St Anthony’s Religious Education

This school ruined my life. Literally.
I’m in my 30’s now. I attended this school from pre-​K all the way through 8^th grade. The emotional scars I have from the abusive teachers still haunt me to this very day.
I’m now an adult that has been diagnosed with chronic anxiety, depression, PTSD, and agoraphobia — All of which stems back to the treatment I received from the teachers at this school. Many of which still teach there today.
If you send your children here, they will spend most of their days being denied bathroom breaks, being screamed at by red-​faced teachers ordering commands like drill sergeants, and generally being treated like second class citizens. Every. Single. Day. Not one day went by without a teacher screaming like a pure maniac, letting us all know (especially those of us from Paterson!) that we were garbage, our parents are garbage, and that we had absolutely no future because of things that were generally out of our hands as children. I can still picture the teachers going hoarse from screaming for absolutely no reason — But this is exactly the style of discipline that is promoted at this establishment. Not even discipline — Just every day treatment!
Speaking of things being out of control — From personal experience, my parents were unable to afford many supplies demanded by this school, including (at the time) calculators, and other expensive gadgets. (I can only imagine it is worse nowadays!) However, instead of the teachers addressing the parents on these issues, the teachers would scream at the kids about how it is THEIR responsibility to get THEIR parents to stop being «lazy». Cue weeks of detention because of something that was out of your control, and even out of your parent’s control because they simply did not have the money. At no point did they ever offer to help, instead there was punishment. You were always guilty, even when you weren’t.
Being a catholic school, many parents had to drive their children on a rather long commute. Many days you would be late not because of your own actions, but because of your parents. Even if your parents came in and explained the situation, or sent you with a note, you could easily expect 10 minutes of screaming and detention.
Bullying breeds in this school. The turn the other cheek mentality especially applies to bullies, but the truth of the matter is that the teachers were the worst bullies of them all. I remember one of my classmates being teased about his weight. What did the teacher do? Join in with the kids and teased him as well.
Oh, and don’t get me started on all the mandatory donations and fundraisers parents were wrangled into. This school was asking for money damn near every day. If your parents couldn’t pay up? The teachers took it out on you!
I was never physically abused, but the psychological abuse and mind games the teachers play with the children here still haunt my dreams. I wake up with night terrors from memories of Ms. Nester alone. That woman should have been jailed for the terrible things she did and said to us.