Some High School North parents mentioned to me that the February American Math Competition exam was offered at High School South but not at High School North. North students were not allowed to take the exam at South and had to go to a community college 40 minutes away. To make things worse, this year’s exam took place on the day of lockdown, February 5. Parents were waiting to pick up their kids while High School North was in lockdown.
I believe all resources should be shared within the district. I propose that programs be organized at the district level.
The district has made some progress on this issue. Dr. Alyce Doehner used to teach sixth and eighth grades at Grover Middle School, while Mr. Craig Frame taught the same grades at Community Middle School. For the 2012-’13 school year the district made a switch so that Dr. Doehner taught sixth grade at both Community and Grover, and Mr. Frame teaches eighth grade at both schools.
Dr. Doehner trained 40 mathletes from both schools for MathCounts in one room. Her students swept the regional competition at MCCC recently and were featured in the News (February 15). Mr. Frame trained mathletes, both students and parents, from the whole district. He tried to arrange a Rubik’s Cube competition on the HSN football field with more than 700 participants to break the Guinness World record.
Whether or not WW-P’s schools compete with each other, programs should be planned at the district level, and resources should be shared. It’s cost-effective and makes parents happy. The above two success stories show the result of shared resources. United we stand. The winner is our beloved WW-P district.
The school district has a long history of shared services. After Plainsboro Township was founded on May 6, 1919, Plainsboro K-8 students attended Plainsboro schools, including Wickoff. For grades 9 to 12, students moved on to Princeton High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Princeton Public Schools. This relationship still stands for the Cranbury and Princeton school districts. In the late 1960s, both West Windsor and Plainsboro experienced rapid growth with the approval of several housing development projects. A large number of people moved to Plainsboro, and school enrollment multiplied.
At that turning point, with the shared resources in mind, the boards of education of the two townships consolidated to become the WW-P Regional School District. It was an innovative idea, as the two townships are in different counties. The result is an equal partnership, not a sending/receiving relationship. WW-P High School South was subsequently built. High schoolers graders would then attend High School South instead of Princeton High School. In the past 30 years, as the both townships kept expanding, more schools were built: Maurice Hawk, High School North, Community, Millstone, Grover, Village, and Town Center.
And what a great united school district we have: WW-P is one of the top-achieving districts in New Jersey. The high schools hold first to fifth places in many of the state’s contests. High School South ranks 11th in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in the nation. Every year, WW-P students win top state and even national honors in competitions in math, science, history, writing, and Model UN.
If we continue to share resources, the WW-P district’s best days are yet to come.
Yu “Taylor” Zhong
Plainsboro
The writer is a candidate for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education.
Postscript: Some readers might quote last September’s New Jersey Monthly and argue that WW-P’s ranking slipped recently. The issue was discussed at Board of Education meetings. WW-P’s academic metrics are comparable with those of other top-ranking districts. The reason for the slip was that the WW-P district has a lower teacher/ student ratio. This is actually good for taxpayers, as the lower ratio saves tax money.
