Continue reading Ridgewood BOE Special Public Meeting on Friday August 28th at 3pm
“In my opinion CoVid has only exacerbated a dynamic that exists in any place of employment: Some people going above and beyond (whatever the motivation may be for their extra efforts), a lot of people meeting expectations and doing the job they are paid to do … and then the people I would describe as the Takers. No place of employment, public or private, is immune to this. Some of my kids’ teachers were very much present and obviously putting in a great deal of time and effort to make remote learning as good as possible. Others – crickets. Posting assignments, assigning kids to watch YouTube videos in lieu of teaching and just not interacting w/kids even remotely during the spring. In my (private company) – no different. Some decided to take advantage of WFH to not do all too much. I’m not speaking about people who had to care for sick family or step in to school their own kids. I hate to break it to people, but there are always Takers in society. The issue is if there is a tipping point, and productive people start to feel that they’ve been ‘had’ and decide why bother. In the private sector, it probably isn’t the right decision (in the long run) to so obviously show that you’re not really needed for the success of your enterprise.”
“If the BOE wants to be taken seriously (including those at the top with very obvious and unethical conflicts of interest, who shall not be named), they should remain keenly focused on what an overwhelming majority of parents want for their kids, which is more in-person learning…5 days a week. The taxpayers already pay way to much for the school budget, and while we may tolerate some non-sense and waste in the spirit of town civility, the one thing that will most certainly cause residents to “storm the castle” is if we are forced to spend our hard earned dollars to incentivize lazy and ineffective teachers, who are using COVID as a tool for their personal agenda. Every profession is exposed to the risks of COVID, so why should they be preferentially treated at our expense? Either opt out if you are truly scared, or just follow the damn protocols…”
photo courtesy of the Ridgewood school District
Dear Ridgewood School Community,
I hope this letter finds you healthy and relaxed from what may be the most unusual summer of our lives. Many of you have walked by the Orchard School property to view the progress of the soil remediation project, and I would like to provide an update, as we are quickly approaching the start of the school year.
Continue reading Superintendent of Schools Updates on Orchard School Soil Remediation Project Update
photo by Boyd Loving
By Colleen Maguire, NJSIAA Chief Operating Officer NJSIAA
Ridgewood NJ, During the past five months, the lives of our student-athletes have changed drastically. Last March, NJSIAA made the difficult decision to shut down high school sports. That decision was necessary to slow infections and to allow for mitigation efforts to be established. However, cancelling high school sports has come at a significant cost – the emotional and social well-being of our student-athletes. We need to return to sports this fall.
photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
The CDC has published updated guidance regarding school openings. The updated guidance provides additional recommendations for a myriad of topics, including ventilation, food service, and mask use as schools continue to prepare and implement their plans to start the 2020-21 school year. The guidance also expands on previous iterations regarding students with “special healthcare needs and disabilities” with a new section dedicated to these challenges. Schools may need to develop individualized plans for some students and staff, including those with limited mobility, those with visual or hearing impairments, those with underlying health conditions, or those who may have difficulties understanding or adapting to new routines. The information notes that some individuals may struggle with social distancing or isolation or mask use, or they may need additional visual or verbal reminders or assistance implementing the school’s social distancing protocols. The information also links to guidance regarding protections related to service animals.
photo by Boyd Loving
“Public unions gotta go. Unionizing against the public is a travesty. Ppl turned a blind eye while good times rolled, but we’re in a right spot now. And the decade of transformation has just started!
Expect fewer white collar jobs, normalization if demand for IT specialists and entertainers, high inflation and much higher taxes on top earners as well as property owners.
Covid merely accelerated the existing trend. With these issues, last thing taxpayers can afford is subsidize 20th century style “public servants.” Especially those who teach their children how to hate their own family and nation.”
“residents here in Ridgewood know more about what happens than the eggheads at the BOE & REA who theorize on how to control thoughts as they trade bon mots at their cocktail parties. Should corona last for the long run, the intelligentsia and NJEA unions will be toast as they cling to their days gone by like the Luddites they are. I pity the truly great teachers in the district who have been lumped into the mix with the Marxists.”
“So REA, if the Ridgewood BOE installs high efficiency HEPA filters in each classroom , will you agree to return to teach? These are recommended for critical healthcare applications like anterooms, isolation wards and COVID-19 patient rooms. When educational institutions reopen after the coronavirus outbreak, ASHRAE recommends a portable HEPA and UV air cleaner for each classroom, with at least two air rotations per hour. Will that, in addition to the already planned health, cleaning and physical distancing protocols, be enough for you to return to the physical classroom this fall? Or do you just not want to have to work full time but still receive full pay?”
Many people get sick every day without really knowing the reason. They make contact with their friends and colleagues and they also touch dirty surfaces and inhale the polluted air. All of these things promote the spread of germs and can lead to illness and infection. Although you cannot control the air or the places you go to, you can still protect yourself from dirt and bacteria by taking some precautions. Read on to get to know surprisingly useful ways to help you guard yourself against germs and stop them from spreading.
“Start the school year by letting the teachers and administrators, basically all the adults, stay home while all the students come in every day for a full day’s instruction. In addition to assembling in their regular classrooms the students will run the school and put one of their own in every office formerly occupied by an adult, including the principal’s office, secretaries and all the guidance counselors’ offices. The teachers will teach from home and the children will all do in-person learning together with each other. Easy-peasy. Yeah, by the middle of October the schools might all resemble the Lord of the Flies island, but by then maybe we will have shamed all the adults into coming back to work”
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Two-thirds of college students (13.3 million) say the coronavirus has changed how they feel about their financial future, according to the personal-finance website WalletHub’s 2020 College Student Financial Survey, released today. The survey also revealed that students feel the pandemic is the biggest thing holding them back financially right now, ahead of a lack of money and a lack of financial literacy.
“Dr. Fishbein, whatever some may say of him, has presided over a period during which the corrosive influence of constructivist teaching methods has waned somewhat and may now be losing its mojo. At the time Dr. Fishbein was hired, a huge push had been underway for years in the Ridgewood district in favor of denuding K-12 curricula of content and emphasizing process instead. As part of that push, the Trustees of our Board of Education put us on the brink of hiring for our superintendent the then-high priest of Constructivism and Reform Math (late of a Long Island district he conveniently abandoned rather than face the unmitigated displeasure of a growing army of pitchfork-bearing parents and taxpayers) together with his “man behind the curtain” wife as a kind of Bill and Hillary “two for one” deal. Like Hillary, who put her husband to shame in terms of her determination to promote the marxist/socialist agenda, the dedication our incoming supe’s wife had to the cause (as demonstrated by her history of hoovering up large amounts constructivism-promoting grant money and writing books on the subject), to say nothing of her radical street cred, probably exceeded that of her husband. We dodged a huge bullet when that zealot thankfully quit a couple of weeks before his scheduled start date and took his egghead wife with him to parts unknown. Within a few months, Superintendent Fishbein was hired. Within a year or so after that, we witnessed with enormous relief the resignation and apparent professional disappearance of long-time Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum Regina Botsford, whose radicalism and utter devotion to constructivist teaching methods was itself the stuff of legend among her K-12 curriculum development industry colleagues (Bill Ayers eventually went into that line of work, if that tells you anything). So the constructivist storm seems to have passed, at least for the time being, and Ridgewood was not established as the Mecca for constructivist teaching methods among U.S. K-12 public school districts. Your mileage may vary, but we might want to pause and at least thank Dr. Fishbein for what he isn’t!”
…the fly has learned that the Ridgewood Schools system HVAC is rated a MERV 8 with is the standard for New Jersey schools and office buildings, but the word is the REA wants to see a hospital standard MERV 13 installed in all Ridgewood schools , teacher and administrators may have to suffice with opening windows , except cottage place which has over the years presented its own set of problems …
Dear RHS Community,
You may be aware that last year the Ridgewood High School Alumni Association hosted its inaugural Homecoming/Reunion Weekend. We endeavored to centralize Reunions to allow for more camaraderie between celebratory classes and offered an opportunity to visit your Alma Mater hosted by current ambassadors on a coordinated weekend. We were excited to make our second annual Homecoming weekend that much more special this October when the classes ending in five and zero celebrated their respective reunions. Unfortunately, the Ridgewood High School Alumni Association has made the difficult decision to postpone Homecoming until the fall of 2021.
