🚨 ARE YOU SITTING DOWN???
Newark Public Schools just gave a $700,000 taxpayer-funded contract to a celebrity mortician to provide...
wait for it...
HOTEL, RESTAURANT, TOURISM, and EVENT-MANAGEMENT BUSINESS LEADERSHIP TRAINING to students AND teachers.
A $700K taxpayer-funded contract. To a mortician. To teach kids and teachers about hotels, restaurants & tourism. Her publicly listed degrees are in mortuary science, divinity and pastoral counseling. No hotel management, no restaurant management, no tourism.
@NJSpotlightNews reported that neither she nor NPS would answer questions about relevant credentials, how she got on its radar, or just about anything.
You'll love this part- the name of this program? "Developing Next-Level Awareness." For $700K. $2,500 for three hours with 25 students. Teacher training is $2,500 for a half day & $4,500 for a full day.
Oh, believe you me, the public already has "Next-Level Awareness". We don't need to pay $700K to know we're getting taken to the cleaners.
I'll give
@njassemblydems my own "Next-Level Awareness": Come at us one more time with "WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?" while bleeding schools in the Highlands and Pinelands dry and enabling this absolute sham. YOU ARE ENABLING THIS.
I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, or Martian. When are YOU going to stop throwing OUR money at complete and utter bullshit and enabling Superintendent Surf & Turf??? Is there any end to the gaslighting & excuses thrown at us while the Majority chastises everyone else about funding education???
THIS is why the rest of us want to vomit. Honolulu on the taxpayer dime. Open bars, parties. Missing federal funds. No-bid contracts. Obscene, inflated school building deals benefitting political donors. Excuse after excuse after excuse while taxpayers are told we just need to spend MORE!!! NO. NO. NO.
Here's more NEXT-LEVEL AWARENESS:
@NewJerseyDOE confirms this $700k program is NOT a state-approved CTE pathway, does NOT lead to an industry-recognized credential & does NOT qualify as a pathway to a high-skill, high-wage or in-demand occupation. The punchline: NEWARK VOCATIONAL ALREADY HAS A HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM PROGRAM covering event planning, leadership AND industry soft skills.
Even More NEXT-LEVEL AWARENESS: at Newark Vocational, fewer than 10% of students were proficient in math & 40% were proficient in reading. Why are they blowing $700k on anything other than academic support??? Newark Public Schools has a $1.67 BILLION budget, more than 80% funded by taxpayers ACROSS THE ENTIRE STATE.
THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. Maybe it is. I don't know yet. I do know it's disgusting and unethical as hell.
#dirtyjersey
READ MORE:
njspotlightnews.org/2026/08/…
@NJAssemblyGOP @NJSenateGOP @NJSenDems @NJSpotlightNews @DomShow1210 @wakeupnj @NJGOP @SaveJersey @njedreport