A week ago NJ Education Report related the disaster that is Asbury Park’s Allied Health Academy: Asbury Park High Schools students, who had been toiling since ninth-grade in order to graduate with a  NHA Patient Care Technician License, found out their efforts were for naught because their beloved teacher, Sara Gogan, had left and the district hadn’t bothered to replace her. In fact, they hadn’t had a teacher since December 1st. This week a local publication called the Asbury Park Reporter added some more detail, as well as an interview (see below) with affected students and their parents who spoke out at the subsequent School Board meeting about their feelings of loss, anger, and betrayal. Superintendent Rashawn Adams and principal Bridget O’Neill blame it all on Gogan but these students know better.

One who knows better is Sara Martinez-Hernandez, who happens to be the Student Representative to the Board of Education. Yet Adams and the board told her not to speak at the Board meeting and at one point escorted her out of the room.

She returned, defied their edict, and said this:

“I was told not to speak tonight, but I think that it would be right that I do. Because the things that I bring up are some things that need to be heard by not just one person but everyone in this room, because all of you have the ability to change the things that are happening in our school. ” She explained that it’s not only the Allied Health Program that has lost an instructor and supervisor, but the Dream Academy and the Law Enforcement programs are also understaffed. Students who have previously taken the courses are upset. “Many of these students have worked for years to obtain certifications and skill sets that will impact them for the rest of their lives and now they are sitting doing nothing,” she explained.

A teacher, Sean Hamilton “expressed outrage” that Adams tried to silence Sara Martinez-Hernandez, even removing the chair she sits on at the Board table: “I commend her bravery, and I commend the young men and women over here for the Allied Health Program. If you want to know why the Allied Health program was canceled and dissolved, it’s not a financial thing, ask Ms. Gogan why she quit. Check out Neptune. Neptune is starting the program up there, so go to the source. Ask her why she quit and then make a decision on what we did to the program.”

While Adams insists the district is looking for a teacher,  students “expressed fear for their future.”

“I am very frustrated and disappointed in this decision, especially since we were reassured that we would receive a new teacher since December 1st,” said Tiviana Kenney. “This amazing program was started years ago by a wonderful lady, Miss Gogan. She had a whole plan for us. She believed in us.”

“My peers and I deserve to finish what we started,” said Dianellis Perez.

The Board took a short break right after Adams “gave a stern lecture decrying the lack of decorum on the part of the public.” The students and their parents stood in the hallway and Adams walked over.

The students, visibly upset, asked the Superintendent, ‘Don’t you care?’ A parent, Nyakasia Height asked, ‘What are they supposed to do until they get a new teacher?’ Neither question was answered by the Superintendent, which further angered the students, Ms. Height, and onlookers. The program participants were upset at the loss of Ms. Gogan and, the fact that for the first time, they missed an opportunity to take a critical certification test on January 10th, which had never happened during Gogan’s tenure.

Here is the interview in the hallway with students and parents: