06/25/2006
Hoboken Reporter

Hoboken Board of Ed is out of control and totally unreasonable

Dear Editor: I just can't rest until I put this news out here. If you're a parent with school age children, you should especially listen up so you can decide if the Hoboken school system is for you.

I am a mother of a child who will be entering kindergarten come September 2006. I live right across the street from Wallace School, so during the well-advertised campaign to "register your child for kindergarten" in one of three schools, the fabulous choices of which were Calabro, Connors or Wallace Schools.

Naturally, living right across the street from Wallace and having lived in this district for years, voting in this district and the like, I went to register my son at the school on the assigned day. Much to my surprise, I was turned down and informed that my son had to stay in the school with which he attended pre-school. Not a good idea since the school is located on the opposite side of town and no transportation was offered which would alleviate that problem.

Since I am concerned about this, I went to Mr. Gagliardi's office to speak with him. (If you don't know yet, he's the Superintendent of Schools.) He was not able to see me and he never even returned a courtesy call. I then took it upon myself to write a letter to each of the nine Trustees of the Board of Education in hopes of nudging a response out of any one of them. Not one had the professionalism or courtesy to pick up the phone and at least tell me what's going on. (Thanks for nothing.) But when election time comes around, everybody is your friend again. What else is new in Hoboken.

Here's the best part, since I live across the street from Wallace, I am a very careful observer of who's coming into the school every day, where they're coming from and the license plate. Get a load of this! I see cars with New York tags. I also watch as families actually walk down the viaduct to attend Wallace School, rain, shine or sleet. This is totally baffling to me since my son should rightfully have a seat in the school since he lives here and not in Union City, Jersey City, North Bergen, West New York and all the other surrounding cities that have children placed in the Hoboken school system. Get real Hoboken Board of Education.

To totally remove myself from dealings with the Hoboken Board of Education, my son was accepted into a school that has nothing to do with that Hoboken Board of Education and I feel good about this right now.

Life long Hoboken resident and concerned parent