The New Jersey Children's Foundation (NJCF) has launched My Schools Newark, a new online research tool and mobile-friendly service-oriented website created to provide parents with a centralized resource for needed information on every school in New Jersey.
Kyle Rosenkrans, Executive Director of the New Jersey Children's Foundation, spoke with WBGO Journal host and News Director Doug Doyle about the digital research tool and one-stop shop.
"Even through the pandemic, Newark is a growing city. We've added over 10-thousand students in the public school system over the last decade. We've added more school choices. Seven new district schools, five expanded district schools, and then about a dozen new charter schools, just in the four years that my foundation has existed. What's needed here is better information for families to sort of navigate the menu of options that are available to them and that are a true asset to this great city. We wanted to simply that process, enhance the process for families so that when they are ready to select a school that works best for their child, they have the best possible information at their fingertips."
Rosenkrans says the platform is the result of extensive Newark-based focus groups and parent engagement, and has been in a public beta phase, available to Newarkers, throughout the development of the site since December.
"Well it's a great tool. It allows you much like you would if you were using Zillow to search for a home. It allows you to select by neighborhood, what the school options are available to your child by grade level and by age of your student which school options are available, not to mention extracurricular programs, special education programs, school uniform information. Then, most importantly, there are many different application processes for every school in Newark. So what this does is simplify the process for a family if they like a school and would like to apply to it, it provides a link to a website where they can apply to that school, as well as phone numbers and other contact information they may need to complete an application. It aims to sort of route people towards the proper application procedures they need to select the school they want. In this area, there was no tool that existed anywhere, on the web or in paper form, that had the information on all 185 preschool, private district, parochial, charter schools that exist if you are a parent located in Newark. This is filling a much needed gap in the information to parents."
The My Schools Newark platform is free of charge to all users and will continue to incorporate parent and community feedback.
You can SEE the entire interview with Kyle Rosenkrans here.
