Nyack Students Call For Keeping Campus Open

A group of Nyack High School students spoke out at Tuesday night’s Nyack Board of Education meeting on the school’s open campus policy, which may be eliminated.

The current policy allows seniors and juniors to walk off campus during a lunch period, or when they have a cafe option throughout the year, with parental permission. Freshmen don’t have open campus and sophomores are allowed to leave campus with parental permission after the first quarter.

The board is looking into eliminating open campus for all students for next school year. Tuesday night they held a third reading of the policy, but didn’t vote on the issue.

At the meeting, James Giraldez, junior class president, and Hunter Andrasko, freshman class president, presented the board with a petition with over 400 signatures asking the board to leave open campus intact.

“Demonstrated by all the signatures, we feel the students understand the responsibility,” Giraldez said. “We just want an open dialogue with the board to see what concessions can be made, what compromises can be made and where we can work from here.”

The petition said the students feel the best chance for success comes from communication and a respectful partnership between the board, faculty and students. It asked the board to work with students on the issue.

Additionally, 11 students attended the meeting, and while Giraldez and Andrasko spoke, all stood in solidarity in the back of the room.

“The students that are here tonight are here to show that we believe we are mature enough to handle the responsibility that comes with an open campus,” Andrasko said. “We, the students of Nyack High School, believe that we can show and demonstrate these responsibilities that have to be shown.”

Many board members praised the students for coming to the board to plead their case and doing so in an eloquent manner. The board’s student representative, Nyack High School senior Alex Panov, said she thinks the students’ presentation shows why the board should consider working with them on keeping an open campus.

“Seeing the kids write out a petition and work in the past few days to present that to you with over 400 signatures — seniors didn’t do a petition because we’re seniors and we’re graduating — but the juniors, the freshmen and the sophomores put this together and 400 signatures is the majority of those three grades,” she said. “Each grade has just about 200 kids. That’s most of the kids, that’s more than 50 percent of the kids. So I think that a lot of these kids are really open to taking responsibility into their hands.”

Panov also spoke about her personal experience with leaving campus during lunch. She said that since students aren’t allowed to drive off campus, most only go to a nearby deli because there’s not enough time to go anywhere else. She said the first time she went off campus to go to the deli, she didn’t realize how quickly the period would pass, and had to hurry back to school so as to not be late for her next class. Panov added that most of the students just want to be able to run and get a quick bite to eat.

“We don’t have kids sneaking over the fence. Kids are too lazy,” she said. “They just want to go get a sandwich.”

Panov also spoke about a meeting some students at the high school had last week with Superintendent Dr. James Montesano to discuss the issue.

Board President Claudette Jimerson said she spoke to Nyack High School Principal Nicole Saieva and asked her opinion on the matter. Jimerson said Saieva thinks the campus should be closed.

“I strongly respect the administration, Nicole Saieva as well as the other administrators there,” Jimerson said. “I understand, having taught in the high school, why they came to that decision. I personally don’t think asking students to stay in the building from 7 [a.m.] until 2 [p.m.] is asking too much. I think that there’s a lot of learning that can happen during the day. I feel that the safety of children is utmost importance to all of us.”

Other board members also said they think campus should be closed and that it’s at least partly a safety issue.

“I think the world has changed. I think we have an obligation to do our best to protect our students and know where they are,” said board member Leeann Irvin. “Parents are often times working and are counting on us, that is the administration and teachers, to protect the kids.”

Not all board members were completely opposed to an open campus, though. Dan Juechter and Michael Mark both said they think at least seniors should be able to leave campus during the day.

“I do feel strongly that young men and women who are 17 and sometimes 18 years of age in the high school should be given that responsibility that they can determine whether or no they can go off campus or not,” Juechter said. “I still feel that way. I’d like to see some kind of discussion around allowing the seniors to be able to go off campus during the day. Again, I am negotiable on the issue of juniors.”