NJ Education Report

What’s it like to be a staff member or student in Asbury Park Public schools? Were teachers exaggerating when they commented in a climate survey conducted by the local union, “we are lucky to be alive” and “unless a teacher is in the posse it is a hostile work environment” and “I’d send my kid here over my dead body”?

Sometime a video is worth a thousand words.

Earlier today a source sent NJ Education Report these videos, noting that there are “fights every day while [Superintendent Rashawn] Adams and his people come to critique and harass teachers” and “say they need to be fired.” The source explains  there is “no support or consequences” when fights like this break out and instead teachers are blamed for poor classroom management skills. (Note: the videos take place outside of classrooms.) “Parents and teachers are so unhappy” that “children are running the schools and skipping classes,” he says, concluding,

Nobody wants to come to work while Adams paints a rosy picture and brings in his own people [without bothering to post positions to ensure a fair hiring process]. This is abuse and a hostile environment. In over two decades I’ve never seen anything like this.