"I Treasure"

I Am a New York City Public High School Student. The Situation is Beyond Control.
I'd like to preface this by stating that remote learning was absolutely detrimental to the mental health of myself, my friends, and my peers at school. Despite this, the present conditions within schools necessitates a temporary return to remote learning; if not because of public health, then because of learning loss.

A story of my day:

- I arrived at school and promptly went to Study Hall. I knew that some of my teachers would be absent because they had announced it on Google Classroom earlier in the day. At our school there is a board in front of the auditorium with the list of teachers and seating sections for students within study hall: today there were 14 absent teachers 1st period. There are 11 seatable sections within the auditorium ... THREE CLASSES sat on the stage. Study hall has become a super spreader event -- I'll get to this in a moment.

- Second period I had another absent teacher. More of the same from 1st period. It was around this time that 25% of kids I know, including myself, realized that there were no rules being enforced outside of attendance at the start of the period, and that cutting lass was ridiculously easy. We left -- there was functionally no learning occurring within study hall, and health conditions were safer outside of the auditorium. It was well beyond max capacity.

- Third period I had a normal class period. Hooray! First thing the teacher did was pass out COVID tests because we had all been close contacts to a COVID-positive student in our class. 4 more teachers would pass out COVID tests throughout the day, which were to be taken at home. The school started running low on tests, and rules had to be refined to ration.

- "To be taken at home." Ya ... students don't listen. 90% of the bathrooms were full of students swabbing their noses and taking their tests. I had one kid ask me -- with his mask down, by the way -- whether a "faint line was positive," proceeding to show me his positive COVID test. I told him to go the nurse. One student tested positive IN THE AUDITORIUM, and a few students started screaming and ran away from him. There was now a lack of available seats given there was a COVID-positive student within the middle of the auditorium. They're now planning on having teachers give up their free periods to act as substitute teachers because the auditorium is simply not safe enough.

- Classes that I did attend were quiet and empty. Students are staying home because of risk of COVID without testing positive (as they should) and some of my classes had 10+ students absent. Nearly every class has listed myself and others are close contacts.

- I should note that in study hall and with subs we literally learn nothing. I spent about 3 hours sitting around today doing nothing.

- I tested positive for COVID on December the 14th. At the time there were a total of 6 cases. By the end of break this number was up to 36. By January the 3rd (when we returned from break) the numbers were up to 100 (as listed on the school Google Sheet). Today there are 226. This is around 10% of my school. As of Monday, only 30 (Edit: not sure of the specific number) or so of whom were reported to the DOE ... which just seems like negligence to me (Edit: from DOE official number. Id like to stress this isn’t the fault of the school just an overall system failure).

- 90% of the conversations spoken by students concern COVID. It has completely taken over any function of daily school life.

r/nycJoshGordons_burner6d ago
8036 points1418 comments

THE GAME WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAUGHT IN SCHOOL. USE AS YOU SEE FIT.

Buy a house and get a 15 year fixed mortgage rather than a 30 year mortgage. Saves a lot of money in interest over the life of the loan. If you must get the 30 year mortgage, verify that there is no prepayment penalty. This gives you the flexibility of paying it off early if you are able. But it also gives you the option of making lower payments when times are tough...

When you start your job, get an HSA account and not FSA and get the high deductible health insurance. It will lower your tax bracket and the money is yours to use. You also earn 40% in most cases after 10k!!!

Never buy a car brand new! I’ve watched Escalades go from 100k (new) to 35k four years later. 🚙

Get you an LLC (incorporate your name!!) and run it as an S Corp. Remember Jay-Z quote “I’m not a Businessman I’m a Business Maaaaaaaan....” Let that sink in.
Build business credit! The loans are bigger and the interest rate is lower.

Once your LLC has been established you can then hire your children and pay them an annual salary up to $12,400 which serves a tax break for you and lowers your yearly liability, at that point your children can use their earnings to pay for things like their tuition, school trips and any other activity or upkeep that you were originally going to be financially responsibility for so their needs are met, you're assisting them in establishing a good work ethic but more importantly you're decreasing your taxes and keeping more of your earning in house

Get a business bank account (in most cases this costs around $500 to start). Some people got two stimulus checks (one from Trump and one from the SBA). Also no fees.

Go to Community College first and transfer into a four year college (unless you have scholarships to help mitigate the costs) as a Junior. School is a power move you must be able to secure the bag. Majors in STEM will always be needed, are in high demand and the skills can directly help the community. 🎓

Get life insurance for you (whole life) and your children (term) as soon as they are born (one thing is for sure is we will die..might as well leave your kids or family something extra). The sooner you get it, the cheaper it is. And you can borrow against it to fund certain projects. Also, the ones that pay out dividends are the best! They normally are associated with the market (money market accounts). IUL’s are great! 💰

Get the people in your immediate family to save collectively! If 10 people save $500/month, that’s 60k every year. You could buy 3 starter homes (depending on your market) every year and in 4 years all ten of you are home owners. Buy on the same block or neighborhood if you can...this way you control the value of the homes (remember Monopoly!). 🏠

We need to promote financial literacy. Building capital and creating equity to create generational wealth. Having financial freedom is everything! This is not being taught in the school curriculums or our education systems! We must do it ourselves!

***I need 10 people to copy and repost this on their pages and groups and spread financial literacy!

Reach out if you need to !

Data Entry Work $ 27hr in New York City