Parents Should Select Book at New Rochelle High School Not the School Board

Written By: Talk of the Sound News

I go to the New Rochelle High School and the books they give us is not what I call good reading. The PARENTS should have the decision on what books the students should read not the school board, if they do give the parents that they shouldn’t give them a list let the parents choose what books are appropriate and good in literature A.K.A. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, that book has excellent foreshadowing and giving excellent feelings and strong thoughts about the book, the stuff they give us A.K.A. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. That book is so dry that i can pour water on it and it will turn to dust. There is not a lot of good foreshadowing or something to pull the reader in. My English teacher (not going to mention names) tells us that the book has great foreshadowing and stuff like that. The school district gets (very very very rough estimate) $96,000 dollars for books and they give us the old not good foreshadowing, don’t get me wrong I would like to read Romeo and Juliette, that book/script has some good foreshadowing, well what can we do the school district “thinks” they know whats best for us. Well I think there wrong I think there is time for change in the school board, There needs to be drastic measures.

6 thoughts on “Parents Should Select Book at New Rochelle High School Not the School Board”

  1. I graduated from NRHS a few
    I graduated from NRHS a few years ago and full disagree with this students email. Parents are the last people who should be choosing what books should be read. I think the book choices should be in the hands of the teachers and the department.

    Also, you lose a lot of credibility and your opinion loses a lot of weight when your grammar and punctuation is so horrible. I did not enjoy most of the books I read when I attended the high school, but they definitely had good educational value. You recommend Twilight, but honestly, Twilight is just crap. It’s a dumb book that is meant to appeal to young girls.

    Please, if you want your opinion to be taken seriously, write in good English and don’t tell me that Twilight is better than Great Expectations.

    -NRHS Grad ’06

  2. This is an anonymous comment
    This is an anonymous comment from someone who purports to be a teacher — why do you accept that as true in your response? Why not subject that post to the same skepticism you show to other anonymous posts?

    As a side note — what girls were there in your class at Iona Prep?

    1. There were no girls in my
      There were no girls in my class at Iona Prep.

      As for whether I believe an anonymous comment to be genuine, that is a judgement call. I have been running blogs for seven years and reading them since 2000 (when few people in the world had ever heard the term). I generally have a pretty good sense of these sorts of things.

  3. Don’t get me wrong I love
    Don’t get me wrong I love the school and I do have respect for the teachers. I’m sorry if I offended a teacher, no you are not right, the books that they have given us is boring they could have given us a good book like “The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan.”
    The books that are in the school library has excellent books that has good foreshadowing and so on, Charles Dickens it s good author don’t get me wrong but, that book was written in his life time, which is like (1812 – 1870) which makes his writing about 97 – 39 years old the school and the students need modern books.

  4. Why dont you home school
    Why dont you home school your child then if you don’t like how myself and other NRHS teachers teach?!?! Have some respect for the ones who teach your child. Something tells me you werent the best student in school and now feel you have to fight the system. Am I right?

    1. Dear anonymous high school
      Dear anonymous high school teacher,

      Are you right? Nope. You are wrong on several levels.

      First, growing up in Irvington, I was among the top 1% of students in my school and when I first came to New Rochelle in 1977 I was among the best students in my high school – Iona Prep, Class of ’81. I was ranked among the top students in the school, Editor of the yearbook and wildly popular among all the girls in my class.

      I have tremendous respect for many if not most of the teachers who teach my children. Some of the teachers are absolutely terrific. At the same time there have been a few teachers who were totally incompetent and others who were older, clearly burned out and have, by now, hopefully retired. Overall those New Rochelle has a large number of excellent teachers.

      What I find amusing is the very typical reaction of people from the school district to ANY criticism of ANY kind from ANY parent for ANY reason – “if you don’t like it then leave”. We live in a democracy and these are PUBLIC schools. If you believe, as I do, that the school district is very badly run then it seems a not only proper but a patriotic duty of every resident to point that out and press for change.

      I recognize it is hard to differentiate between a general (or even specific) criticism of the leadership of the district and individual teachers or staff but as a parent, a resident and the spouse of a district employee myself I am not going to remain silent because a legitimate criticism rubs a teacher to whom the criticism is not directed chooses to apply that criticism to themselves.

      Lastly, you see to be under the impression that I or some other adult wrote this email. If you read it again slowly you will see that it was written by one the students at your school.

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