"Young ladies" are the community's "worst enemy," Superintendent

Charles T. Epps Jr.

said today to a group of Jersey City pastors.

Discussing the $1 million that Jersey City public schools pay to staff police officers at its facilities, Epps blasted the district's "young girls."

"Our worst enemy is the young ladies," Epps said. "The young girls are bad. I don't know what they're drinking today, but they're bad."

Epps was speaking to about a dozen members of the

Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Jersey City & Vicinity

at a meeting in the second floor of the group's Martin Luther King Drive office. A reporter was invited to attend the meeting.

Speaking more broadly, Epps also told the ministers he was trying to recruit "mentors" for Jersey City students as part of a collaboration with Big Brother Big Sisters of Essex, Hudson, and Union Counties that he announced on Tuesday.

Epps praised staff members of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs who have volunteered as mentors.

"They've signed up to help even the dirty, nasty, bad kids," Epps said.

His comments didn't cause much of a stir with the ministers. Pastor Joyce Watterman, of Continuous Flow Christian Center on Monticello Avenue, said later she was "surprised" by Epps' opinions on young girls, but doesn't necessarily disagree with him.

Global oppression of women may cause some females to swing too hard in the wrong direction, Watterman said.

"It affects our young girls, too, so that when we rise up, we sometimes overdo it," she said.

Watterman added that she doesn't encounter many girls in her community that she believes are violent. But Epps may see some in his community, she said.

This afternoon, Epps clarified his remarks, saying he was speaking "metaphorically." All children are in trouble today, females and males, he said.

"I think all of our children, we need to support them. We need to make them understand that education is the key," he said.

Epps said violent incidents involving students "break down evenly" between male and female students.