The Trenton Times Editorial Board published the following article on December 8, 2013. To read the full editorial, click here.
Editorial: For deteriorating Trenton Central High School conditions, seeing is believing
By Times of Trenton Editorial Board
on December 08, 2013 at 6:22 AMTrenton Central High School is offering an impromptu education to some of the powerful visitors who have stopped by to see for themselves the abysmal conditions that confront students every day.
The latest high-profile official to visit the deteriorating school echoed the reactions of previous visitors upon seeing mold, crumbling plaster and “the waterfall” – a wall in the gym where water streams down during rainstorms.
State officials, including Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence), Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Trenton) and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), have repeatedly sounded the alarm about conditions at the school.
Teachers have testified at state hearings.
“The violence in the streets is not going to kill us; it is the rot from the building that has the opportunity to kill us,” social studies teacher Nick Cirillo told members of the state Board of Education in September.
Its principal calls the state of the school “a ticking time bomb.”
Parents have pleaded, and students have rallied.
But it’s all abstract until one walks the halls and visits the classrooms. So it was for Joe Fisicaro, newly recently appointed vice president of the state school board.