The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is opening doors to higher education for PHS students through its new dual enrollment program, an initiative aimed at elevating learning while promoting equity among students and giving them a head start in their collegiate journey. 
“We know we have very high quality teachers, we know we have programs that are very, very competitive, even against college level programs,” said PHS Principal Cecilia Birge. “So we think that our students deserve having [the] recognition of taking [a college level program], and not to mention the financial benefits that your enrollment brings along.”
Birge also highlighted the program’s founding principles: a commitment to academic excellence, equity, and financial accessibility. In order to maximize student learning time to uphold educational quality, one distinctive feature that sets this program apart from PHS’s other partnerships, such as those with Mercer County Technical Schools, is its full integration within the PHS campus. Unlike traditional dual enrollment programs, which often require students to leave campus, this program will be entirely housed at PHS, ensuring that students can engage in college-level coursework without compromising their high school experience.
“We really wanted our students to have the full blown PHS experience, not a partial one here and the partial one at another school,” said Birge. “We also want our partners in the dual enrollment program to be really the top notch kind of partners who can bring innovative ideas who share our educational philosophy, [and] so, that’s how we [identified] TCNJ as a partner.”
Students signing up for the dual enrollment program will receive essential information in September, including their TCNJ email address and portal details. Upon completion of the course with a grade of a C or higher, students will receive credits from PHS, three TCNJ credits, equivalent to a full college course, and the TCNJ transcript. To participate, students need to pay a fee of $550 before the start of the program. However, the program provides substantial cost savings for families. 
“As you may or may not know, college-level courses cost about $3,000. So $550 is a significant saving for most of our families at PHS. [Additionally], families will have 529 plans, which is a college savings and investment plan that they can use the money from to pay for this course too,” Birge said. 
In order to facilitate a smooth transition into the two schools’ partnership, PHS will only offer Sociology for the first year of the program alongside the already existing Sociology Accelerated course at PHS. The course will be taught by Elizabeth Taylor, a history teacher at PHS currently teaching AP U.S. History and the present high school-level Sociology Accelerated course.
“The Sociology course actually started out as an AP pilot program. The College Board was considering an AP Sociology course, and Princeton was one of the schools that piloted it, so the class had already been designed as a college level course,” Taylor said. 
However, even after the College Board ultimately made the decision to not include AP Sociology in its course catalog, PHS continued teaching sociology following the same college level curriculum. 
“It always [disappointed me] that students were doing essentially a college level class but not getting the credit they would through an AP class. So as I thought about other schools offering dual enrollment, it seemed perfect for [this course]. Students do the same work they’re doing now, but get college credit at the end, [which] seemed like a perfect fit,” Taylor said. 
When deciding whether the program will be held entirely at PHS, one of the most common considerations is if TCNJ professors will be brought in, or if the courses will be taught by PHS teachers. Birge provides insight into this aspect of the program’s structure, highlighting the importance of the teacher’s role in the process. 
“[This] program is very much a teacher dependent program, meaning that Mrs. Taylor was actually approved by TCNJ to be a qualified instructor to teach at a college level course,” Birge said. 
Students signing up for next year’s courses will have the option between enrolling in a regular Accelerated Sociology class, or enrolling in TCNJ-Sociology as a part of the dual enrollment program. 
“Both sets of students will be placed in the same classroom [during the same period]. Mrs. Taylor would differentiate her teaching so that students who are in the dual enrollment program will receive a bit more instruction, probably have some more teaching, reading, and assignments to be completed to ensure that they meet the criteria at the TCNJ level,” Birge said. 
Additionally, students enrolled in the sociology class will benefit from gaining college credits, providing them with an upper hand when they go to college, given their previous experiences in college style courses. 
“I [had] multiple students who [decided] to pursue sociology in college as undergraduates, and they [had] to start back at Sociology 1 because they [did] not have any credit for it,” said Taylor. “So now, hopefully, most of these students will be able to skip Sociology in college and move on to a more advanced level class.”

PHS and TCNJ collaborate in creating dual enrollment program


   On March 18, 2020, Princeton Public Schools was mandated to close its doors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students logged onto virtual classrooms, using a video call platform that seemingly came out of nowhere: Zoom. Although many initially celebrated the “two weeks off school,” the “vacation” transformed into a quagmire of mask restrictions, endless screens, and a lasting health and educational calamity. Four years after the pandemic first began, PHS has returned to relative normalcy while nonetheless retaining significant changes left by the COVID-19 era, including adjustments in teaching methods, approaches to student well-being, and the overall culture of the school.
   Adapting to the virtual classroom during the pandemic, teachers were pushed to find and create new online resources to maintain student learning quality. The pandemic-induced embracement of digital learning tools allowed for online data collection during science classes and helped simulate in-person instruction. Many of these digital tools, including Formative, Gizmos, Pear Deck, and PHET Simulation, are now integrated into the post-COVID-19 classroom. 
   “I've always wanted to bring technology into my classroom. I think that I took the time [from COVID-19] to put a lot of my direct instruction online, and because I had the time to do that, it means that I lecture less in class and I allow for hands-on activities more in class,” said Chemistry teacher Janine Giammanco. “I think that the engagement in my class has really gone up because it's more student driven and it's more hands-on.” 
    However, not all teachers openly embraced technology even after COVID-19. Although online instruction forced teachers to move their classrooms onto Canvas, after this pandemic-led imperative no longer existed, some teachers moved away from online technology and back to traditional classroom teaching methods.
   “There's some teachers of all disciplines that are just in love with technology. You could gamify the Latin classroom. But I just think Latin lends itself to the way it's been learned for millennia,” said Latin teacher Nolis Arkoulakis. “There's also just a desire to make people interact with one another [more]. After COVID, people just wouldn't even speak to me, let alone to their colleagues [and peers].”
   Science teacher Alexander Henderson also finds that while the pandemic-adopted learning tools helped facilitate virtual instruction, the increased reliance on technology and digital communication during and after COVID-19 has made students more reluctant to partake in verbal classroom discussions with other students and teachers. 
   “I use a program called Formative where all my students submit answers as we're going through the lesson … because I've noticed that after the pandemic, a lot of students don't want to talk. They don't want to actually participate anymore … so to have it where everyone can submit their answer without even having to talk … I can assess everyone in general at the same time, which has been a very big benefit,” Henderson said. 
    In addition to increasing academic disengagement, the lack of structural classroom expectations during COVID-19 decreased the level of self-discipline and self-regulation generally expected of high school students. 
   “Students basically figured out that there is only so far we can humanly go to hold them accountable, and some have continued to take advantage of that,” said Gable. “There is a certain suspension of disbelief that is required for school to be a functioning institution, and virtual schooling really stretched that to the breaking point.”
   After students returned to in-person classrooms, the decrease in self-discipline inherited from virtual schooling extended beyond disengagement in core subjects and into disorganization in extracurricular activities, such as band. 
   “When we came back from COVID, [I] had to reintroduce practices and routines that were usually part of the fabric of what a band kid would know before they got [to PHS]. Showing up with your instrument and having your music and being ready to play was not standard practice,” said PHS Band Director Joe Bongiovi. “We had to actually teach a lot of basics that we didn't usually have to teach for band class.”
   As a response to the lack of student organization in the classroom, helping students learn and act on the expectations of a functional classroom has been a primary objective of many teachers. Anna Rose Gable, an ESL teacher at PHS, aims to rebuild the peer connectedness of the post-pandemic classroom through activities that encourage student-to-student interactions. 
   “Within my classrooms, I've really tried to build community not just between myself and my students, but also from student to student,” said Gable. “Even with my native-English-speaking students, I've found that students need a lot more structure now to meaningfully communicate with one another in small groups. I've become quite fond of using the ‘bicycle chain’ (also known as ‘speed-dating’) method of rapid one-on-one conversations about a fairly narrow set of questions.”
   Many teachers also underlined the heightened importance of understanding and supporting students on a personal level. Giammanco noted the increased need for structure in student interactions and highlighted the efforts to be sensitive to students facing challenges. 
   “I think that students want to know that you have their best interests at heart,” said Giammanco. “I've been [trying] to be particularly sensitive to students who may have late assignments or are struggling in class. I always try to contact their guidance counselor, contact home and talk to them personally more than I ever did before COVID, because you just don't know what students may still be struggling with after the pandemic.”
   To more extensively address elevated mental health struggles in students during and after COVID-19, PPS partnered with Effective School Solutions (ESS), a firm in New Jersey that focuses almost exclusively on adolescent mental health, in order to implement mental and behavioral support programs in Princeton Middle School and PHS. 
   “[This] is a level of service that we’ve never had before [the pandemic]. It’s what’s called tier two services. What’s provided by our counselors is basic tier one services, like check ins. If you have something that you are feeling uncomfortable about, you can go into their office and they help you to jump over [that] hurdle,” said PHS Principal Cecilia Birge. “Tier two is elevated in that you are not able to regulate emotions for an extended period of time that it’s creating a negative impact on your academics. That’s when we do more focused and more frequent checkins.”
   The administration has also been actively engaged in implementing initiatives to foster a renewed emphasis on in-person learning.
   “We don’t allow remote learning anymore and we recognize the value of face to face learning. We are creating a lot more opportunities for students to interact with each other in person so I think that we have really jumped through quite a lot of barriers and made significant progress.” said Birge. “[For example], 9th graders have learning labs [so that they] are all sitting together and you are not all sitting separately in the hallway with your devices to yourself; it’s not alone time, you are sitting together and are expected to do your work. There are also even PTO meetings that are all in person.”
   Birge outlines the school’s proactive steps in instilling structured frameworks across various facets of student life, acknowledging the importance of maintaining a balance between academic freedom and a strong sense of personal responsibility as well as ethical decision-making. 
   “[Over] the last two years or so, [PHS] began to build more structures around different activities,” Birge said. “One example [of this] is the student handbook; at the beginning of the school year we asked every student to sign the academic integrity pledge. [Additionally], there [are] more building monitors and teachers on duty. [We are] observing so that we as an administrative team can take that feedback and design programs and really enhance students’ leadership skills to [return to the normalcy of years prior].”
   Building on the commitment to address mental health challenges, the administration's efforts also aim to cultivate an environment where students can thrive not just academically but also engage in meaningful social interactions. 
   “Little by little we hope that students climb up that ladder of appreciating face to face communication, not replaceable by chatting with chat gpt or some bot on the internet, because we can develop trust and relationships when we have personal interactions among all of us,” said Birge. 


Four years after the pandemic began: how PHS has changed

“You’re not oppressed. You’re not an oppressor. Stop HiTOPS,” reads the neon sign of Princeton Public Schools parent Luke Alberts, protesting the organization in front of Princeton Middle School. The demonstrations began January 11 and took place for 30 minutes each morning for the following two weeks, where Alberts and several other parent protesters demanded revisions to the HiTOPS’s curriculum taught in PMS classrooms. 
PPS’s partnership with HiTOPS began through the state-mandated program Pathways to Racial Literacy. Under New Jersey’s diversity, equity, and inclusion mandate for schools, the “Identity Pathway,” a section of the curriculum making up three of the 25 total courses, focuses on helping students develop their identities and contains discussions about gender, gender expression, and other LGBTQ+ topics. Former PMS counselor, Thomas Foley, now HiTOPS’s Senior Education Manager, teaches the courses together with fellow PMS educators.
“What the lessons are trying to do is to try to help students understand…how others see the world maybe a bit differently,” said Kimberly Tew, PPS’s Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. “It’s about just understanding that we all come from different walks of life. All these different components; our religion, our ethnicity, our socioeconomic status … [and] our gender identity [all] shape how we walk in the world.”
However, several concerned community members see this differently. Junglien Chen, Luke Alberts, and two unidentified protesters participating in demonstrations outside of the school are a part of a larger group of 15 PPS parents organized under the name Parents for Responsible Education Policy. They have claimed that HiTOPS’s educational rhetoric goes beyond the state-mandated “Pathways’’ program and introduces ideas not suited for middle school students. Among these ideas is the “oppressor-oppressed” dynamic, which PREP alleges leads to unfairness and polarization in the classroom, in part through classing students into binary groups of privileged and oppressed. 
“The concern is that such a divisive approach may not only oversimplify complex social  dynamics but also sow discord among students. [The “oppressor-oppressed” dynamic] fosters a mindset where individuals labeled as ‘oppressed’ might feel justified in their wrongful actions, attributing them to external forces rather than internal choices,” stated the PREP website. “This approach … encourages an externalization of fault [and] detracts from a student’s development of character and accountability.”
The Princeton Board of Education discussed the wider community’s views on both HiTOPS’s curriculum and PREP protests during a meeting on January 30. The meeting provided a platform for PPS parent and member of the LGBTQ+ community Thomas Perc to raise concerns about HiTOPS protestors’ alleged intimidation of children. 
“What I said [at the board meeting] was my response to seeing two middle-aged men protesting during drop off and addressing children,” said Perc. “I heard from my daughter and other students that they were engaging with some of the students, and I just thought it was highly inappropriate, very misguided, and downright wrong.”
HiTOPS declined to speak to the Tower concerning these issues.
Several months earlier in September 2023, HiTOPS had also faced widespread criticism after Project Veritas, a national right-wing advocacy group, released a video alleging HiTOPS’s stance against parental consent and “opt-outs” for several of their lessons. HiTOPS responded by stating that the allegations were false and the result of a misrepresentation of an interview. Led by former superintendent Carol Kelley, PPS concurrently denounced Project Veritas’s accusations.
“Our goal is that all students have access to developmentally appropriate, positive, and medically-accurate sex education. We respect a parent’s right to opt their child out of a class or activity. We hope they won’t, but we respect their right to do so,” HiTOPS’s website emphasized in an official statement.
At the January 30 board meeting, Perc emphasized that the middle school was not the right setting to advocate for change. 
“This is a state mandatory curriculum. It’s not decided by Principal Burr. It’s not decided by sixth graders. It’s not decided by the Board of Education. It is decided by the governor and [the curriculum] comes down from the state,” Perc said.
At the recent board meeting, Dafna Kendal, the BOE chair, shared an anecdote of a concerned mother whose seventh-grade daughter expressed fear of the protesters’ presence and reportedly asked whether it was necessary to hide from them. Kendal went on to suggest that the protesters continue their protests in front of the municipal Valley Road building instead of the middle school.
“[PREP has] every right to protest on the sidewalk, that’s public property, [but] you know this is all about kids … if someone’s actions are detrimental to children, they should think about their actions,” said Kendal. “And that’s not to say they shouldn’t protest [but] maybe they need to examine how they are protesting and … why it is being reported that some kids are intimidated.”
However, anti-HiTOPS protesters object to accusations of intimidation and deny approaching or speaking to children. Protestor Luke Alberts claimed that the only intimidation suffered by students was a product of immaturity and adverse sensitivity.
“As for children claiming to be ‘intimidated’ or ‘scared,’ grow up. What’s so threatening about a pair of middle-aged doofuses with signs telling anyone who reads them that they’re neither privileged or oppressed?  Life isn’t always going to cater to your worldview, which, in the end, can be a wonderful thing,” Alberts said.
Alberts argued for the necessity of protesting in front of the school as a measure of publicity and legitimization.
“If I held up a sign in front of the admin building on Valley Road, do you really think we’d be having this conversation?” said Alberts. “I would just be dismissed as some crank. Ditto in front of the state house.”
At PHS, HiTOPS works with several clubs, including the Gender and Sexuality Alliance club, and offers both a racial literacy elective and the online Princeton Introduction to Racial Literacy course. Additionally, the state-mandated racial and sexual literacy requirements are met through the health, Peer Group, and Teen Pep programs.
“The high school doesn’t [work with HiTOPS] from a curriculum perspective, but some of our clubs, because of their involvement with HiTOPS and the middle school and the community, bring it into the building,” said Birge. “[HiTOPS is] an important organization that provides support for some of our students at PHS.”
In discussing sensitive topics, Birge advocated for engaging in open-minded conversations rather than silencing opposing views. She highlighted the importance of discussion to break away from binary perspectives.
“I think my interpretation of this whole event is to ask what’s the best way to educate our kids to make sure that they grow up to be critical thinkers and be brave enough to meet the world’s challenges,” said Birge.“It’s not that one person is always gonna be progressive and the other always conservative, it’s really a spectrum. …  [We want them to] understand … and figure out what’s the best way, most inclusive way, to bring everyone in the audience so that [we] can have a diversified society and promote peace.”

Weeks of protests continue discussion regarding HiTOPS curriculum

Navigating a “winding path” before settling at PHS, Anna Rose Gable has been an English as Second Language (ESL) teacher for almost three years. A Rider graduate, her self-proclaimed empathetic approach to education was essential in her path to becoming a vital part of the PHS community. Gable’s progressive teaching style and ability to form connections with students creates a uniquely supportive classroom environment.
Gable credits much of her current attitude toward teaching to early experiences with public school. As a child, she first attended an unconventional public elementary school that encouraged a more holistic approach by allowing young students to learn comfortably and focusing on personal interests and creativity rather than on grades. 
“I went to … an atypical elementary school [that] used a lot of Waldorf and Montessori principles. It was really project-based, … [since] we chose what to do based on our own interests. It was very hands-on and experiential, and we [received] a narrative report card that commented on our areas of strength and growth,” Gable said.
Gable’s transition to a more traditional grades-based system in middle school was a shock since she wasn’t prepared for its impersonality and shallow curriculum. For Gable, the flaws of this traditional system brought about a desire to educate in a manner that works the best for students, rather than just doing the bare minimum.
“My middle school was not great. In most of my classes, we read the textbook, we answered the questions at the end of the textbook chapter, and then we went on to the next chapter,” said Gable. “I was like, ‘I think that this could be better.’ I had kind of made this promise to myself that one day, I would go back and try to make education for older kids a little bit more like my education when I was a little kid.”
 Going through high school, Gable’s interest in education flourished. After graduating from Yale and working as an environmental educator in Atlanta for five years, she relocated to New Jersey for family reasons. Gable then decided to continue her studies at Rider University, choosing to pursue ESL because of her formative experiences working with Atlanta immigrant communities. At Rider, the university curriculum along with the influence of her peers further refined Gable’s values in education and her teaching skills.
Along with two other Rider alumni, she participated in a series of conferences for the New Jersey Education Association. After recognizing the severe lack of subject material concerned with aiding English Language Learners, Gable and her peers decided that their input was needed. Later on, at their second NJEA conference, they presented translanguaging, a central principle in ESL programs.
“Translanguaging is using a student’s first language to help them access the content or the curriculum, but not in the sense that you’re just translating everything,” said Gable. “It’s rather like drawing connections to their first language.”
In addressing the diverse language proficiency levels in her classroom, Gable uses a teaching strategy called differentiation. Recognizing the challenge of reaching every student, she illustrates this approach using assessments. For intermediate-level students, it might involve multiple-choice options, while for more advanced learners, advanced learners, it might instead open-ended questions. To accommodate newcomers, Gable simplifies the process by presenting questions alongside pictures. Her ultimate goal is comprehensibility, an ESL buzzword that denotes the class material’s accessibility.
“The point is … [to] make the content of your class accessible, even if you share no language. … You just need enough support to get to that point,” Gable said. 
Anuar Viruel Lopez ’25, a student in ESL English III with Gable, shared insight on the transformative impact of Gable, shedding light on how Gable’s guidance and support went beyond the classroom.
“I would say something that I learned from her is how to write better [in] my stories and also how to speak better and more formal[ly],” said Lopez. “Something [that] sets her apart is that she actually help[s] us and teach[es] us what to do and what’s wrong. … That’s why she is an amazing teacher.”
Gable’s doctrine of empathy and assistance is broadly felt, as demonstrated by a discussion with Dany Isaí Melchor Garza ’24, another student in Gable’s ESL English III class.
“She is always helping me. I don’t have that many teachers that I can talk [to] about my problems. … She is the only teacher that always hear[s] me and always support[s] me,” Garza said.
Gable highlighted several PHS initiatives aimed at supporting ELL students in an extracurricular fashion similar to how she does in the classroom. She noted a new peer group initiative last year that is conducted in Spanish, emphasizing its inclusivity. Outside of the ESL department, Gable recognized the efforts of the Latinos Unidos Club, where students learning English and their fluent peers can learn from each other and celebrate their diverse backgrounds. 
Reflecting on recent progress at PHS, Gable has noted many positive changes towards incorporated inclusivity, such as the increase in the number of ESL teachers and bilingual aides. However, while the district has greatly improved on this front, she finds that there is still room for more bilingual staff in various departments. 
“For a while, we had a bilingual front office secretary or administrative assistant. And having her meant that if my kid — one of my kids who doesn’t speak English yet — walks in the building and doesn’t know where to go, there’s someone they know they can ask,” Gable said. 
Throughout her time as a teacher, Gable has viewed choice as a guiding principle. She feels that every student’s voice should be heard and that this voice should have the power to choose a path. In the ideal classroom, students would be able to pursue learning to the fullest extent using choice as the guiding principle. Gable believes that utilizing this principle requires empathizing with students	and that using empathy to hear the voices of students is an essential prerequisite towards creating choice.
“I would like for every kid to feel they have choice in their education, to get to choose to work on things that are interesting to them, [and] to feel like they’ve learned something new every day,” said Gable. “I … have an attitude that every kid is worth it and every kid has something to say. … To be a good ESL teacher, you have to believe that everyone has something to contribute.” 

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