Jeopardizing Our Future: A Montclair High School Sophomore Speaks Out

I stayed home sick on April 27 this year. But if I had gone to school, I might have been one of the few hundred Montclair High School students who walked out of their classes to protest the state education budget cuts implemented by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Around 16,000 fellow high school students protested in towns across New Jersey.

Soon NBC News was on the scene in Montclair with its lights and cameras, interviewing my peers. The New York Times, 1010-WINS, NJN, and other major news organizations also covered the statewide phenomenon. Montclair Mayor Jerry Fried, armed with a megaphone, tried to stop the demonstration, but to no avail.

Mayor Fried voiced his support for the students' cause, but urged them to return to class. "It's a tricky situation because I support their expression, but they need to go to school," Fried said. "Ideally, they would have had the protest before the school day or after and not miss class. But there is a lot of emotion about it."

Planning for the protest began when Michelle Ryan Lauto, then a freshman in college and a former New Jersey high school student, started a Facebook group to organize statewide protests in objection to Christie's $820 million cuts in the state's educational funding. Before long, 18,000 people had joined the group. Many of them were students at Montclair High School.

Already, Christie had faced a fair amount of opposition at MHS.

When he visited the school in March as a guest speaker for the school's Advance Placement Government and Politics Class, he was confronted with a hallway full of protesting students. I'm sure that Christie's reaction to the student protests throughout New Jersey didn't improve his reputation with the students. Though he refused to give a televised response, he criticized school administrators for doing a "lousy job in really permitting these students to walk out of the class in the middle of the school day." This was, again, not the only time that Christie has criticized teachers and school administrators. Christie once called teachers' unions "bullies" that "need to be taken on" in order for him to "stand up for the taxpayers of the state." But who will stand up for these teachers' students? Good teachers are vital for the future success of young people. Frankly, in this situation, the only "bully" I see is Christie.

Though the Montclair Board of Education agreed to give Montclair's higher-paid teachers a pay freeze so that fewer teachers would get laid off, 82 teachers in Montclair's public school system will still be let go. This is all because of the $5.1 million budget cuts in education that the Montclair school district needs to make.

At Montclair High School, sports teams, arts programs, language classes, and many members of the staff are being cut. The gymnastics team, along with other sports teams, are in grave danger. Other programs, such as ROTC, also are being cut.

It's not only the high school that is experiencing the effects of these budget cuts. For instance, at Watchung, my former elementary school, foreign language classes have been cut, leaving students to learn from computer programs.

But more than extracurriculars are in danger. In other parts of New Jersey, there have been many scarier proposed cuts to vital programs that ensure students' well-being, such as special education and state-provided school lunches.

Christie referred to Montclair and other high school protests as "spring fever" and "youthful rebellion," and questioned whether students knew what they were protesting about. He also said that he suspected that the student-led "factions across New Jersey were led by the teachers' union who were encouraging this." A few concerned parents also worried that their children had become pawns for the teachers' union. But these protests were student-organized and we all certainly knew what they were about. Even if some students may have walked out "just to get out of class," I know that many of them care deeply about these cuts, and that the classes and extracurricular activities that are being cut may put their futures in jeopardy.

Though Christie said that the protesting students should have been in class, and that teachers should "focus on teaching our kids and not playing politics," I don't think he realizes that his decisions are taking away the very things that make kids want to go to school. For some reason, he doesn't seem to understand or acknowledge that today's students are tomorrow's future, and the possibility that they may not get the strongest education possible is cause for serious worry. I don't know why these thoughts have not occurred to our governor. Sadly, because of this, I fear there will be many other troubling changes within Montclair's schools.