Curious in VA
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Posts posted by Curious in VA
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HE'S COMING HOME!!!!!!!!! I'M GOING TO GO GET HIM!!!!!!
Grats to Auto and Mrs.!
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Very interesting. It is one of the more sound thoughts I've seen on the topic. I'd suggest a tier punishment structure initially since it may seem a bit harsh to put a child in a uniform the entire year for something done in September.
Is anyone aware of the percentage of students that have volunteered in the past?
One thing I mentioned to my husband yesterday was the thought of gym uniforms first. Maybe 2 different colored t-shirts. One used for week 1 and one for week 2. One of the things I remember from high school were the kids who NEVER switched up clothes for gym, by the end of the year they were cardboard....
Hopefully this will spur some new life into the board-good topic choice Paul!
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And "Confused in VA" is so telling of your identity? Why is it that so many of those who have "registered" feel that they are more entitled to share opinions on this forum - especially when so few actually register with any identifying names or information? I tell you what - "register" with your name and address, and then you can be emboldened to question the contributions of "guests".
And of course a BOE member can speak publicly about how they may feel about the issue. I think that every BOE member and candidate is obliged to make their opinions and principles known on important issues. And if I were running for a seat on the BOE, my identity and my beliefs would be points of necessity. However, since that is not the case, I will leave it that the candidates' opinions on such an issue are important - and it's the right of every voter to know the positions of the candidates. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that political debate is dead, and general statements of positions and principles are not appropriate in public elections.
As for my opinion - since you asked - I think the teacher was dead wrong. I think that his conduct in the classroom leading up to the "meeting" was inappropriate. I think his conduct in the "meeting" was likewise inappropriate. I am slightly comforted by the fact that the pattern of behavior that was originally brought to light by Matthew has seemingly been corrected. However, I am incredibly disappointed that the teacher has not stepped between the student and his more fervent supporters to alleviate some of the abuse being heaped on a high school student. Of course, there is no legal obligation on his part to do so - but I would argue that there is a moral or ethical obligation that is not being met. Nonetheless, considering all of the above, I think that the teacher should retain his job unless and until he violates the policy again.
As to the other side of the coin, I don't like the taping in the classroom - although I concede that it was, most likely, the only way to stop the behavior of the teacher. I wrestle with the issue because the privacy of each of the other students in the classroom was violated, and the name of the Muslim student was released for all to hear. In my opinion, it was a large price to pay. I'm not sure if the ends justified the means - but at this point, it's water under the bridge. Still, Matthew stepped up for his beliefs. He didn't do anything that violated any law or school policy. His cause was just and carried substantial weight. And while - I think - he could have gone to the teacher directly prior to going to the administration, he was certainly under no obligation to do so. Accordingly, rather than facing ridicule, the administration should use him as an example to others of how to be an advocate for your beliefs - a skill that would serve all students well in their lifetimes (and a skill that was vastly undersold during my tenure in the school district more than a few years ago).
Lastly, I think that the religious aspects of this Constitutional debate have swirled around and - much like religous debates for the last score or so of centuries - have resolved little other than reaffirming that people have divergent beliefs and hold fast to them. Meanwhile, the Constitutional protection of separation of church and state - first promulgated by Jefferson in the DEFENSE of a religious group - is now being framed as an attack on Christianity. That cannot be farther from the truth. The protection means that no one in government - including a public school teacher - can tell you what religion you must practice, or what your children must believe. Likewise, those that suggest that the separation is an absolute proscription against any intermingling of government and religion are likewise wrong. As a number of judges have recognized, the separation is not absolute, and there are times when considerations of religion must be factored into governmental matters. However, in the present matter, a teacher discussing religious matters in the manner so discussed, went beyond what is acceptable under current law. And the fact that the student who brought the usurpation to light is not a Christian - does not mean that the Constitutional principle (or the student defending it) is anti-Christianity.
Hope this leaves you less "Confused", my friend from VA.
Honestly Guest in reading your post we are on the same side in many cases, though I am not sure it qualifies me as a "friend". My original point was that certain aspects of this case cannot be discussed by the parties involved. I am sure the BOE candidates will weigh in on this issue, but I do not know how vocal the current BOE members can be on the reasoning behind the actions they took publicly during these past 6 months or so. I was not suggesting that you could not or should not have an opinion, just that I thought it was ironic that someone not registered to the board would suggest the BOE members state their views "publicly".
As I've mentioned in other threads, there is a lot of room for improvement in how the situation was handled, but it is easy to say since many of us have watched the situation unfold the past 6 months. In many cases the situation spurred serious debate on this board and which I believe have caused many people to think and rethink their positions on the nuances of the case; some of which you mentioned in your post. For example: I too struggle with the taping, but I also struggle with the "no taping" ruling.
For me it has been a learning experience reading and chatting with some of the folks on this board. I appreciate Paul's honestly and Strife's passion even if we do not always agree. I believe that after 6 or so months of following this situation I'm a lot less "confused" and a lot more informed (I do still reside in VA however). It will be interesting to see how this BOE election develops.
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I think you're "confused" and have no idea what you are talking about...How about joining a VA discussion board?
First, I am a registered user, unlike you guest. I lived in Kearny for the first 23+ years of my life and graduated from Kearny High School, I'm certified to teach high school sciences, I had family on the BOE, both my parents are educators and my family still resides in Kearny I may not know everything about the situation, but I've done enough research to pose my questions logically. I keep in touch with the Kearny news, things like Mr. Aulisi's death, the death of Dr. John Elkas, the LaClair situation, and how the varsity soccer team does are all important to me as Kearny alumni.
I am active in my community in VA, but I haven't forgotten my roots-
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Guest (whichever guest you happen to be this time...) -- Is it really possible you don't see that by saying the above, you are illustrating to a "T" the very point that Mr. LaClair was making in his post? You do not acknowledge the flaws in Mr. P's choices regarding the student in question. Nor has Mr. P. Nor, to my reading on this blog, have any of his supporters (please, someone, I honestly want you to show me otherwise -- it would give me some hope for common ground). At least here, Mr. L. says he would do something differently, were it all to rewind and unfold again.
Instead, you try to parse Mr. L's use of pronouns as some bizarre crystal ball on his intentions versus his son's. No reasonable person, including Mr. LaClair himself or his supporters, would claim that he has not played a substantial role in what has unfolded, including important decisions like if and when to release some of the recordings. No reasonable father would have done otherwise.
The "I" pronoun is entirely appropriate for what he is saying! And he is acknowledging that there are some things he (yes, HE!) would do differently, were that option available. Sounds reflective and thoughtful to me.
I think it is posts like yours that have swung me to the viewpoint that Mr. L. is entirely justified in the time he chooses to invest here, whether it's responding to the thoughtful comments as well as the thoughtless. (Ironically enough, even that choice -- to participate in this blog in a wholehearted way has brought sarcastic and vitriolic hand grenades raining down.) We have too many examples here in the public commons (yes, this is the modern day public commons) of Mr. P's supporters passing off repetition of bizarre statements as truth.
I think it's time more of us who have just been tallying under the "view" category patiently (I hope I can keep my patience) countering comments like the above by "Guest." They do not address the core issues. They do not move the situation towards resolution. They do not answer the question, "What can I do to make this situation better?"
If you are a viewer, not a contributor, just take a good look a what this guest says. Then go search on member = Paul and read even a portion from the compilation of his posts. Ask yourself HONESTLY whether this man has been trying to get Kearny-ites to participate in a reasonable, thoughtful, dialogue. No he's not perfect, but good grief he's done a heckuva lot more to try to get us off our duffs and see what's really going on than one should have to ask of anyone. And if he passed some of that quality on to Matthew, and Matthew acted on it, two thumbs up.
I haven't spent so much time seriously thinking over this stuff in a long while. Time to make some headway.
Not my most articulate post, but it's late, and it's a start. Paul, add me to to your volunteer crap-rebuttal squad.
Nice post oneellama! I mentioned it on a thread awhile ago. There is a lot of useless banter on this board which has grown over time making it difficult to discuss recent posts or quotes or issues that have stemmed from the original September tapes. I've never publicly posted my view on the situation, but have tried to ask for clarification and guidance from both sides of this issue to understand the processes and thinking used by the respective parties.
From my observations each party involved could, should, may have done things differently as everything unfolded. For example: Perhaps Mr. Somma would have insisted to have the parents involved in the first meeting, perhaps there could have been handshaking and apologies at that meeting, perhaps the BOE could have reacted quicker, perhaps the tapes could have had the students name stripped out, perhaps the teacher could have "buried the hatchet" and asked that the student body stop any retaliation efforts, perhaps the mayor could have not only dictated how the BOE should act, but also mention the actions the BOE took to address the issues with the teacher, perhaps the family could have been less verbal about each of the points and continually posting dialogue from publicly available tapes, perhaps the KOTW admin could force only registered users to post....the list can go on and on depending on your stance on this issue, but it is easy to play this game almost 6 months after its started.
My hope is that this whole situation will be resolved in the near future. I am sure that many of the folks involved would like to have a resolution and begin to focus on how their lives were "pre-September" taking the lessons learned and applying them to their "post" life. I am sure Paul would rather be doing things other than responding to "guest" posts, I'm sure the student would rather be doing homework, reading a book and hanging out (or whatever kids do these days) instead of being alienated or threatened, I am sure that the teacher would like to focus on his family and the current crew season instead of dealing with the constant media pressure and public scrutiny.
I do enjoy reading the debating, but its getting harder and harder to find that on KOTW at the moment with all of the guests chiming in. As I mentioned above, I hope all parties involved can reach a resolution in the future and begin to move forward.
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Please understand, my calling the remark that Matthew was out of school a week cheap was not directed at you, but at Mr. Paszkiewicz. He made the comment in an accusing tone, as though the student was to be blamed for being out sick. That's what was cheap.
No worries Paul. There is a lot of tension on the board and it seems the personal attacks on you and your family are more frequent in some threads. I just didn't want you to lump me in with the dirt throwers, since that was never my intention.
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The former. Matthew had heard that this teacher misused the classroom to preach, but only began recording after hearing it for himself for two days, and recognizing how far out of line it was. He began recording on the third day.
I thought it was rather cheap, by the way, and completely irrelevant, that Matthew missed a week of school. Paszkiewicz seemed to be trying to make him feel as though he was somehow to blame for being out ill a week. This was part of a larger attempt to bully and intimidate the student into backing down. I find that thoroughly disgusting.
Paul, I apologize since you apparently took the "out of school a week" comment as something other than a statement. It was not my intent to be "rather cheap." I was trying to set the stage for my questions in order to understand how often the teacher spoke about religion based on the amount of time the student spent in the class. I was also trying to understand if the student heard these discussions prior to recording or was recording simply based off the rumors he had heard prior to the school year. The tapes are, what they are and the issue has been documented. My questions were/are not relevant to the tapings, but simply for my own curiosity.
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Actually, I think it matters greatly what Mr. P stated in the first couple of days. I'm trying to get a sense of how regularly Mr. P discussed religion - without Matthew's probing questions. Granted - it is still dangerous to have a teacher willing to preach in class when confronted with pointed questions. However, it would be far more dangerous if the teacher REGULARLY delved into religion in the class. Alternatively, if Mr. P did not discuss religion during the first several days of class, I'm trying to figure out what prompted Matthew to record? Was it comments from other students who complained to Matthew but made no formal complaints to the administration?
Guest, I too am curious about what prompted the tape. Per the tape from October 10th it appears that the student was out of school for about a week in the early part of the school year. I thought that was interesting since the original tape was made sometime in September. Did this mean that the teacher brought up religion so frequently in the first few days of class that the student taped the class? Or did this mean that the student was aware of the potential for the teacher to talk about religion prior to the school year so he was prepared to tape on day 1 of the school year? Honestly, either situation does not change the conversations on the tape, but I was curious to how the taping came about and how frequently religion was discussed.
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Hi VA, I am the guest to whom you are responding. (I finally decided to register
)anyway, here is one thing that I found, although not all that helpful.
http://www.kearnyschools.com/BOE/POLICIES%...0Discipline.htm
From what I have seen, there is nothing to indicate what, if anything, must be kept secret when dealing with a discipline case. Also, I would expect the BoE to explain why they aren't saying something if they indeed cant. What I mean is I have never heard of the Board saying something to the effect that they are not allowed, by regulation, to say.
What bothers me more though, is this.
http://www.kearnyschools.com/BOE/POLICIES%...g%20Devices.htm
The BoE clearly was able to take action to ensure that another teacher could not be proven to be violating the law. Without recording devices, its a teacher's word vs the student, and we know who would win (no necessarily unfairly) in that situation.
In other words, they quickly made sure that another Matthew wouldn't be allowed to bother them with "laws" and silly things like the separation of church and state. They did not, however, take swift corrective action after Mr. P did something wrong.
In fact I believe he first denied the allegations before being confronted with the tapes. Apparently honesty is not all that valued in the Kearny school district either.
Anyway, my long winded rant is simply to say that if the BoE's hands were tied by section blahbidy blah of article 8 billion in some obscure code, why wouldn't they say so? And even if it was, I would still expect to see some RESULTS, even if they couldn't talk about it. (After all they took the time to ban recorders, so I think we can assume they could address the problem of Mr. P if they felt like it.
Thank you Mroberts it is always good to know your corresponding with a single person instead of a number of different guests! I too have become official, though my last few posts I neglected to log in.
Thank you for providing both links. I'll be trying to dig up the State BOE policies in the next few days to see if I can glean any other useful tidbits.
I am assuming that this was the first formal complaint against the teacher. If that is the case then he was probably reprimanded and is under close scrutiny. If the BOE process works similar to corporate America then it will go in his file, he'll be watched for a period of time and then reevaluated. At that point his fate would be decided. How quickly this happens is probably dependent on two things:
1. The BOE State policy
2. The teacher's contract and union policy
As for the second link about the taping. I have mixed feelings about the new policy.
One of the first things I thought of when I heard the original class recording was "Did the other students waive their right to privacy?" Parts of the tape deal with personal information of the other students in the class. This was not a dialog between the teacher and the student, it was a dialog between the teacher and the class. Although the conversation was critical to illustrate an issue, it was still private to the students who did not know their conversation would be open to worldwide media. I would be surprised if the students in the class were not upset by their words being taped without their knowledge. I wonder if they came forward to meet with the administration or BOE?
Yes, this stops the further taping of teachers, but it also protects the rights of students. This new policy enables a student to be able to ask questions without wondering if their voice will end up on YouTube or the 5 o'clock news.
I don't know where the middle ground is on this issue since you accurately state that it effectively prevents a student from documenting this type of issue in the future.
At the very end you mention that the BOE did act in this case. Thank you again for providing the link. I noticed the new policy was adopted on January 16th, which is several months after the issue was first brought to light. Is this simply the first piece of a reaction from the BOE? Was this piece easier to put in place than others which is why it was the only reaction thus far? (Please note: I do believe that a statement that every person has a voice and Kearny Education supports students and teachers equally could also be an easy piece to put together.)
Was this policy put in place to stop students from taping teachers or was it put in place to protect the rights of students? Perhaps both, but I do not know if the students in the class spoke to anyone, but I believe that this new policy could be to "protect" teachers and students alike.
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St. Barnabas to close Kearny's assisted living uni
in Kearny
Posted
Anyone that has ever known a senior citizen knows that after a certain point, moving a person is not an option. As far as I know the 30 or so folks that will be displaced are all local residents, which means they spent a majority of their life in the area and now the closest place to move them to is Livingston??!?!? How will these uprooted folks handle this abrupt change?
I understand the money factor and the fact that there is more money in acute care, but why didn't St Barnabas gracefully transition to full acute care and let the current residents live their days out surounded by things they are familiar with while not taking in any new applicants?
As far as I have heard none of the current residents nor their families have been given more than a verbal communication about this move and a bus ride. How pitiful is it that as a renter I can not pay my rent and it would take 6 months to a year to have me removed, but these folks have gotten no notification and have less than 6 weeks to find a place to live? Apartments are a dime a dozen if you have the money, but it can take up to 2 years on a wait list before a slot in an assisted living facility opens up.
Is what St Barnabas is doing even legal?