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superintendent of the Pinelands Regional School District, Dr. Melissa McCooley, who has been an increasingly controversial figure over the past year, resign, among other school administrators responsible for its implementation.

School officials, who initially defended the controversial program, by mid-week, during a Pinelands Regional Board of Education meeting, appeared open to tweaking it, after some members of the board questioned elements of it themselves, and revealed that an “appeal process” had since been established with nearly six dozen “appeals” already granted.

The controversy, which has generated the most public condemnation of school officials since the high school roofing and asbestos debacle of 2017, erupted last Friday morning when school staff, as part of the new incentive program called “Pinelands P.R.I.D.E.,” reportedly handed pupils new student identification cards with either gold, green or white stickers on them, or none at all, while at the same time, an announcement from school officials was distributed to parents, proclaiming, “today, we were excited to distribute student IDs to the students, as well as roll out our Pinelands P.R.I.D.E. incentive program.”

Those sticker colors, according to a chart that was apparently disseminated and later obtained by this newspaper, signify the “program tier” a student has achieved in the marking period, based on a combination of their grade point average, attendance rate and disciplinary record. Students who did not receive a sticker are assumed to have not fallen into any of the three possible tiers, given that none is mentioned for those who maintain a marking period grade point average of less than a “C,” or have poorer attendance and disciplinary records than the criteria for the lowest established tier.

Initially, according to countless parent and student postings in online public forums, the pupils had been advised by their teachers that the student IDs had to be worn, but school officials, following the public rebuke, reportedly claimed it was only “optional,” as well as program participation.

But the damage, it appeared, had already been done by the time school officials spoke out, with many students learning the otherwise confidential details of their peers in the interim.

“Why would they want to publicly shame any students who are not doing so good in school?” one social media commenter asked. “Another way for society to keep us apart and put us in groups.”

Another individual called the program “totally absurd,” asking, “Why are they labeling the kids?”

“Life is stressful enough!” that person added, with another declaring, “I swear Pinelands continues to move backwards… segregating and labeling are ridiculous.”

Also contributing to the outrage is that based on the chart, students who achieve the highest tier of “gold” are afforded “rewards” that include exclusive privileges, including “preferred lunch seating” in a “picnic area” at the high school, as well as unlimited access to an “end of year trip,” with students who fall in the highest tier and second-highest tier, silver, also provided with exclusive “discounts” on merchandise and food at “local businesses.”

“So, whose brilliant idea in this joke of a school was it to create a class system for everyone to see?” wrote one person in a social media group. “The students now have to wear a color that puts them into a certain class and gives them privileges based on the color they have.”

That post alone, shared throughout the community, generated over 220 comments in reply, as of press time, mostly critical of the program, including that “this is really discriminatory”, “this is stigmatizing students”, “this is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of”, “this is bonkers”, “this is beyond insane”, “this is so sad on every level”, “this is so wrong on so many levels – Hitler marked the Jews too”, as well as the program is “advancing segregation.”

Some of the most pointed comments included, “You can reward the kids who are doing well without humiliating the kids who aren’t – this is bulls*** – period,” and, “I’m not having my kids be branded – excuse my language, but f*** that.”

“Instead of race, this is how they are segregating kids from the smart and good kids to the not so smart and bad kids?” another commenter asked. “What happened to ‘every kid is the same and treated equally?’ I can tell you if I was still in school, this would make me not want to go!”

The question was also asked of school officials on social media, “Did they ever read ‘The Scarlet Letter?’” (As Google aptly summarized, a ‘scarlet letter’ is an identifying mark or brand placed on someone who has committed adultery, with an example of a scarlet letter the Puritan woman referenced in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s renowned 1850 book ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ who cheated on her husband and had to wear a red A.)

“No child who is struggling should have to wear something that tells their peers that!” declared another commenter. “I am 100 percent against this – all should have the same color. So very wrong!”

One woman, who called the program “unbelievably inappropriate,” asked how the current school officials can now “ever speak about inclusivity” again “as they segregate students” through the unveiled program, before posing another question, “Have we learned nothing from history?”

Another man quipped, in reply, “Maybe they didn’t teach in history about how segregation happens.”

“I can’t wrap my mind around having a program like this ever,” the woman who posed the question about what was learned from our history maintained, in tagging Susan Ernst, a longtime and well-respected educator in the district, who served as a past president of the Pinelands Regional Board of Education and has recently been critical of the superintendent, despite playing a major role in bringing her to the district during her board tenure in 2018. “However, to start a program based on attendance and grades during a global pandemic when children are struggling both academically and mentally is deplorable.”

Ernst’s initial public reaction was to declare that the woman was “absolutely correct,” but the former school board president went even further, writing, “my first thought was, ‘Are you f***ing kidding me?’”

Ernst, who noted she was a bit of “rebel” when she had attended school, asserted that she would probably have “led the charge to rip off the sticker and replace it with a smiley face.”

“There is this huge push for being inclusive … and this is what they do?” asked Ernst in disbelief.

In another post, in which a parent posted a photograph of the chart containing the different program tiers, a commenter declared, “It’s an act of segregation and it will create bullying that the incompetent administration will ignore – demand the resignation of all administration.”

In order to have received a gold sticker, or be classified in the “gold tier” for the marking period, a student is required to have an “A” average and 98 percent attendance rate for the marking period, and must be free from any “discipline points.”

Those who maintain a “B” average or higher and a 95 percent attendance rate for the marking period, as well as are free from any “discipline points” are eligible for a green sticker, or are classified in the “green tier” for the marking period.

And those who maintain a “C” average or higher and a 90 percent attendance rate for the marking period, and have no more than two discipline points for the marking period, are eligible for a white sticker, classified in the “white tier” for the marking period.

Photo Provided

A chart showing the different tiers of the controversial incentive program and the privileges afforded to the students who make it into one of the tiers for the marking period.

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