Nyack, August 25 — When Nyack’s Board of Education voted 5-2 on July 6 to limit off campus lunch privileges to juniors and seniors, the trustees were criticized for making a quick decision without taking the time to hear from the public. Last night about 100 parents and students attended a meeting where critics questioned the process and the data used to make the decision while supporters loudly applauded the board’s actions.
Nyack High School Principal Joe Spero told the board he will hire up to eight new security staffers and add 10 additional cameras to 24 already installed to enforce the policy which suspends “open campus” for 9th and 10th graders. The costs for the new security measures were not disclosed at Tuesday’s meeting. Spero says they are also looking at a card swipe system and security booths for the two entrances to the high school.
The board has positioned the change as a pilot program for 9th and 10th graders that will run through the end of October. Upperclassman will still be allowed to leave campus for lunch and study hall periods.
Board President Michael Lagana and Trustee Dan Juechter, who are leading the proposed policy change, say student safety and grades are the driving factors in their decision. But board member Claudette Clark countered that if safety was really the board’s concern, the schools should provide free busing to all students. “We have children walking on dangerous roads,” she said. “Are we looking at every issue as it concerns our students’ safety?”
James Marshall, a parent and a member of the 2008 safety committee that recommended the policy change, says his kids are absolutely against the change. But it’s not their decision — safety is an issue in which they don’t get a vote.
A parent who supports the policy told the board, “when I drop my son off at school, I want to know that he is in class” and that it is the school’s responsibility to keep him from cutting class.
“The students should have a say on this issue,” says Nyack High School junior Laura Gerber. “We are the ones who are here every day. We know there are bigger issues.” Gerber says the board is looking for solutions to the school’s problems in all of the wrong places.
Juechter makes the case that limiting open campus will improve academic performance and address a high failure rate and rampant cutting of classes. “If kids’ job is to learn, how are we supposed to keep them in school?” he says. Data presented by Walter Woodhouse, the school’s Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, showed a failure rate of over 43 percent for 9th graders. But these data were questioned by Linda Greene, a former Nyack schools’ administrator, who said that the failure rate for freshman is overstated because it includes students who never graduate from freshman year and may be as old as 17 and who subsequently drop out of school. “It’s everyone who hasn’t earned five credits,” she said. Greene also said class cutting statistics are misleading because teachers may not fill out tracking paperwork accurately.
Trustee Clarke added that the Board of Education over ruled the recommendation of the 2008 safety committee because a further study of the data showed no correlation for the students that were failing and those who were cutting class and leaving school.
“What is the benefit of allowing 9th and 10th graders to leave school?” said Laguna. “It’s disturbing to see the absolute intolerance of some community members to change.” Both Laguna and Juechter publicly criticized former school board president Amy Applebaum for opposing the pilot program. “The former school board president is encouraging delinquency,” Juechter said.
Former Nyack Schools board president Don Hammond said the process was setting a bad precedent for how the trustees work with the community. “I heard two board members ridicule someone who disagreed with them,” he said. “Please welcome us into the process and don’t push us away.”
Principal Joe Spero will meet with parents and students to answer questions about the new policy on Thursday, August 26 in the school’s cafeteria at 7p.
Nyack Schools’ Failure Rate by Grade
| Middle School | High School | ||
| Grade | Percent | Grade | Percent |
| 6 | 9.7 | 9 | 43.4 |
| 7 | 31.6 | 10 | 36.6 |
| 8 | 29.1 | 11 | 29.9 |
| 12 | 17.6 | ||
Source: Nyack Schools
See also:
- Letter from Nyack High School Princial Joe Spero
- Survey Says Change Yes To Open Campus Policy Change, 8/20/2010
- ‘Open Campus’ Needs To Be Open Discussion, 7/30/2010
- Nyack High details new security restrictions, Journal News 8/25/2010
- Contentious Debate Continues Over Nyack High School’s Closed Campus Policy, 8/25/2010 Patch.com
with the taxes we pay they will have to find the money to do what needs to be done – personally I think its about time that the practice ended – do the parents who want this to continue wish to sign hold harmless contracts indicating the school district is held harmless if these kids get hurt while off campus or cut so many classes they fail
Roger – I agree with you on the point of the failure rate. Now that the policy is in place with regard to campus restrictions, the community, particularly the parents with children in the educational system (especially those before they enter high school) should really take a look at what is going on with the academics programs and how those programs can be improved, etc.
The key is to stay involved at all times and know what is going on.
Roger Cohen raises a question I would like to see the BoE answer: what “exactly” does the failure rate mean? If you simply google ‘High School 9th grade failure rate’ you will learn quickly that this is a common and national problem. When a percentage is presented to the public without any context or narrative it can only be used, as it has been in Nyack, for political purposes.
As Linda Green pointed out at the BoE meeting on 8/24, the numbers of 9th grade students failing one or more course includes not just new entering first-years but also students who are repeating 9th grade. Without, also, knowing whether there are specific categories of students who fail one or more courses in 9th grade it is difficult to know how to best address their needs; it might help also to know if there are particular courses with higher rates of first-year failure than others.
Many schools nationwide have developed 9th grade success academies and there is a large body of academic literature on the issue. As has also been pointed out, but never responded to, analysis at Nyack HS showed that the students who were leaving campus during their lunch period did not correlate with those who are failing a class or more. The raw data presented on 8/24 also showed that the % of failure drops considerably as students progress from one grade to another–all this despite the open campus policy.
Although I don’t agree with Mr Cohen that the open campus policy is a “non-issue,” I do concur when he calls for a more nuanced, informed and detailed explanation of what happens academically to incoming students in their first year at Nyack HS. Those in favor of a closed campus should be disappointed at the manner in which the Board has mandated its pilot program because it could have been effected in a way that would have satisfied even those who disagree that it should be closed. And we should all be concerned that the substantive issues underlying failure rates have been largely obscured by a political power play on the part of some Board members who think people who disagree with them “want kids to fail” or are “inane” etc.
The big issue here is the “failure rate.” What is the definition of “failure rate?”
Do the numbers indicate, for example, that 43.4% of all ninth grade pupils have failed a class for the year? Do those pupils then need to repeat that class the next year (or semester)?
Pupils going to school, and staying in school for the day, instead of leaving the school property during the day, is a non-issue.
The issue here is this “failure rate.” Exactly what does it mean? What is going on in the Nyack schools?
The following 2 quotes from the article really disturb me.
===== Both Laguna and Juechter publicly criticized former school board president Amy Applebaum for opposing the pilot program. “The former school board president is encouraging delinquency,” Juechter said.======
and
==== “I heard two board members ridicule someone who disagreed with them,” he said. “Please welcome us into the process and don’t push us away.” ====
While we may not all agree on things, board members bear a particularly awesome responsibility. An important part of this is respect for differing points of view, for the students, the parents and the community you serve. The people that elected you.
Some real news to also report: An interim Superintendent was appointed, Jason Friedman, formerly of East Ramapo. A good choice who I am sure has experience dealing with meddling Board members.
Mostly I believe that this is a non-sensical issue. I probably do not help this perception by commenting on it so much.
I actually only learned there was an open campus when the letter was sent home in June!
But, a closed campus is a reasonable policy that many other good schools have implemented. Of course it is not a panacea for better education and school safety. But, I can understand the value of keeping kids on the property.
Maturity goes both ways..adjusting properly to “freedom” (open campus) and adjusting to “restrictions” (closed campus).
“Let the Principal run the school the way he thinks best.”
I completely agree. And if you listen to what he said on July 6, it is absolutely clear that he does not think the way this is being done is “best”–far from it. It is being done badly. And the argument that disallowing students to leave the campus during their lunch period will have any effect on academic failure is so illogical it is laughable.
I certainly don’t like the cost involved in implementing this, but we just hired a school principal to run a school and a school building. Principal Spero is on record as an advocate of this policy. This does not sound to me like the BOE is overstepping it’s authority.
Let the Principal run the school the way he thinks best. He can than be evaluated on his performance.