Yesterday an 11-year-old student at Perth Amboy’s Shull Middle School stabbed another boy with a kitchen knife, badly injuring him. Superintendent David Roman declined to comment. City Mayor Helmin Caba’s office said this was an “isolated incident.”

Perth Amboy teachers beg to differ.

According to the Star-Ledger, Perth Amboy Federation president Patricia Paradiso said at Shull Middle School students “frequently” bring knives to school but teachers “are afraid to voice concerns out of fear of retaliation and that the school has too may vacant positions to be able to effectively educate of its students.” During a phone call Paradiso said, “I can’t even express what an unpleasant environment it is. t’s become worse and worse. People don’t want to work there.” Other teachers said Roman and the Board of Education “live in an alternate universe” as they celebrate “the great things happening” at the school.

Paradiso’s views appear widely shared. Earlier this month 6th grade math teacher Frances Cafferty, who was the 2021 Governor’s Educator of the Year for Shull Middle School wrote a letter to her union (copied in full below) explaining that after 10 and a half years she was resigning. Her reasons are the “deteriorating conditions” at the school which serves 1,400 students grades 5-8; she herself was injured by a student this past December:

Students are engaging in extremely violent activities. They are cutting class to roam the halls kicking doors so hard that pieces of the solid wood doors are breaking off in chunks. They are boxing, wrestling, running, stampeding and jumping on each other in the hallways as administrators are standing dead center of the hall. These administrators do nothing to stop it, as teachers desperately call out to remind students to walk, keep hands to themselves, etc. and get cursed out and told off by these students….Students are actively cutting classes to stalk peers they wish to fight. Storming into classrooms to taunt their victims into leaving the safety of the classroom in order to go into the hallway to be beaten up. When teachers write up the students cutting class and report the intentions of the child to hunt down their victim to fight, admin deletes the write up and says the child was with them the entire time and should not have been written up for cutting. This gives the students cutting class tacit permission to continue to cut class day after day to continue to stalk and taunt their targeted victim until they get to fight that poor child.

According to the most recent state standardized test results issued by the New Jersey Department of Education, 21% of fifth-graders at Shull Middle School meet grade-level expectations in reading and 7.9% do in math. In eighth-grade 25% meet expectations in reading and 10% do in math, well below state averages. The cost per pupil in Perth Amboy, an SDA/Abbott district, is $21,669.

Here is the full letter from Ms. Cafferty:

February 2, 2023

Dear PAF-AFT Local 857, 

I am writing this letter to convey just how badly conditions have deteriorated at Shull Middle School. After being an employee of Perth Amboy Public Schools for the last 10½ years, I made the decision to officially resign on 12/22/22. The tipping point for me was how extremely unsafe the environment is inside Shull, and because of the dangerous environment I was injured by a student on 12/7/22.

Students are engaging in extremely violent activities. They are cutting class to roam the halls kicking doors so hard that pieces of the solid wood doors are breaking off in chunks. They are boxing, wrestling, running, stampeding and jumping on each other in the hallways as administrators are standing dead center of the hall. These administrators do nothing to stop it, as teachers desperately call out to remind students to walk, keep hands to themselves, etc. and get cursed out and told off by these students. 

When teachers get run into, hit, kicked, or punched and injured by these students, nothing is done to reprimand the students responsible, and the behaviors escalate. At least 5 teachers that I know of, including myself, have been injured by students because of these behaviors. When teenagers in adult sized bodies are running around the building like 5-year-olds on a playground, students and staff get injured and administration at all levels seems to not care at all that the hallways and stairwells are extremely unsafe when 1300+ students are behaving like this all at the same time. The new 21 minute lunches do not help this situation at all. It creates more chaotic transition times than when we held grade level lunches for an entire 45 minute period. Which leads the additional problem of students stealing class time to create their own recess.

Students are actively cutting classes to stalk peers they wish to fight. Storming into classrooms to taunt their victims into leaving the safety of the classroom in order to go into the hallway to be beaten up. When teachers write up the students cutting class and report the intentions of the child to hunt down their victim to fight, admin deletes the write up and says the child was with them the entire time and should not have been written up for cutting. This gives the students cutting class tacit permission to continue to cut class day after day to continue to stalk and taunt their targeted victim until they get to fight that poor child.

Then we have the roving groups of students who somehow are cutting classes all day long every single day to roam the hallways screaming, yelling, making animal noises, tapping on classroom windows to wave at students in classes, or opening doors to walk in disrupt instruction and then leave. No learning can happen during these times, as the students inside the classroom encourage the behavior to get out of having to do any work. Admin then comes down the hallway adding to the noise and disruption screaming, “Come on, let’s go. Let’s get to class!” over and over until these students are corralled into a classroom. 

Lest we forget, there is the small matter of students who are actively disrupting instruction, preventing any learning from occurring within the classrooms. These students who habitually violate the student code of conduct, are somehow now the sole responsibility of the classroom teacher to assign consequences to. Though we have done our due diligence, contacting parents, requesting in person conferences, changing the students’ seats, writing the students up, etc. If we have not held the student for after school teacher detention on our own time for free, admin will not issue building level or district ordained consequences. Teachers are being told that we have to discipline the students before building admin will. In essence, students will not be issued an after-school detention if a teacher did not hold a student for teacher detention.

Now we are also being told by building admin that we must issue teacher detentions, either lunch or after school, for students who violate the district dress code and district cell phone policies. We are in essence being punished for enforcing the district’s rules, not rules we set and have control over, but the Board of Education’s rules that only they have control over. Teachers who comply with this edict and give lunch detentions are then verbally reprimanded for missing their mandatory PLC meetings because the PLC is scheduled when the students are at lunch. Yet again, the building admin will not issue building level consequences if a teacher did not hold the student for teacher detention.

Lastly, administrators are ignoring students throwing punches at each other to focus on stopping students wearing hoodies to badger them into removing the hoodies. They are also ignoring students actively cutting class to disrupt instruction in the whole building to send security to hunt down students who ripped up posters or student work hung on classroom doors and bulletin boards through out the building. Sending the message that violent and disruptive behavior is acceptable and ripping paper or wearing a hoodie is not. Let me repeat that last sentiment, they were issuing ISD and OSS to students for ripping up posters or wearing a hoodie, while ignoring students 4 ft away punching each other or kicking classroom doors. Let that sink in. No wonder we have students physically attacking teachers in our building, they know that there will be no real consequences. 

Shull School is in extreme crisis. Something needs to be done immediately to address the situation and the new 21-minute module schedule is a huge reason why things have gotten drastically worse. Having students transitioning every 21 minutes creates more problems than it solves. Splitting grade levels into two separate lunches so that there are 8 different lunch periods throughout the day makes it impossible for teachers on the first floor of the building to even teach, as the noise level in the hallway prevents any learning from happening.

Warm regards,

Frances Cafferty

2021 Governor’s Educator of the Year for Shull Middle School

Grade 6 Mathematics Teacher

AVID 6 Elective Teacher

Shull Middle School AVID Site Coordinator