you listen to the podcast, there’s a request at the end of the discussion for a recommendation on Juniors and Seniors and the Open Campus.
Let’s see the statistics and report on “46% of freshman and 42% of sophomores failed at least one course during the third marking period last year.”
You make very reasonable arguements. It is good that students like yourself are part of the school system.
I do disagree with the open campus policy and believe that leaving campus should be limited to seniors (juniors at the most). To me it is mostly a safety and security issue, and I believe “open” contributes to “cutting” class, and missing class leads to failing class. Another 5 – 10 additional “attendance” points is often the difference between fail and pass. My own experience is that more classes are failed because of missed assignments (homework)and non-attendance.
I don’t have data to back my opinions up and I don’t see the need to FOIL anything. A partial closed campus is a fairly normal condition in most school districts. As an accomodation, perhaps this years incoming freshmen will only be subject to remaining on campus. In years thereafter, it could become extended to freshmen and sophmore years.
As far as the BOE overstepping it’s boundary’s, I also disagree. What else is a Board to do more important than set school policy. This is a policy change. If you do not support any Board members position on policies, each one is up for re-election every 2 years.