Jersey City Public Schools – Transparency & Communication

Jersey City Public Schools Staffing Shortage: A data-driven view from Board Docs

November 7, 2021July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

Jersey City is experiencing a staffing shortage in its public schools. While this is part of a nationwide trend, local attention and solutions are needed particularly as we experience our first fully funded budget in over a decade. In this post, I am sharing data I compiled in later October from JCPS “Public Board Docs.” I...

Improving accountability and transparency for Jersey City Public Schools

September 25, 2021July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

In 2021 Jersey City Public Schools fully funded its schools for the first time in over a decade. Reasonable questions now follow related to transparency and accountability, including: How do we hold the district administration and school board accountable for full investment in our kids? I’m part of a team with Jersey City Together...

Jersey City’s 2017 School Based Budgets: Learn what’s being funded in your school

April 15, 2019July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

This bubble chart shows 2017 actual spending within Jersey City's public schools, as reported by the 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ("CAFR"); 2017 is the most recent year available for this report. The CAFR is an annual report detailing both qualitative and quantitative information about the district. It is prepared by the district, approved...

Taxpayer Guide to Education Spending – Total Spending Per Pupil (#OpenData Visualization)

February 5, 2019July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

An explanation of “Total Spending per Pupil”, from the NJ Department of Education: “The Taxpayers’ Guide to Education Spending (Taxpayers’ Guide) provides the public the opportunity to view and compare all dollars spent on students enrolled in the public school system. In 2010-11, the Department updated this publication (previously the “Comparative Spending Guide”) to...

NJ School Funding Basics: NJ Department of Education Data & Reports

January 4, 2019July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

This is a quick initial post to point taxpayers to an excellent resource for rich, official public data about our public schools here in NJ. The NJ Department of Education (NJ DOE) has, for at least the past 10 years, published a host of different datasets on its “DOE Data & Reports” page. The...

Jersey City & NJ: Student Group Data from NJ School Performance Reports (A Focus on ELL, At-Risk, and Special Education Students)

October 6, 2018July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

The NJ Department of Education publishes annual data relating to certain “student groups”, per school. The table below focuses on three groups that, per state funding law, are entitled to more funding based on the level of need. These groups are: At-risk students, defined as lower income students who qualify for free or reduced...

NJ Special Education Statistics | #DataViz #OpenData

September 22, 2018July 15, 2022Brigid D'Souza

In this post I’m sharing statewide special education data, with ability to drill into Jersey City special education data specifically, for both Jersey City Public Schools (the public school system) and charter schools attended by Jersey City students. I am sharing the statewide data because it’s informing to see the varying degrees of special...