New Jersey
'It was horrible': Frustrations mount over bus issues as school starts in Deptford Twp.
DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (WPVI) — It was the first day of classes for students in Deptford Township, New Jersey.
This was supposed to be the day the district had its busing issues sorted out, but frustrated parents say they still need answers.
“It was horrible, devastating,” said Melissa Alloway whose son goes to school in the Deptford Township School District.
She said it took more than an hour and a half for their 3-year-old son to be dropped off home from Central Early Childhood Center.
Deptford Twp. parents frustrated over missing, changing bus info ahead of first day of school
“Stressful – waiting for him,” said Daniel Alloway who is his father. “Not knowing where he’s at and no one is answering the phone.”
“You’re supposed to protect our children. They’re our children and we give them to you,” said Melissa.
The Alloways also said the bus did not pick up their son as scheduled on Thursday morning for the first day of school.
Jessica Maciolek had the same problem for her son in high school. In fact, she said this is the fourth year in a row the bus did not come on the first day.
“Disgruntled. Upset,” said Maciolek. “I worry for my child’s safety every single day when he goes to school. I don’t know if he’s going to get there safely. I don’t know if he’s even going to get picked up.”
This all comes after the district said in August it would eliminate free busing for students who live within a certain distance from their school. But the district rescinded the plan due to backlash from parents and local leaders.
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Now parents urge school leaders to make changes.
“They need better communication. That’s my problem,” said Daniel.
“Maybe give us a tracking app, so we can tell if our bus is going to be on time,” said Maciolek. “Something that is going to provide us safe knowledge that our kids are getting to and from school okay.”
The school district’s communications coordinator said in a statement: “The staff at each of our schools did a fantastic job at both arrival and dismissal gathering as much information as they can about what specific problems need to be addressed. The details they collected have been shared with our transportation department. All the feedback received today from parents and staff will be a huge help in improving transportation accuracy and timing moving forward.”
The district said it’s working to rectify issues from previous department supervision.
“He got home safe,” said Daniel. “That’s all that really matters, but they need to work on things.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Maciolek. “They need to do better for our kids. That’s it.”
The school district also advises parents to check the portal every day after 5:30 a.m. to get the latest bus updates and to email them with any issues: schoolbus@deptfordschools.org.
The Deptford mayor said Thursday’s busing problems were unacceptable, and his team met during the afternoon to figure out the next best steps to make sure students are getting to and from school safely.
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“This sucks. There is no other way to explain it. I joined a club. A club that shouldn’t exist. The worst club that a parent could ever be a part of. The club where I have to bury my child,” Mike Shevlin said on Facebook after his 3-year old son tragically died after drowning in the family pool.
The devastating death of Elijah Shevlin in Washington Township has rocked the community. On June 27, Elijah was found unresponsive by his parents in the family pool. He died on July 3.
According to Mike Shevlin’s page, the father started compressions immediately after finding his son face down and motionless in the pool.
First responders arrived quickly, and Elijah was transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. His brain had swollen to the point that nothing could be done to save his life.
Elijah’s mother, Sandra Shevlin, posted on Facebook, describing her son as an angel.
“I’m forever broken. I love you with all my heart, my sweet angel boy. You were too good for this earth,” she said.
Elijah is survived by his parents and his two siblings, his twin Ella and 6-year-old Mickey. The family decided on organ donation.
“Somewhere in this country, a phone is about to ring. On one end of the phone is a doctor. And on the other end is a parent who’s going to hear that an organ is waiting to save their child,” Mike said on Facebook. “And knowing that a few other Dads out there never have to feel the pain I feel can bring me some closure.”
Peter Del Borrello III, Washington Township Council president, sent out a statement to the community calling for strength and support for the family.
“Together, let us wrap out arms around them and remind them that an entire community stands beside them. This is our opportunity to show Mike, Sandi, Ella, and Mickey that they have an entire town behind them – not just today, but in the difficult days, weeks, and months ahead.”
Elijah’s parents have spent their lives dedicated to the Washington Township community. Mike Shevlin is a veteran and police officer for the Camden County Police Department. Sandi Shevlin is a first-grade elementary school teacher.
Elijah’s family has opened a GoFundMe to support the family during these difficult times and has raised over $65,000 in donations.
Community members have also organized a lemonade and baked goods stand, with all proceeds going to the family. The stand will be open on July 5 from 1 to 4 p.m. at 30 Longwood Drive in Sicklerville.
Mia Boykin is an education/watchdog reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: mboykin@gannettnj.com. Please consider a digital subscription.
6-minute read
NJ has had an image problem for 250 years. We love it anyway
New Jersey has always had an image problem. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches. But the punchlines remain.
New Jersey has always had an image problem.
The state was central to the nation’s founding. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches, suburbs and farms. And yet, for outsiders, the punchlines often ring loudest.
The malls. The Turnpike. “What exit are you from?”
We know the jokes. The big hair, the attitudes and property taxes.
And yet we defend the Garden State.
“I can talk about my state, but you can’t,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.
Its 2015 poll found more than 75% of New Jerseyans took pride in the state, even as 57% said New Jersey had a negative image.
Story continues below photo gallery
Residents polled most often pointed to location, convenience and overall quality of life as reasons New Jersey is a good place to live.
We have a complicated relationship with our state. We’re not blind to its problems, like the cost of living. But we also see its quality of life.
“New Jerseyans have such a wealth of pride,” Koning said. “We’re not afraid to say what we think is wrong with the state and say where we want to see the state improve — but I think we’re also the first ones to defend our state.”
That pride comes with an edge. Jokes about “The Sopranos” still land, but New Jerseyans get the last laugh.
“New Jersey is often a butt of jokes across the country, but I think the real joke is that people don’t get to experience the beauty that is New Jersey,” Koning said. “And I feel like New Jerseyans know that very well.”
That tension may be the best way to understand the state as America approaches its 250th anniversary of independence.
Would Founding Fathers recognize today’s New Jersey?
Would a New Jerseyan from 1776 recognize this place?
“In terms of technology, airplanes, cars, obviously there’s just so much that would be different,” said Maxine Lurie, professor emerita of history at Seton Hall University and chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission.
In the 18th century, a letter crossing the Atlantic could take months.
A person in 1776 might have thought of themselves as a New Jerseyan, but not in the modern sense. They were part of the New Jersey colony, and British subjects.
Local identity was common in the colonies, said Melissa Kozlowski, director of curatorial affairs at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University and director of public history.
“All of the colonies had a very unique identity in the colonial era,” Kozlowski said. “They didn’t feel as if they were one country. That’s why the revolution was such an audacious concept.”
For New Jersey, that local-first identity shows up everywhere today.
The state is built from smaller identities: towns, counties, regions. Whether someone faces New York or Philadelphia affects whether they say Taylor ham or pork roll and what they mean when they say “the city.”
North Jersey vs. South Jersey? Try East Jersey vs. West
That sets up a familiar debate: North Jersey versus South Jersey.
Long before North and South became the dividing line, there was East Jersey and West Jersey.
They were separate colonies before uniting in 1702. The dividing line ran diagonally across the state. People in West Jersey were closer to what we call South Jersey and looked toward Philadelphia. They read Philadelphia newspapers and had business and family connections in Pennsylvania. People in East Jersey looked toward New York.
“So as we look for television stations or for sports teams, we look in those two different directions. In a sense, they did then too,” Lurie said.
Being caught in the shadows of New York and Philadelphia can be a source of pride and irritation at the same time.
“We are caught between two of the most well-known cities in the world,” Koning said.
Rutgers-Eagleton’s polling grew partly out of that problem.
“The Rutgers-Eagleton Poll was meant to bring a voice to the people of New Jersey,” Koning said. “New Jersey feels this identity crisis that that voice often will get lost.”
Central Jersey? For real?
And what about Central Jersey? To northerners and southerners, its very existence is up for debate.
“As a Central Jersey girl, it definitely does exist,” said Koning, who grew up in the region.
Central Jersey generally includes places around Somerset, Middlesex and Mercer counties, with New Brunswick as a kind of middle point, she said. The area has “a little bit of everything,” while also sharing pieces of North Jersey, South Jersey and the Shore.
Identity crisis is nothing new for the Garden State. That nickname, by the way, is credited to Abraham Browning, who coined it in 1876, according to the state library. Browning had been the state attorney general from 1845 to 1850.
During the Revolution, New Jersey produced food both armies needed, and its position between two great cities made it attractive to the British, who — if they could have controlled it — would have divided the colonies, north and south.
They overran the state, but they couldn’t hold it, Lurie said.
British forces held New York for much of the war and they held Philadelphia for about a year. They held New Brunswick for seven months. But the state remained contested thanks to the toughness of New Jerseyans.
600 NJ battles and skirmishes during Revolution
Anytime British and Hessian forces moved into New Jersey, local militias attacked them as they searched for food.
“They couldn’t hold on to it because they were just being picked off,” Lurie said.
There were more than 600 battles and skirmishes in New Jersey during the Revolution, Lurie said. “I’ve always told my students you would not want to have lived here during the Revolution.”
For everyday people, the Revolution was not only about ideals. It was about danger, inflation, raids and not knowing who might appear at the door.
“It affected almost everybody, everywhere in one way or another,” Lurie said.
Well before the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey was already defined by movement. The roads were rougher, but rivers like the Raritan and Passaic helped move goods to hubs like New Brunswick and Newark.
By the 1830s, the Morris Canal helped moved goods east and west across the state between the Delaware River and New York Harbor — an early, watery version of Route 80.
The speed has changed since then. But the state’s role is familiar.
“We are a transitory state,” Koning said.
From taverns to roadside diners
Constant movement helps explain another piece of the identity. A New Jerseyan from 1776 wouldn’t know what to make of a modern roadside diner with its chrome and disco fries. But a roadside stop where people eat and talk would make sense.
“Taverns were really important because that’s where they got news, that’s where they talked to each other,” Lurie said.
Story continues below photo gallery
In a largely agricultural colony with few large buildings, taverns and churches served as gathering places. Elizabethtown, now Elizabeth, was the largest town in the colony, said Lurie. It had about 350 houses.
New Jerseyans still need places to sit and argue about what’s going on. While Lurie thinks the modern idea of an in-your-face New Jersey personality may be more of a 20th-century idea tied to media, Koning sees pushback as part of the culture.
New Jerseyans are fierce defenders of the state because it’s often underestimated.
“Our importance is so undervalued and so understated,” Koning said.
She pointed to New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, invention and entertainment as examples of how much the state has contributed.
New Jersey has produced some of the country’s most famous entertainers. But no single one of them can represent such a diverse state. Bruce Springsteen stands for working class culture. Jon Bon Jovi gives another impression and so did Frank Sinatra.
“You can say Bruce signifies and is emblematic of the hard-working lives within New Jersey and that working culture,” Koning said. “But then at the very same time, in contrast, if we look at Sinatra, this is the smoothness of city-adjacent living and Hoboken.”
No single New Jerseyan
Outsiders may picture “The Sopranos,” “Jersey Shore,” malls and big hair. But New Jersey is too varied to be captured that way, Koning said. “Our uniqueness becomes the stereotype.”
So there’s no single New Jerseyan.
“I think that’s the beauty of our state, much like it’s the beauty of our country and what our country should be about,” Koning said. “The thing that unifies us is our differences bring us together.”
The New Jerseyan of the Revolution would probably flee from the sound of the E Street Band, but they might recognize the geography, the waterways, the pull of the cities and that New Jersey is central to the national story — and still fighting to be seen clearly, and appreciated.
“The historical connections are all around us,” Koning said, “even when we don’t recognize it.”
3-minute read
See video of tall ships in Sandy Hook Bay for America’s 250th birthday
Tall ships anchor in Sandy Hook Bay before joining the Parade of Ships July 4 on the Hudson River in NYC, celebrating America’s 250th birthday.
As the nation celebrates its 250 anniversary, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill welcomed tall ships that will enter New York Harbor for an International Parade of Sail. This fleet of giant sailboats will sail around New York this weekend, including a pass by to salute the Statue of Liberty.
But before departing for New York, Sherrill greated the ships and their captains at Sandy Hook.
As temperatures approached 100 degrees, Sherrill was joined in admiring the flotialla by her husband, Jason Hedberg; Rep. Frank Pallone, the Democrat who represents the 9th Congressional District; and ship captains from 20 different countries.
Sherrill summons New Jersey’s role in the Revolution
Sherrill noted that Sandy Hook played a storied role in America’s fight for independence as it was the spot where then General George Washington’s army drove the British back for the final time.
“It’s this harbor that has been the gateway to America ever since. A beacon for freedom, welcoming immigrants, a channel for commerce, building a strong middle class, a stronghold for the military, defending our nation,” she said. “New Jersey has been the backdrop for it all.
The governor took pride in highlighted the cultural and technological advances that have taken place in the Garden State from the laser to the lightbulb and noted that the eyes of the world are on the state more than ever as the World Cup takes place in East Rutherford.
Sherrill a Navy veteran herself was in awe of the tall ships that came from “places as far away as Italy and India, Peru and Poland, Spain and Sweden” representing an “enduring symbol of friendship and cooperation.”
“It’s a joy to be here to celebrate with all of our allies and friends,” she said. “This week, millions will turn out again for another massive vote parade, united by a shared love of country, pride in our history and hope for the future.”
What did Rep. Frank Pallone say?
Pallone said that viewing the vessels reminded him of the voyages of discovery from centuries ago and how difficult it had to be especially without the navigational tools modern vessels use.
The congressman said that when speaking to the captain of a ship from India he found out they took more than 20 days to get here and that is a sign of the respect America’s allies and friends have for this event.
This isn’t the first time the region has played host to such a spectacle. There were similar sailing parades for the bicentennial in 1976, the centennial for the Statue of Liberty in 1986 and the millennium celebration in 2000.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com
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