>Trip hazards within Ridgewood’s Central Business District created by raised concrete and/or broken bricks generally take “an average of 3 years to remediate,” said Village Engineer Christopher Rutishauser to a stunned Village Council last night.
Despite Rutishauser’s insistence that a standard protocol be followed related to trip hazard documentation/evaluation and subsequent property owner identification/notification, Village Council members directed Acting Village Manager Frank Moritz to cut through all red tape and get any existing hazards fixed immediately.
>Van Dyke’s for this blogger is the best Ice Cream around hands down !
PJ blogger
From the Ridgewood Front Porch blog …..
This is another Bergen Health & Life review I can agree with. I’d give Van Dyke’s “A” for it’s great handmade ice cream and it’s “throwback” charm. However, if I had to choose, I would still go with Maggie Moo’s on Maple Avenue in Ridgewood – but you really can’t go wrong either way. The magazine cites the Bailey’s Irish Cream, Amaretto and Chunky Strawberry as the best flavors to try. I will have to take the family there and give it a try. I reserve the right to change my vote from Maggie Moo’s to Van Dyke’s pending the results of my new field research.
> Village Engineer Christopher Rutishauser and Director of Parks and Recreation Timothy Cronin shared the responsibility of relaying very bad news to Village Council members during Wednesday evening’s Village Council Work Session.
And the bad news was that construction costs for rest room facilities within the Kasschau Memorial Shell, located on Vets Field, are now estimated at $300,100.
As you might expect, there was not one Council member who was happy about receiving that news.
Councilwoman Anne Zusy demanded a line by line breakdown of the proposed construction costs. And Deputy Mayor Keith D. Killion vowed to visit the proposed $300K facility daily in his bathrobe and slippers so he could get his money’s worth.
Cronin also revealed that the $300K construction bid exceeds money set aside for the project by almost $60K.
Council members agreed to sit on the proposal (no pun intended) until such time that Village CFO Dorothy Stikna can advise them how the gap in funding could be resolved.
In the interim, if anyone has ideas on how taxpayers could avoid spending $75K per toilet, please contact Mr. Killion or Ms. Zusy directly.
P.S.: The County of Bergen reportedly spent just over $250K on new rest room facilities at the Ridgewood Duck Pond, and close to $600K for a similar facility at the Glen Rock Duck Pond.
>1. I am in support of the parents in Ridgewood who are attempting to rid the district of reform math, I am also involved in that in Somerset County. 2. We are fortunately having success and it seems likely that EveryDAY math will be bye, bye very soon. 3. I’m writing to post this positive article about our District:
Bridgewater-Raritan school board continues ‘Everyday Math’ debate
KARA L. RICHARDSON STAFF WRITER
Parents and Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Board of Education members spent most of a meeting this week blasting a controversial math program that is under district review.
A committee of parents and educators convened Tuesday, Sept. 9, to study the Everyday Math program and recommended that the district seek an alternative math program.
Now, a team of Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District educators, headed by Assistant Superintendent Cheryl Dyer, will review the program. Their charge is to seek alternatives to Everyday Math, which the district has used since 1998.
Everyday Math is a comprehensive program that uses everyday examples to teach math concepts. It differs from a traditional program because it:
— Uses calculators from the beginning of the education process (even in kindergarten)
— Has a “spiral” method of teaching that revisits at each level, so that each school year begins with a review of what was taught before
— Uses games, puzzles and activities to illustrate concepts.
Dozens of parents attended Tuesday’s meeting to voice their opinions about the program, which is typically well-liked by educators. They said students — from special needs to advanced — struggle with the program and can’t perform basic math tasks.
Board President Cynthia Cullen and board members Arvind Mathur and Jill Gladstone blasted the program. Other board members such as Evan Lerner and Jeffrey Brookner also discussed their desire to select another math program for students.
“I cannot in good faith support the Everyday Math program,” Cullen said. “I do not see it working for my children. I don’t buy the spiraling concept — before there’s mastery, you move on to the next subject. To me, it’s a major waste of time to be doing a review of the processes.”
Cullen said the program had an “excessive use of calculators. When you have kindergartners using a calculator rather than their fingers, you have a problem. When you ask kids what 9 times 9 is, they should be able to tell you. They shouldn’t have to say, “Oh, let me get my calculator. Oh, I can get my cell phone. That has a calculator on it.’ “
Superintendent Michael Schilder said that when the Everyday Math Committee report — which included his recommendations — was made public last month, several people contacted him in favor and against keeping the program.
“If I’m going to defend a controversial program to this community, I need to have proof that it’s better,” Schilder said about the educator’s review process.
That process should be complete by February 2009.
John Schiemann and Kalpana Vijayakumar, the parents who served on the original Everyday Math Committee, were miffed that the district was going to have another review of the program by educators instead of just seeking another program.
Virginia Schrum of Bridgewater said that her 9th-grade daughter, who is in five honors classes, and her 8th-grade daughter, who has special needs, struggle with Everyday Math.
Many parents also said they have had to send their children to private tutoring just to be able to keep up with basic math skills.
Sara Di Grazia said the program’s “spiraling” concept is “downright cruel for kids with special needs.”
“I implore you to really look at this very seriously and find another program.”
>California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and other law enforcement officials allege that three makers of artificial turf deliberately failed to disclose that their products contain lead.
By Marc Lifsher Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2008
SACRAMENTO — California’s attorney general wants to put a new spin on the old admonition “Don’t step on the grass!”
The warning could read “Don’t roll on the artificial turf” if Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and local law enforcement officials prevail in a lawsuit filed late Tuesday against three top makers of the green plastic playing fields and grasslike indoor-outdoor carpeting.
The complaint filed in Alameda County Superior Court alleges that the three manufacturers violated California’s Proposition 65 environmental law by knowingly failing to disclose that their products contain lead.
The lawsuit, which has been joined by Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and Solano County Dist. Atty. David W. Paulson, names Beaulieu Group of Georgia, AstroTurf of Georgia and FieldTurf USA Inc. of Florida.
All three companies said they were working with California officials to settle the lawsuit and stressed that their products were safe.
AstroTurf, an artificial-turf pioneer, said in a statement that it “has demonstrated its industry leadership by proactively developing new products that are below the most stringent standards for lead in consumer products.”
Joe Fields, chief executive of FieldTurf’s Canadian parent company, said that his artificial turf recently got a clean bill of health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Lead, which is used to give a natural green hue to the artificial turf, has been identified by state agencies as an ingredient that can cause cancer, damage to male and female reproductive systems, and birth defects in developing fetuses.
Children and other individuals can ingest harmful levels of lead by absorbing it through the skin or by rubbing the ersatz grass and then touching food or their mouths, the suit contends.
The state attorney general’s office said it found excessive lead levels in some of the artificial-turf samples tested from the three companies.
Although artificial turf presents little or no danger when it is new, lead levels rise to potentially harmful levels as it gets older, said Deputy Atty. Gen. Dennis A. Ragen, the state’s lead attorney on the lawsuit.
“As it ages, it forms more dust,” he said, and could contain levels of lead that are more than 20 times what’s allowed by Proposition 65.
The state, Ragen said, is negotiating with the three companies and is optimistic that a legal settlement can be reached that requires the products to be reformulated so that no lead is used in the manufacturing.
Most companies targeted by Proposition 65, known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, are eager to change their products rather than be forced to sell them with a warning that they contain chemicals “known to the state of California” to cause cancer or birth defects.
“The bottom line is this is 2008. Why are you making something with lead deliberately put into it?” Ragen said. “You need to find some substitute to make the color stable.”
Beaulieu attorney Peter Farley says he hopes to reach a friendly settlement with California. He stressed, however, that his company makes only an indoor-outdoor type of product and does not sell artificial turf used on athletic fields and stadiums.
The state decided to take action against the three companies after it received a legal notice from an advocacy group, the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health, that it intended to file a private lawsuit on the lead warning issue against Beaulieu and other artificial-turf manufacturers.
“Our testing on products from dozens of companies shows that artificial turf can contain high amounts of lead that can easily come off onto children’s hands when they play on turf fields,” said Michael Green, the center’s executive director.
WE LIVE in wondrous times. We no longer need real grass for football, soccer, baseball and lacrosse. We have artificial turf, made from plastic, nylon and ground-up car and truck tires.
But now we worry.
Recent tests on fake turf fields at four high schools in northern New Jersey revealed high levels of lead. And now comes a truly wondrous message from the federal government – actually a special advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC advisory, which was released late last week, is actually a set of instructions for anyone who uses an artificial turf field. Pay attention to the vocabulary here. In this bizarre debate, vocabulary is perhaps the only thing worth laughing about.
At the top of the list of CDC instructions is this: Anyone who steps onto a fake field should wash “aggressively” afterwards.
Yes, you read that right: Wash aggressively. No more quick showers to save water. If you play, you get sprayed, the advisory says.
It doesn’t matter if you have spent three hours kicking a soccer ball or five minutes throwing a coach’s temper tantrum. If you step on that plastic turf, you need to wash your mouth – and everything else – with some serious soap and water for at least 20 seconds on all exposed body parts.
But that’s not all.
Remove your clothing
The instructions ask all athletes – and anyone else who sets a toe on one of these fields – to remove all clothing as soon as possible.
Naked soccer? Lacrosse au naturel? Baseball in the buff?
The possibilities are endless.
But the instructions don’t end there. The CDC recommends that all sports uniforms worn on fake fields should be turned inside out to avoid spreading “dust.”
Apparently, the uniforms tend to get coated with ground-up bits of tires and other “artificial” items that are dangerous to your health and wardrobe.
But again, that’s not all.
The final instruction is this: All clothing worn on an artificial field should be washed separately from other items. Besides the “delicate” cycle on washing machines, maybe now we need the “fake turf” cycle.
In other words, the CDC wasn’t kidding when it advised athletes and others to wash aggressively.
They’re not laughing, either.
Indeed, this is no laughing matter. But the story of the growth of artificial athletic fields is full of irony.
From town recreation fields in Franklin Lakes, Wayne and Fort Lee to more than two dozen public and private high schools across northern New Jersey, artificial turf fields are a growing trend. But here’s the irony: Many of these fields – especially those built for municipal parks – were funded by state Green Acres grants.
That’s right, money, set aside by state law, to preserve New Jersey’s natural environment was used to buy a fake environment.
Buy first, test later
But perhaps the most outrageous piece of irony is this: Scientists knew that artificial turf fields might cause health and environmental problems. But in the rush for improved athletic and recreational facilities – and use of those Green Acres dollars — far too many bureaucrats opted to install the fake fields first, then test for hazards later.
So last week, we learned that the lead content of the fake turf at Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes was six times the state standard and the lead content of the Indian Hills High School field in Oakland was seven times higher. The fields will be closed during summer, school authorities said.
“We’re not going to be using either of our fields until we complete further testing,” said Paul Saxton, the superintendent for the Ramapo Indian Hills school district.
But testing is one thing. What if those additional tests confirm high lead levels? What then? Remove the fake turf and start over? And who pays for this?
Fake fields, by the way, don’t come cheap. A basic soccer and football field goes for around $2 million.
The news of high lead levels at the Ramapo and Indian Hills high schools comes on the heels of similar revelations at the Northern Valley Regional High School District’s artificial fields in Old Tappan and in Demarest. Initially, the district considered canceling graduation ceremonies, scheduled for the fields.
But other tests revealed “acceptable” lead levels. How comforting.
Meanwhile, a group called the Synthetic Turf Council issued a statement in praise of the new tests.
“Our industry is proud of its unblemished record of human health and environmental safety,” the council said.
Really now. The same statement underscored the inherent paradox of these fake turf fields. “Lead chromate has been used in a number of synthetic turf fields,” the council acknowledged.
But then the council said we should not be worried. “Lead chromate’s extremely low bioavailability prevents it from being readily absorbed by the human body,” the statement said.
But if lead chromate is so safe, why does the New Jersey Department of Health suggest that children under age 7 be prohibited from playing on fields with high lead levels?
That sort of question never seems to be answered. The state continues to find high levels of lead in artificial turf, but the fake turf manufacturers and their lobbyists claim we shouldn’t worry.
><https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/main.cfm?ArticleID=588> North Maple Turf Field Analysis Report Safe Conditions
Samples of the North Maple Turf Field were submitted to EMSL Analytical for laboratory analysis. The results have just been reported. …”the fiber came back with an undetectable level for content at below 1mg/kg. The standard being used is 400 mg/kg as per the soil clean up standards.
For the wipe test, the dust result yielded a reading of 1.1 ug/wipe which is attributed to normal dust in the air. The clean up standard is the HUD criteria for floors and carpets at 40 ug/wipe.”
These results report that the field is safe for athletic use.
> Texas Football Succumbs to Virulent Staph Infection From Turf
By Victor Epstein
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) — Missy Baker recalls the moment when she realized that her football-playing son, Boone, didn’t just have the flu.
“He told me he was paralyzed,” Baker said. “I said, `What do you mean? I just saw you walk to the bathroom two hours ago.’ And he said, `Mom, I can’t move my arms or legs.”’
Sixteen-year-old Boone, a wide receiver for Texas’s Austin High School, was suffering from a recurrence of methicillin- resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which his doctor said he got through an abrasion from playing on artificial turf, Baker said.
Texas has artificial turf at 18 percent of its high school football stadiums, according to Web site Texasbob.com. It also has an MRSA infection rate among players that is 16 times higher than the estimated national average, according to three studies by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
“This is a disease that can kill you,” said Carolina Espinoza, a graduate epidemiology student at the University of Texas in Houston, who helped conduct one of the studies. “If I were a football player, I would be alarmed.”
MRSA is a virulent strain of drug-resistant staph bacteria that plagued hospitals for decades and migrated into the general population in recent years, said Edward Septimus, an infectious disease specialist at Methodist Hospital System in Houston. Without proper treatment, it can spread to internal organs and bones after reaching the bloodstream, causing organ failure, he said.
In October, the deaths of a Brooklyn boy and a Virginia youth were blamed on MRSA infections.
Infection Rate
At least 276 football players were infected with MRSA from 2003 through 2005, a rate of 517 for each 100,000, according to the Texas studies. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports a rate for the general population of 32 in 100,000.
Football players often become infected at the site of a turf burn and are misdiagnosed, said David Smith, co-author of a study showing that MRSA-related hospitalizations in the U.S. more than doubled from 1999 to 2005.
“The turf burns themselves are just the kind of minor skin injury that MRSA can exploit,” said Elliot Pellman, medical liaison for the National Football League, which also has had infections among its players.
Football dominates high school sports in Texas, which has more participants than any other state. Seventy-four schools have stadiums seating more than 10,000. The sport provides 22,041 full-time jobs and generates $2.88 billion in annual spending, said Ray Perryman, president of Perryman Group, a Waco economic and financial analysis firm.
Football Risk
Football also produces more MRSA infections than any other sport, said Marilyn Felkner, the epidemiologist who led the Texas studies. The department wasn’t able to obtain enough data to establish a statistical link between artificial turf and MRSA infections, she said.
“So many schools had at least one case,” Felkner said of a 2005 report showing 76 high school athletic departments with MRSA infections. “It was more schools than we would have thought.”
In Collin County, which includes parts of Dallas and Plano, six high schools had more than two infected athletes this fall, said Janet Glowicz, county epidemiologist.
MRSA causes more deaths than any of the 51 infectious diseases tracked by the CDC, including AIDS, according to CDC data. The agency doesn’t require medical professionals to report MRSA cases.
Texas plans a pilot program next year making MRSA a reportable illness in three regions, said Bryan Alsip, assistant health director for San Antonio.
Epidemic Proportions
Researchers including Septimus blame MRSA’s spread on overuse of antibiotics. A CDC report in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that MRSA caused three times more infections than previously thought.
“This is an epidemic,” Smith said. His report was published by the CDC in the December edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases. “It’s a big problem, and it’s likely to get bigger.”
Smith said the public needs to hear more about MRSA. There is no benefit in alarming people, but they have a right to know that it is a serious situation, he said.
Spreading MRSA can be prevented by frequent hand washing, covering scratches and turf burns, disinfecting whirlpools between uses, and not sharing towels or razors, the Texas health department advises.
Mike Carroll, head athletic trainer at Stephenville High School near Fort Worth, said he tells coaches to avoid saying “staph” when they see a possible infection.
“You want people to be educated, but you don’t want to create a sky-is-falling mentality,” Carroll said.
Lasting Fear
Baker said she was shocked to learn how pervasive MRSA is. It’s also persistent: Boone was originally diagnosed in October 2006, and the infection returned last January. He had three surgeries to remove infected tissue and spent three weeks in the hospital.
While Boone resumed playing football this season, fear of another relapse haunts the family. Some survivors continue to carry the bacteria, according to doctors and the CDC.
Baker said she and her husband spent a sleepless night when Boone developed a skin infection that looked like a spider bite.
“We were both wide awake and shaking with fear,” she said. The wound cleared up the next day.
To contact the reporter on this story: Victor Epstein in Houston at [email protected] .
Presentation by Timothy Cronin, Director Parks and Recreation, on Village Parks and Fields in the Schooor DePalma Parks, Fields, Facilities and Recreation Master Plan.
> Frank DelVecchio – Deputy Police Chief, Fairview PD; Walthery Avenue resident Frank Giordano – Maple Park Fundraising Chairman; Spring Avenue resident Eleanor Gruber – Environmental Activist; South Irving Street resident Jacques Harlow – Incumbent Councilman; Oak Street resident Joseph Hovan – Retired Ridgewood School Teacher; Claremont Road resident Keith Killion – Captain of Detectives, Ridgewood PD; Willow Court resident Kim Ringler-Shagin – Incumbent Councilwoman; Walthery Avenue resident Thomas Riche – Former Ridgewood Councilman, Sterling Place resident Betty Wiest – Incumbent Deputy Mayor; North Walnut Street resident
and just added:
And Roy Simpadian – Computer Consultant, Amsterdam Avenue Resident 27 years old, lifetime Ridgewood Resident. Website to follow
The Ridgewood Blog would like to extend and invitation to anyone looking to run for the Village Council to send us a statement announcing your candidacy and a brief out line of your platform.
>Don’t you get it? If they switched after the 2003 S&P report, they achieved their high ranking without the ‘benefit’ of reform math, and were subsequently hoodwinked by slick publishing marketing techniques into making a change for change’s sake. This means that those districts are nothing but high-class suckers now, just like Ridgewood.
If you don’t like the word “disingenuous”, then how about “sociopathic”?
If you seek to defend reform math, then defend reform math! Don’t try to convince us that reform math is preferable simply by dropping the names of presumptively high achieving districts that foolishly bought into this social engineering experiment wrapped in the skin of a math curriculum.
Show us why reform math isn’t as pathetic as we all think it is compared to other math curriculums currently on the market. Show us why, despite what we have all seen with our respective two eyes, reform math isn’t devoid of critical math fact and math algorithm content.
Is it because we don’t live in Missouri that you don’t feel obligated to “show me”?
> Installation of High Water Barriers on Village Hall Doors
Ironically, on the heels of receiving news that architect Barry Poskanzer won an award for his “flood-proof” design of the Ridgewood Village Hall renovation and expansion project, Village Council members will vote this evening on a plan to install removable “door dams” in front of all exterior doors on the lower level of Village Hall. Estimated total cost for the project is $80K.
Ridgewood Fire Headquarters, on East Glen Avenue and also in an identified “high risk” flood hazard zone, is equipped with similar devices.
>November 28, 2007 — DO you know what math curriculum your child is being taught? Are you worried that your third- grader hasn’t learned simple multiplication yet? Have you been befuddled by educational jargon such as “spiraling,” which is used to explain why your kid keeps bringing home the same insipid busywork of cutting, gluing and drawing? And are you alarmed by teachers who emphasize “self-confidence” over proficiency while their students fall further and further behind? Join the club.
From New York City to Seattle, parents are wising up to math fads like “Everyday Math.” Sounds harmless enough, right? It’s cleverly marketed as a “University of Chicago” program. Impressive, right? But then you start to sense something’s not adding up when your kid starts second grade and comes home with the same kindergarten-level addition and subtraction problems – for the second year in a row.
Then your child keeps telling you that the teacher isn’t really teaching anything, just handing out useless worksheets – some of which make no sense to parents with business degrees, medical degrees and PhDs in economics. Then you notice that it’s the University of Chicago education department, not the mathematics department, that’s behind this nonsense.
Then you Google “Everyday Math” and discover that countless moms and dads just like you – and a few brave teachers with their heads screwed on straight – have had similarly horrifying experiences.
Like the Illinois mom who found these “math” problems in the fifth-grade “Everyday Math” textbook:
A. If math were a color, it would be -, because -.
B. If it were a food, it would be -, because -.
C. If it were weather, it would be -, because -.
Then you realize your child has become a victim of “Fuzzy Math” – the “New New Math,” the dumbed-down, politically correct, euphemism-filled edu-folly corrupting schools nationwide. And then you feel like the subject of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” as you take on the seemingly futile task of waking up other parents and fighting the edu-cracy to restore a rigorous curriculum in your child’s classroom.
New York City teacher Matthew Clavel described his frustration with “Everyday Math” in a 2003 City Journal article: “The curriculum’s failure was undeniable: Not one of my students knew his or her times tables, and few had mastered even the most basic operations; knowledge of multiplication and division was abysmal . . . what would you do, if you discovered that none of your fourth-graders could correctly tell you the answer to four times eight?”
But don’t give up and don’t give in. While New York City remains wedded to “Everyday Math” (which became the mandated standard in 2003), Texas just voted to drop the University of Chicago textbooks for third- graders. School-board members lambasted the math program for failing to prepare students for college. It’s an important salvo in the math wars because Texas is one of the biggest markets for school textbooks.
Meanwhile, grass-roots groups such as Mathematically Correct (mathematicallycorrect.com) and Where’s The Math? (wheresthemath.com) are alerting parents to how their children are being used as educational guinea pigs. And teachers and math professionals who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid are exposing the ruse. Nick Diaz, a Maryland educator, wrote a letter to his local paper:
“The proponents of fuzzy math claim that the new approach provides a ‘deep conceptual understanding.’ Those words, however, hide the truth. Students today are not expected to master basic addition, subtraction and multiplication. These fundamental skills are necessary for a truly deep understanding of math, but fuzzy math advocates are masters at using vocabulary that sounds good to parents, but means something different to educators.”
If Fuzzy Math were a color, it would be neon green like those Mr. Yuk labels warning children not to ingest poison. Do not swallow
Ridgewood-based Poskanzer Skott Architects received a 2007 New Jersey Golden Trowel award last week for its work on renovating Ridgewood’s Village Hall. The awards are given annually by the International Masonry Institute.
Firm principal Barry Poskanzer began working with Ridgewood officials to design a flood-proof renovation and building expansion shortly after Village Hall was damaged during 1999’s Tropical Storm Floyd.
“We’re pleased with the outcome of melding new architecture with the old building,” said Barry Poskanzer, principal of Poskanzer Skott. “We’ve heard nice things from the people in the community and the people who occupy it.”
The newly renovated and expanded Village Hall was officially opened in September of 2005, and then suffered damaging flooding less than one month later.
The Fly wonders if Mr. Poskanzer remembers 2005’s flood.
>The Ridgewood district could literally flip a switch and begin providing a math curriculum of a quality comparable to that of the private and catholic schools mentioned above.
What are they so afraid of?
The Ridgewood district is blatantly giving the cold shoulder to math talented kids. But if the same child was as talented with the violin, we would see nothing but encouragement for the child to develop mastery at the earliest age possible. What gives? What’s so acceptable about bad math versus bad music?
With all due respect to the virtuoso instrumentalists among us, exactly who is landing high-paying jobs with great benefits and fat annual bonuses these days based on their musical talent?
Why does the Ridgewood district fear success so thoroughly? What motivates them to identify that which is the polar opposite of what is in its non-remedial math students’ best interests, implement that lousy option, and then stick with its crummy decision so assiduously, come hell or high water?
