More Cease Fire Fundraiser Information

Our PayPal account is set-up and can now receive donations!  You can donate whether you have a PayPal account or not.  If you could fill out the form below following your donation as well it would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you so much for your support and kindness!  You are literally helping to save the lives of many young and innocent people in Paterson and elsewhere.

Here is a recent article in the USA Today for more information about Operation CeaseFire in Chicago, Baltimore, and NY.  Thanks to Paterson's smaller population, there's no reason why we can't produce similar or even better results here if we have the resources to implement the program as we envision.



Other Links:
Cease Fire Paterson Information and History
Cease Fire Chicago
Cease Fire Baltimore Report



Short video on Baltimore's Cease Fire program





If you are interested in purchasing an advertisement for our ad journal, fill out this form below and we will contact to you to again assist in moving forward with your incredible generosity towards our cause.



Here is some information on the church that will be representing Paterson Cease Fire by providing our 501c3 account for donations.  Pastor Salmon has a wonderful presence in our city and has been actively trying to stop the violence himself and with his supporters since 2006.  They can only do so much by themselves though so it's up to the rest of us to ensure we produce a comprehensive city-wide program as a result of this fundraiser.

Cease Fire Paterson Information and History

Cease Fire Paterson: Mission, Core Components, and History:

Advertisement Journal Contract:  

Click into full screen and print if you would like to purchase an advertisement for the event.

New Christian Missionary Baptist Church:

Cease Fire Fundraiser Dinner Dance Details

This is the very proactive, intervention-based anti-violence program that helped inspire this movement.

The program ran out of funding this past year and when that happened, violence increased in the main areas where the program operated. It's a proven model with results that clearly show a reduction in crime wherever it is implemented. It originated in Chicago and has made its way to other states around the country.

I'll be asking for assistance spreading the word about this event soon so I'm just gonna post this now so some info is out there.

I won't be asking for any monetary support from anyone. If you read about the cause, the program, and the effect it can have on our city and then you wish to donate to the cause, it is obviously going to be appreciated by an entire city of people trying to live in peace. But I do not wish to ask for the money in a begging fashion, I only ask that people spread the word about Paterson and contribute if they wish. 

The cause speaks for itself.  This is a chance to give to Paterson without sacrificing much at all.  Even if you do not wish to donate, spreading the word and finding someone else who can donate would mean just as much.

Every day, great people in this country are looking for a great cause to give to, give time, money, support, promotion, etc...  whatever it may be, the fact is, when push comes to shove, we as people feel good when we give to a good cause.

This event presents a great opportunity for anyone to give.  If the cause can be somehow be broadcasted across the nation, the rest will take care of itself.

We will also have the website updated with all the relevant information concerning Cease Fire and its history in Paterson and other cities across the USA. Any questions you have about Cease Fire will be answered hopefully and if not, we will find the answers so that anyone can help our noble cause while having confidence in our reputation.

For now, call the phone numbers on the flyer below for more information on tickets, advertisements, and sponsorship packages. This is going to be one of the most important events of the year for Paterson. If we stop the violence first, we can improve the rest of city in no time.

Thanks to all already for the support and I continue to be grateful for the people and relationships that I have in my life.

All the best to everyone and have a safe and great weekend!

We should have our PayPal account set up early next week for anyone to donate to this wonderful cause.  Stay tuned for more info and for now you can contact the numbers below for more information on advertisement and sponsorship packages.

Paterson, NJ as it Relates to the State of Connecticut: Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor's Commencement Speech

My mother and sister after graduation.  

Over the weekend I had the great pleasure to watch proudly as my little sister graduated with her Bachelors Degree in Math Education from the University of Connecticut.  She will still be attending UCONN for one more year as she completes her five-year program that will award her with a Masters in her field to go along with the Bachelors Degree. 

To brag slightly about my little sis before moving on to the main purpose of this entry, she is a scholar athlete at UCONN that regularly achieved academic honors while playing an integral role on the UCONN Women’s Field Hockey team.  Her team was a national contender every year during her 4 year career as a top point scoring forward and her college career culminated in a trip to the NCAA Final Four where she and her teammates played heroically and inspiring despite a painful defeat before the Championship game.  She will likely move on to motivate more young minds to follow her path of success as she enriches their math skills and teaches them the importance of perseverance and teamwork by coaching them in her sport of choice.  I hope to convince her to join me here in Paterson so we can achieve great things together but I know she will have a great, positive effect on the whatever community is lucky enough to acquire her services in a year.

My sister being introduced on the jumbotron at the University of Louisville for the NCAA Final Four this year

So that’s my sister, Cara Silverman.  I’m a proud brother if it wasn’t obvious.

But the point of this article today is to discuss the challenges facing Connecticut’s Public Education system today and how that relates to what we are doing here in Paterson.

Connecticut Commissioner
of Education
Stefan Pryor

Connecticut’s Neag School of Education chose to have the State Education Commissioner, Stefan Pryor, give the commencement speech at the graduation ceremony.  This was a most pleasant unexpected bonus that I was to be treated to.

Commissioner Pryor, hands down, knows what he is doing.  That became clear to me the moment he began his speech as he started off preaching the very thing I am preaching now about Paterson and America, that working together works. (great minds, right?)

Mr. Pryor began with a flashback to the fateful day of September 11^th, 2001 and how we all came together as a nation and as a world, even if just for a short time.  The point was we had people from all over the planet offering us, the powerful nation in the world, aid and support in our time of crisis and need.  People with less than us…  Giving to us out of kindness and compassion…  That’s the type of culture this website is hoping to foster.

Then the Commissioner moved on to the Tsunami that struck Indonesia and surrounding areas in 2004.  The world support for the tragedy was overwhelming to the tune of over 14 billion dollars in humanitarian aid. 

Hurricane Katrina, despite the missteps taken early on in the crisis, again was another case of people banding together to repair a community following a natural disaster.  New Orleans and other southern areas have been rejuvenated quite admirably in recent years.

The earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Japan represent more cases of people banding together for the common good.

I think you get the point about working together now.  But what exactly does this have to do with Paterson and our mission here?  Here is the Connecticut Educational Reform Proposal for 2012:

Look familiar?  It should.  Focus on Early Childhood Education, focus on low performing schools (Priority Schools as Dr. Evans calls them), expanding working and proven models that we can learn from, removing barriers to success (i.e. socioeconomic factors), developing excellent teachers and administration.  They are missing increased parent engagement and involvement from their main sections but that is located further down in the Additional Reforms section in the Proposal PDF.  The point?  Well this state is taking steps just like we are here in Paterson, to adopt the practices that we know are proven strategies that work in education today.

After hearing him speak just once and subsequently looking up more information as I always do when trying to improve my knowledge of someone or something, I learned that Mr. Pryor has been successful in nearly all the tasks he has been responsible for as a professional.  Reading further, I learned that one of the main sources of information for this proposed reform plan is from gathering information from sources of all kinds, teachers, principals, leading education researchers, best practices, most effective school models, students themselves, etc…  After gathering the information, this plan was developed and now results will be based upon execution.  This is of course, the responsible and logical course of action in education these days.

Like NJ and Paterson in general, Connecticut has a very large achievement gap, in fact, Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in the entire nation.  That means that despite having some of the best performing schools to speak of, they also produce some of the worst performing schools in the country as well.  We can relate to that here in Paterson and NJ. 

But as the Commissioner made clear in his speech to the new graduates ready to embark on their own missions in the field of education, we have the human capacity to work together toward the goal of closing that achievement gap.  He let it be known with zero doubt attached, that we will close that gap and we will do so because we worked together.  Everyone. 

Many will point to Connecticut, or NJ, or Paterson, or anywhere else and begin stating reasons why this won’t work, because of this, or because of that, or that, or that, etc...  That conversation does not fit in the future here because the fact is, those are the conversations that have left us in a state of inaction, static progress, and ultimately, those are the conversations that have failed our innocent youth for so long.

Today, we again turn the conversation toward what is possible and we fortunately already know thanks to this website, Paterson, and the words of Commissioner Stefan Pryor, that we can pretty much do anything if we all band together for the common good.

Here in Paterson, let’s keep working together, keep supporting all the positive things happening around our school district led by our Superintendent Dr. Evans, our school board Commissioners, our Parents, our Teachers, and of course, our Students.  Lets continue showing the governor’s office how we are doing things the right way in Paterson.  We know the strategies we are employing are the ones proven to work according to all the latest educational research, lets stay with those strategies and execute them like we know we can.  By working at it together.

And then lets again show as many communities as possible across the country exactly how to do things the right way in education and more…

Story on the amazing turnaround at School #28 will be up before week's end along with other exciting announcements for Paterson!  Stay tuned and keep spreading the word!

Community Forum on School District Initiatives

Monday night, the 30th of April, Patersonians from across the district gathered with State Appointed Superintendent Dr. Evans to discuss the district-wide initiatives coming up over the next year meant to improve student achievement.

It was a night filled with passion, protest, and praise, but most importantly, it was a night where concerned citizens gathered to have their voices heard so that everyone together might improve the conditions in which our students are learning.  That's a positive thing no matter what way you slice it.

Dr. Evans began the evening with a short presentation on the upcoming initiatives in order to inform the citizens of everything that the administration has been working on over the past few months to prepare for next year.  Things such as school closings, middle/elementary school realignments, teacher and administrator evaluations, gifted and talented programs, magnet schools, and a focus on English Language Learning students are just a few of the subjects focused on for the upcoming initiatives.

Now, from what I can tell, it appeared that many parents simply were not aware of the things to come.  I do know from personal experience that the information has been out there for awhile about many of the things Dr. Evans is trying to implement but I am a bad example to use for communication effectiveness because I actively and excessively seek out the information for myself.  Parents should not have to go through the efforts that I am to know what is going on in their children's schools.  It is clear that somewhere along the lines, something is being lost in translation when communicating these messages to parents district-wide because I know for a fact that the school district is putting the information out there and it is readily accessible.  We can fix this though, the communication tools are out there and we use most of them already.  This is one of the four things that seemed to be recurring themes amongst Patersonians at this community forum.

In addition to complaints about communication, three other issues kept appearing: district-wide parenting, charter schools partnering with the district or leasing district buildings, and lastly, it appears School #28 is becoming a remarkable story of success on the heels of its principal, Mr. Medley.

Let me first address the issue of communication in a positive manner.  Clearly, we have a major bureaucracy within the school district, just as we do at the city level and just like one would find in any business with many sectors.  The question then should seem to focus not on why parents have not been kept in the loop.  The question should be focused on how will we ensure that *every* parent, guardian, etc… stays in the loop and is well aware of everything taking place district-wide.

There is no easy answer but I bet if one were to take a poll district-wide, I would expect to find out that close to over 75% of parents, guardians, and high school aged students in the district, have a Facebook account.  If my thoughts on Facebook have not been clear enough before, let me make it clear right now.  Facebook is a *cost-free* tool that we as a city can use to communicate as effectively as humanly possible.  There is no reason to have people be uninformed when everyone with a smartphone has access to Facebook.

City-wide, politicians are communicating with constituents through Facebook, city officials are using Facebook to report any and all events and services being offered, local news publications are reporting their stories on Facebook to inform.  (Mrs. Nancy Grier, the Director of Neighborhood Assistance, informs citizen about everything going on just as I attempt to do, this is what we need.  See her page and try and keep informed with her updates.)

The point is, every single Patersonian has the ability to gain access to the Internet, whether it be at home, on their phone, at work, etc... Or if those are not an option, at our public libraries.  Every day.    So if we are looking for the solutions to our communication breakdowns, I’m going to go ahead and suggest that we start planning around how to reach as many Patersonians as possible through Facebook and the Internet.  Is that the only tool we have?  Absolutely not but as a young man born in the technology age, I have yet to discover a more effective community-wide communication tool.  So lets use that as a starting point while we continue to plan for ways to reach everyone.  To the School District’s credit, I have been informed that a Facebook page is in the works for the upcoming school year and will be utilized as a form of communication as is being suggested here.

Onto parenting.  This one seems easy, we all know that parenting in the district can be improved.  Plenty of parents do their jobs well and even those parents themselves I’m sure would be open to attending the parenting workshops being offered by the school district.  So lets continue our focus on parental education.  I challenge anyone out there, even the very best of parents, to honestly claim that there is nothing left to learn about parenting.  I doubt I’ll find many takers.  We can always learn more, we can always be better, so why not try and offer as much education to all of our parents as possible?  We’re headed in that direction already so lets continue to offer these services, make sure everyone is aware of what is being offered, and let us do our best to make sure everyone is participating.  When parents are making it a point to proclaim with such passion that parenting is a major problem, and Dr. Evans and the Family and Community Engagement Dept. are already working on improving that very problem, I’d say were headed in the right direction to alleviate these concerns and begin transforming parenting into a district-wide asset.

Next we have the subject of charter schools and their role in Paterson.  There is a lot of fear out there right now about charter schools taking over Paterson Public Schools and the reality is that at this moment in time, the fears seem to be too much to me.  Charters are never going to replace public schools.  As many should know about me from my website, my school essentially is a charter or alternative school in practice.  We have some public and some private funds, and we are privately run, we have our curriculum, our program requirements, a selection process, etc…  And as I have mentioned, our student population consists of students ages 16-24, that never made it through high school for one reason or another.  As of this point in the year, 12 out of 25 students have earned their high school diplomas,  two came to us with their diploma already, the remaining 10 have only a couple sections left to pass to earn their diplomas, and all will earn a PACT and other necessary construction certifications.  Many also are already being placed in jobs, trade schools, and many are prepping to begin college classes as we speak.  I'd love for us to work right alongside the district and all it represents because I can tell you for certain that it would be a positive thing for the city as we'd be able to get even more young people off the streets and back on the right path because my team and I could affect more young people on a daily basis.  We have results with our students and their community service work in addition to their academic and professional work are a testament to that.

What is my point in explaining all this?  Tough to say but I think I just want to make sure that everyone realizes a few things: that not all charter Schools are evil, not all charter schools are here to replace public schools, some are successful and some are not, but the biggest advantage that they do seem to provide is that these schools are simply another option for children and parents to explore if they so wish.  Personal politics aside, the debate about charter schools is similar to other issues being debated in public right now.  Unfortunately, both sides of the debate are so entrenched in their views that all we hear during an argument is noise with little substance and no hope of any solutions or compromises in sight.  The positive spin on that is that there is debate.  Lets start turning the debate to one of merit, case by case, and figure out how our district can work together with regular public schools and the charters that are already operating here with some success.  Lets use the opportunity to learn and implement the best practices being used in all the environments.  Maybe we should have a community forum on this very subject so that all can be as informed as possible on the issue.  That seems reasonable, no?  

Onto the last subject which ended up my favorite of the night, the turnaround at School #28.  Monday night, parent after parent, teacher after teacher, and Patersonian after Patersonian, came up to express to Dr. Evans their wish for School #28 to remain open on account of remarkable leadership from Mr. Medley and the rest of the School #28 staff.

Last year, this was a school I heard nothing but bad things about.  After listening to all the parents and teachers though last night sing the praises of everything that was happening, I am fairly convinced that school is moving in the exact right direction without ever having set foot inside.  City Council President Davis highlighted one major sign of progress when he discussed Mr. Medley’s initiative to have fathers become immersed in their children’s school activities.  Apparently the attendance at these mentoring programs has been overwhelmingly positive and that can only be a good thing for the children in that school.

In all, I gathered that we as a city should take a closer look at the one year transformation happening at School #28 and use it as a model in planning for other priority schools in the district that are struggling.  If it has transformed as much as was claimed Monday night, that would be a remarkable story that we should use to our advantage as a city going forward.  We'll see soon enough about the results from this leadership but I tend to believe in the power of great motivators and if this School #28 story is as powerful as I think it is, I am sure their outcomes will be plenty satisfactory according to high expectations.

I’m going to do my best to track down Mr. Medley as soon as possible so I can report on everything that is working there and we can begin learning from their inspirational story.

Please feel free to respond to anything in this submission as it is only one person’s educated opinion and I love nothing more than to refine and improve my views as I learn from others’ opinions.

Lets keep working together for a better Paterson and we WILL get there.