As Journal News Shills for Isaac Young Principal, Middle School Launches Program for High School Dropouts

In a story one part absurd and two parts District propaganda, the Journal News, and Mr. Aman Ali in particular, once again abdicate their responsibilities as journalists to serve as shills for the City School District of New Rochelle to promote a bizarre decision to send high school dropouts back to middle school. In the article that could have been – and may have been – written by the school principal himself, the District seeks to shift attention away from recent criticism of Anthony Bongo over his failure to care for a seriously injured student in his charge by promoting a nonsensical program supposedly designed to help adults with no relationship at all to his school.

Mr. Ali uses the phrase “hoping to correct the situation” without once clarifying what “situation” Mr. Bongo claims to be “correcting”. If the situation is that a student has dropped out of high school and wishes to return would not the obvious solution be for them to return to the high school? If they want to get a GED, aren’t there plenty of programs in and out of the district to prepare them for the GED exam? If they need job counseling, doesn’t the New York State Department of Labor offer programs for this purpose? If they need guidance on college placement or career advice aren’t there guidance counselors at the high school who already provide this service? Or is the “situation” perhaps that the “alumni” Bongo refers to in the article were never prepared for high school in the first place and so what they need is the 6th grade education they never got at Isaac Young.

If Mr. Ali were a REAL reporter he might have thought to challenge Mr. Bongo just a little bit rather than serve as his stenographer. Here are a few sets of questions that might have been asked:

• Doesn’t the school district already have a program in place at New Rochelle High School to help residents who did not earn their high school degree to earn a GED instead? Doesn’t it make more sense to have this program at the high school since the “E” in GED refers to a degree equivalent to a high school degree? Doesn’t a GED program at Isaac Young duplicate programs offered throughout Westchester County, including New Rochelle, and at the high school?
• If distance is an issue, doesn’t Southern Westchester BOCES already offer a GED Exam Prep course within walking distance of your school – at St. Gabriel’s Church?
  

• If language is an issue, doesn’t this same BOCES program offer GED Exam Prep courses in English and Spanish?
• Aren’t their already programs from the Federal government, New York State, Westchester County and local community colleges that are designed to deal with issues ranging from GED Prep, job training, financial aid, remedial Math and English for college prep, alcohol and drug counseling?
• As your program is to be staffed by “volunteers” and they will be providing the same services already offered elsewhere by school district employees, aren’t you taking away responsibilities from paid employees and giving it to unpaid volunteers. What do the unions have to say about your plans to reduce or eliminate the need for paid teaching positions by providing the same services with your volunteer program?
• What formal qualifications or certifications does the staff at the middle school have in relevant areas such as career counseling, college placement or GED preparation? If they have these qualifications, why are they working at a middle school when their expertise and certifications could be put to far better use at the high school or alternative school?
• Why would former students who have dropped out of high school and wish to return to school go back to their middle school. Wouldn’t they go back to their high school? Especially, if there goal is to complete their high school degree or GED or getting help with college placement or career counseling when the high school already offers this? What is that your program will offer that is not already being offered by BOCES or New Rochelle High School?
• The New Rochelle School District has repeatedly claimed it does not have enough money and that things will be worse now due to State budget cuts. The Superintendent has already told the Journal News he is preparing to make cuts at the classroom level. Yet, you say that you can run your program at no cost, that “you do not need funding” because everything you need you have is available “in house”. If you have everything you need to offer an entirely new program to an unlimited number of adults or young adults – “anyone from New Rochelle” – does that mean that all of the needs of the students currently enrolled at Isaac Young are now being met? In that case, why does your school need MORE money?
• Why not have these volunteers make up the services being cut by Superintendent Organisciak at the classroom level? If you have “certified and trained” volunteers at your disposal why not put them to work helping students at Isaac Young who are your current, legal responsibility instead of creating an entirely new program to help people who are not – and are legally entitled to free help from other agencies or elsewhere in the District? In an environment where both property values and local tax revenues are dropping while the state cuts funding why would you put supposedly “free resources” to work on projects helping people who do not attend your school?

Maybe if the “reporters” at the Journal News did some actual REPORTING instead of publishing PR puff pieces on behalf of local government agencies – including local school districts – they might attract readers instead of repelling them.

And newspaper executives sit and wonder why their industry is collapsing like a wet taco?