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Today (8/30), the Ledger reported on the Department of Education’s latest report on school violence, vandalism, weapons and substance abuse. The report contains some very troubling news for Ridgewood. This is regardless of the fact that the reporting across districts and counties may be flawed, though not flawed enough to render the report irresponsible. It would be wise for administrators to pay close heed to these findings and consider what they have done in the past that either has not worked, or may have inadvertently exacerbated the problem. Here’s a comparative look of four districts in the report: Glen Rock, Hackensack, Ridgewood and Newark.
Glen Rock, with an enrollment of 2,471 students, reported a total number of 8 incidences of the above
Hackensack City, with an enrollment of 5,059, students reported a total number of 24 incidences
Ridgewood, with an enrollment of 5,553 students, reported a total of 95 incidences.
Newark City, with an enrollment of 41,855 students, reported a total of 414 incidences (unless you’re terc impaired, you know that that would extrapolate to more incidences by percentage in Ridgewood).
Could it be that Glen Rock, Hackensack and Newark are drastically underreporting or does Ridgewood have more than a Starbucks’s problem? Regardless, our administrators owe Ridgewood parents and taxpayers a revealing discussion of this issue rather than the usual explaining away of what the numbers mean. The full report is available at:
https://www.state.nj.us/education/schools/vandv/0506/appende1.pdf
>I believe it is the responsibility of the Community and the Parents to question the BOE about the numbers described in article and how they were derived. Hoping that the BOE does not add to the problem by being untruthful or skirting the issue, they will hopefully be able to provide better insight as to where the issues exist.
Now that is the correct course of action for current residents of Ridgewood. However, after seeing many areas of the once “Prestigious” Ridgewood deterioate, have decided I would never raise my children in Ridgewood at the present time. Although I was born and raised in Ridgewood and graduated from RHS, I have made a firm decision to relocated to a closeby town with better law enforcement, lower crime rates, LOWER TAXES, a top rated Public Education System, and decently priced homes compared to Ridgewood. Not to mention Ridgewood’s management consisting of leaders who put their own agendas first, scandals and/or cover-ups, and nepotism.
I find it troubling that, according to the published article, Ridgewood Board of Ed has a higher Crime rate than Newark Public Schools. Whether true or not, this displays a horrible image of Ridgewood. If the article is accurate, I blame 4 groups, all of whom share responsiblity for this issue, and they will need to work together to return Ridgewood BOE to its glory days:
1. The Students themselves – For acting immature, entitled, and acting above the law. Additionally they need to assume responsiblity for their own futures.
2. The Police leadership – For encouraging their officers to not fully Enforce and uphold laws in the Village and BOE – Many students are let go with no consequences after minor crimes because Police Leadership are scared by the misbehaving children’s inattentive parents. Once they get away with minor crimes, they feel entitled and pursue more serious crimes such as drugs, alcohol abuse, vandelism, violence, and even rape.
3. The parents – Of those misbehaving students for not instilling respect, family values, and common decency and allowing young students to stay home alone and unattended resulting in parties, drug and alcohol abuse.
4. The Faculty and Administration of the BOE for not upholding those values, not enforcing good behavior, and not enforcing rules and regulations or diciplining students for violations of such.
That is just my peace, but if my thoughts are shared by others, the community should take immediate action before property values drop further.
>BTW, in the last long comment I posted referring to Nepotism in Ridgewood, I was not referring to possible Nepotism in the RPD and RFD where Civil Service testing is required and most related parties their are just trying to pursue family heritage of public service to their community. I was referring to other areas where some Village Employees and BOE employees were hired to positions they were not qualified for or some where positions were created out of no where for relatives of higher-ups in Village leadership.
>In order to solve a problem, you must first admit the problem exists.
Ridgewood seems unable to solve many problems because its leaders seem to have a very, very hard time admitting that there are problems in the first place. Perfect Ridgewood must be the cover story at all times!
This DOE report says loudly and clearly that there is a problem. Of course, it involves the home and the school but shoving it off to one side or the other won’t make the problem go away.
Case in point (and this really happened): what is a student or parent supposed to do when his child comes home and says that a student is dealing pot out of the locker next to his?
What would you do?
>hey 1:23pm my kids are behaved so if a teacher wants to toss one of the ones misbehaving (ipod, disrepectful, disruptive) then that teacher gets my full support and the misbehavin kid can sit in the principals office til his mommy,daddy, or nanny rescues him/her
>8:09 Bravo…well said.
>I totally agree with post 8:09 pm, and yes there is plenty of blame to go around. There needs to be a community wide effort by all concerned to reverse the negative and dangerous trend that is emerging in our village. Not only should the children themselves be held accountable for their conduct, but those whom are responsible for their guidance must accept some responsibility. I have heard many parents complain that the BOE and the town are failing our children, and that they have been met with indifference when seeking assistance. I believe the source of the apathy by the BOE, Police, Fire and Village employees stems from the top of the Village Management. The vast majority of the teachers and village employees care about this community, however after years of trying to do a good job and watching others being taken care of due to being connected through family or otherwise tends to beat one down. There have been positions created throughout the BOE and Village which at best could be described as ill conceived and unnecessary. Unfortunately the people who have gotten these positions all have either been related to a top official or connected through friendship or other means. While the Fire and Police departments are supposed to be governed by civil service, the Village has circumvented rules governing promotions repeatedly. For example the creation of a director of the fire department when someone failed to pass the test. I know of at least two firefighters whom were passed over for another. Then there is the police department where they have had legal issues regarding promotions and where positions have been created and the structure of the department rearranged take care of certain persons. What do these people do in their new found positions, it’s any ones guess as they can rarely be found. Have you tried to find any of the village’s top leadership at village hall? Don’t even bother trying to reach any of the BOE leadership either. What we appear to be experiencing is a absence of leadership with in village government, the BOE and unfortunately in many homes.
My point here is that the leaders of these organizations are setting the tone and example for their employees, unfortunately the example they are setting is that of taking care of themselves rather than the mission of their organizations which our community. Just as parents should be setting and reinforcing the proper examples for their children, the leadership of the village should be doing the same. Before we can hope to affect a positive can in our community we need to establish an atmosphere where such things positive work ethic, integrity, family values, respect for others and community service are rewarded, rather than what we have seen thus far. Please, this is not an attack on any ones’ parenting skills; I have made enough of my own. The vast majority of us are doing the best we know how; however it is a wake up call. If we are not leading our children down the right path, there are plenty of others willing to lead them down the wrong path. We are just as responsible if we allow the council and village management to continue to abuse the trust we have placed in them.
>I totally agree with the post at 8:09pm
>How can we stop them? They run the town like they own it.
>How can we stop them? They run the town like they own it.
STOP VOTING FOR THEM !!!!!!
>What kind of school ALLOWS eighteen cuts per class? How can you monitor CHILDREN when your own school policy allows/ENCOURAGES them to wander around?
>Maybe if you give the coucil the parking spaces they want, we’ll be able to find them. On second thought, never mind. Let them walk.
>If they closed the campus there would be no room for half the school to eat. There aren’t even enough tables for a quarter of the students. They don’t get open campus because they deserve it, they get it because there is no room.
>11:07 That’s simply not true. When I went to RHS in the 80s we had open campus AND we also had staggered lunch periods by grade, there was plenty of room. I realize the school has an additional grade level now but what’s with the entire school having lunch at the same time?
>18 absents is a state law and the student whether regular or special ed fails the course… of course medical ex. are different… what do you mean school? where are the parents?
>I think the whole open campus thing should be up for discussion. Unless Lorenz can make it work better…a leadership skill set that eluded his predecessors.
>All the kids know abot eighteen cuts per class and they use them as their own personal time. There should be a school mechanism that intercedes by having family conferences at ,say, five cuts to see if there are valid reasons for these cuts. Otherwise the kids intercxept the 5:05PM telephone notifications and the parents are none the wiser. The kids are still wandering around getting into trouble. How can the school monitor the kids when they’re all wandering around campus or intown just hanging out. Are we saying that these juveniles are allowed to make these decisions on their own without any repercussions? Yhey aare not little adults they are teenagers that need guidance. Left to their own devices we’ll wind up with “Animal House” or “Lord of the Flies” as the major theme at RHS. The lack of guidance, leadership, and accountability at RHS is deplorable. We’ve got a very high priced guidance department; we got very high priced grade administrators; and, we’ve got a very high priced administration, and we’re leaving accountability to the kids? We need some adult guidance and supervision there and we’re not getting it. Let’s stop blaming the kids for being kids.
>we need the police to walk the halls and take care of bizz and all will be ok
>To 8:08 AM: The whole school has to have lunch at the same time because of “block scheduling.” So, for that whole lunch time no classrooms are being used. Because no classrooms are being used for a whole period, we needed to expand the high school.
BTW, there were more students attending RHS in the 70’s then there are now with one more grade….there were 3 kids to a locker back then.
Someone said it best up further in the comments: block scheduling + open campus = T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
>There are some of those in charge of our kids at RHS who do not have the respect of our children and for good reasons (smoking pot, lewd comments, extramarital affairs, etc.). After my kids graduated from RHS they filled me in on some of the crap that goes on with teachers, coaches, custodians and others. RHS needs to clean up period.
>It was reported recently in the Ridgewood News that a high school english teacher was arrested for theft. My son had her … said she was weird. Great role model.
>My daughter came home from high school many times and said that a male gym teacher wearing shorts would prop his leg up on a bench and be 3 feet in front of girls. She said it was not only “disgusting” but that he knew exactly what he was doing. My son had this same teacher years later and confirmed what she said.
>Clean out these lazy administrators who have been there for years. They are growing cobwebs for goodness sakes.
Some of them are older than the building.
>5:10, I assume from your knowledge of RHS in the 70s you were a student there then? I’m curious (and this is a dead serious question) in regard to several comments posted under yours – did you find the teachers disrespectful to students then? When I was there, I would say about 60% of my teachers commented on the amount of “money” in this town. They really seemed to resent their perception of who had what. I know there are some of those teachers still at the high school and I understand many of them (either new or veteran)who make similar comments today. It’s such a shame. I hated hearing that “poor little rich kid” stuff from my teachers then and I’m sure a lot of the kids hate hearing it now.
>9:50
As a 1984 RHS grad, I don’t recall anything like you said poor little rich kid.
We lived on the east side in a modest home, my father worked for NJT and my mother worked part time at Grand Union.
Some of my friends lived a more lavish life on the west side but I don’t recall any division between rich and poor.
What teacher in there right mind would make a comment that would get back to parents? Even today.
Some teachers today make upwards of $100,000 a year with a pension and benifits, of course this is not 1 million–but its alot better then my folks did in the 80s.
>On any given day I could walk into RHS and ask to be escorted to my child’d class. I’m sure that I would be accomodated by the administration. If I found that my child wasn’t in the class where he/she was supposed to be, I’d ask the teacher where my child was. The teacher wouldn’t know. I’d ask the guidance cousnselors, they wouldn’t know. I’d ask the grade administrators, they wouldn’t know. I’d ask the administrators, they wouldn’t know. There are many who would call me a bad parent because I didn’t know where my child was. Well, I dropped her/him off at school in the morning and now no one knows where she/he is. Allowing eighteen cuts per class is insane. These are children. Allowing an open campus is insane. These are children. My point is that none of the adults we leave our children with are accountable for them. This isn’t good.
>7:12 – I am the anonymous from 9:50 and also graduated from RHS in 1984. I didn’t mean to imply there was any division between rich and poor as far as the kids were concerned or even as far as the teachers were concerned. I just remember a few teachers over my 3 year HS career making negative comments about ALL Ridgewood kids. I was just curious if this was anyone else’s experience, as I have 2 friends these days who have mentioned the very same thing happening to their kids who attend the HS. Thanks for your insight into your HS experience…I’m sure we know each other 🙂
>”We’ve got a very high priced guidance department; we got very high priced grade administrators; and, we’ve got a very high priced administration, and we’re leaving accountability to the kids? We need some adult guidance and supervision there and we’re not getting it. Let’s stop blaming the kids for being kids. “
This is so true. In Ramsey parents are given a login into the attendence and grading system and can keep track of their kids that way.
Why doesn’t Ridgewood have that?
>Ridgewood is behind the times and our rankings show it. We are being surpassed by neighboring towns. That’s what happens when you rest on your laurels and hire administrators like Botsford who have set the bar low for our children.
>i graduated RHS in 1976 and NEVER ever heard any teachers making comments about rich kids. There were over 600 in my graduating class (just had the 30 year reunion in 2006) and there were NONE of these ‘divisions’ I read about here today. We had good-natured ‘kidding’ with many teachers, and it was a happy bunch. Having lived/worked other places since graduation as well as my home here in town, I have to say we had a VERY decent bunch of class members. As far as teacher problems, there was a science teacher fired for smoking pot but ended up getting his job back through either the union or legal channels. Sad to see that the NEW ARRIVALS here in town have chosen to tear it apart. We would be much better off if they moved back to wherever they came from. We NEVER had these outspoken negative name-calling rude people. used to be a great town…because of the residents.
>I graduated, too, in 1976. Then, we had okay leadership.
Now it stinks to high Heaven. In fact, it’s worse than that. That is why taxpayers/parents are so darned fed up.
Would you rather we remained silent while they merely rearranged the chairs on the Titanic 3:25 pm?
>the bord needs the rw pd they can do the job and clean it up
>Clean up the administrators, teachers and staff and then maybe you can clean up the kids.
>8:08 AM – Only certain areas are allowed for lunch (probably to prevent bug problems and dirty class rooms). The Campus Center, the cafeteria, and Gym 2 are full of kids every day and there are more in the halls. Lunch is also only served on 3 lines in the cafeteria, 1 line in the Campus Center and at a small station outside the gym. Giving most kids (especially underclassmen) around 15-20 minutes to actually eat their food and get to class. Rainy days are the worst because fewer kids leave. Also, many people eat during frees and spend lunchtime in the library doing school work. Is it reasonable to ask 1600 students to share 5 lunch lines?