Category: Ridgewood Schools

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Ridgewood Infant Toddler Development Program , Reader Questions the Whole Deal

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“Technically, when this problem of taxpayers paying to educate pre-schoolers at a rather substantial financial loss came up, it was also illegal for a school district to offer a pre-school taking away from public providers. This has been pussy footed around–we all know about the board going to court to prevent retiring the old members at the appropriate time–and this apparently was another of their boon doggles. To top it off, they kicked out the profitable to us private school that had been using the facility to allow us to take losses with them gone. Is it just me, or does something smell about this whole deal?”

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Reader says , “Parents need to spend more time teaching their kids about what’s right and wrong”

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photo by Boyd Loving

“Parents need to spend more time teaching their kids about what’s right and wrong. And how to research, critically analyze and engage the world. These skills should be taught to teens and it’s not up to a school or university to teach them.

We’ve seen time and time again that public and private education systems are profit-driven. Even worse, the fees they charge students and their parents aren’t channeled to improve the quality of education. Rather schools treat their students as captives, while selling them in a secondary market to Pharma, political organizations, and corporate advertisers.

It’s not difficult to research BLM. Sit down with your kids, go on BLM website and listen to their leaders speak. Have your kids write down key positions and statements. Then have your kids read communist manifesto. Then have them read from survivors about socialist revolutions in USSR, Cuba and Venezuela. Put 2&2 together.

Congrats, you’ve bonded with your kids, taught them useful skills, and set them on a path that avoids hustlers.”

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Reader says , “The problem is their indoctrinated parents”

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photo by Boyd Loving

“The problem is their indoctrinated parents. Spend the next 24 hours watching only CNN/MSNBC/CBS/NBC/ABC news. You will not see anything about rioting or damage being done by anarchists. They only present a picture of peaceful protesters, who are then being charged by Trump’s nazi storm troopers. The Left controls just about all of the news and they are not going to make the huge mistake they made in 2016 by giving Trump so much airtime because of the ratings. They don’t show his press briefings. Social media platforms are now censoring “hate speech”, but their interpretation of hate speech is anything from the Right while allowing anything from the Left.”

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Reader asks ,”Is it true that Sheila Brogan is making phone calls to gather support for One Vote? “

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“Is it true that Sheila Brogan is making phone calls to gather support for One Vote? Sheila received one six month extension to her term when elections were originally moved from April to Nov.
In her current term also, she received an extension. Her current term was supposed to expire in Nov 2020. When council moved election to April, the board used tax payer money to file a court case and extended Sheila’s term to April 2021. Now if the election moves back to November, her term will extend again to Nov 2021, giving her a third 6 month extension over the years and making her current term a 4 year term instead of a 3 year term.”

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Tips for Deprogramming Indoctrinated Teens

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photo by Boyd Loving
By Charles Stampul

If you are close to a young person caught in the grips of a dangerous ideology, you may feel a moral responsibility to show that young person a way out.  Here are some tips based on experience teaching young adults and research into the subject.

First, resist the temptation to reason.  It is not an inability to reason that leads people to these positions.  They are motivated instead by deep, often latent psychological drives, such as the desire to belong or be part of what has been portrayed as an important crusade.

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Ridgewood Infant Toddler Development Program

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood N J, a reader stated that “Residents should not be supplementing other residents daycare obligations at ITDP. Any and all expenses of ITDP should be covered by tuition paid by the users, not from our school taxes. Diverting money to ITDP means less money for K-12. I paid day care for years; so should ITDP parents.”

At the request of the Board, Ms. Kelly gave a presentation on the Infant Toddler Development Program. The committee members, Ms. Brogan and Mr. Dani, met with Ms. Kelly and Dr. Fishbein to compile and discuss questions from the community and Board members, upon which Ms. Kelly conducted an analysis of the program. After providing a brief history of the program, Ms. Kelly reviewed the questions and provided responses. These questions and responses can be viewed on the PDF of the presentation.

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“Ridgewood for Black Liberation” Recruiting Ridgewood High School Teens

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewod NJ, its seems members of the “Ridgewood for Black Liberation” group is now attempting to recruit teens to their cause . On Wednesday July 29th the group held a ZOOM meeting “just for teens”,  no teachers or facility invited.   The 20 something leaders were looking for RHS students  interested in “social justice” code for Marxism .  The Ridgewood blog is curious about how parents feel about having their teen recruited buy grown adults ?

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Reader Comments on Ridgewood back to School Plans , “Bureaucrats, administrators…they definitely get paid by the word”

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“Bureaucrats, administrators…they definitely get paid by the word. No parent will suffer through this mess of information relating only to process. Moreover, the state is asleep at the switch. The districts and the NJEA know this and are confident that any scrutiny they receive for this mumbo-jumbo will end up being untimely and will only be partial. Nothing more than a post-game wrap-up. Therefore, they do as they please, everyone gets paid, nobody gets laid off or rendered superfluous, and the quantity of information absorbed by the students in the form of “learning” will continue to wither and shrink.”

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Ridgewood Board of Education Focuses on Getting Back to School

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, at the Ridgewood Board of Education meeting on Monday , Ms. Poelstra the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum first shared the proposed Return to School Plan at a Special Public Meeting on Thursday, July 23. She repeated the presented at the July 17 Regular Public Meeting, as originally scheduled.  At the start of the presentation, Ms. Poelstra shared data about the severity of the pandemic in New Jersey and how the actions we have taken have helped to mitigate the spread of the virus. She then reviewed the timeline from the mandatory emergency school closing on March 13 through July 31 when the district reopening plan is due to the County for review and approval. In May and June, administrative subcommittees were created to begin to think about what the district would need to do to transition back to school. The New Jersey Department of Education released The Road Back: Restart and Recovery Plan for Education on June 26. Since that time, the district started to develop its plans based on the guidance. This process involved administering staff and parent surveys, holding subcommittee meetings, attending NJDOE/Legal One webinars, collaborating with neighboring districts, and organizing comprehensive professional development for teachers over the summer. Last Friday, Governor Murphy announced that families will be allowed to choose an all-remote option, which is another challenge facing school districts. A few days ago, the deadline for the submission of the reopening plan was changed from July 27 to July 31. We still not have a checklist or template from the NJDOE about what needs to be included in the plan, yet districts are required to share our schedules with all stakeholders four weeks before the opening of school. This timeline reflects the rapidly changing situation, and we must be flexible and adaptable. Our goal is to have an education plan in place that allows our students to continue to learn while meeting the required health and safety standards.

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School Transition and Employment Program for Student Success

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Director of Special Programs. Dr. Michelle Fenwick presented an overview of 28-21 STEPSS: School Transition and Employment Program for Student Success. This program is an in-district transition to adulthood program for students ages 18-21, who have met state graduation requirements but continue to need more time and skill development before entering independent or interdependent adulthood. Dr. Fenwick explained that this program has been in the works since before the 2017 Special Education Review when this was identified as an area for growth for the Special Programs Office. The development of the program has included tours of other transitional programs, professional development on transition, meetings with other transition coordinators who were already engaged in 18-21 year-old programs, focus groups, surveys, and tours of potential sites. The philosophy of STEPSS that is shared with Ridgewood Public Schools and the Department of Special Programs is to provide specialized instruction and support services for meaningful readiness for employment and independence. Dr. Fenwick explained that the STEPSS team includes members of the IEP team that have worked with a student from the age of 14. The daily schedule of the program will consist of an instructional component and a community-based component. The benefits of the STEPSS Program include continuity of learning from our in-district special education programs, training and practice within our community, and cost-effectiveness of offering our own program as opposed to sending students to out-of-district programs. Recent events suggest  Dr. Fenwick has his work cut out for him .

Click here to view the PDF of the presentation.

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WalletHub Study : New Jersey Ranks the 3rd Best School System in America

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood N J, With in-person learning this fall hinging on how well states handle the COVID-19 pandemic, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2020’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems, as well as accompanying videos.

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The Ridgewood Board of Education meets Monday, July 27, 2020 via videoconferencing at 6:00 p.m.

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Due to the Governor’s Executive Order 104 citing the CDC’s recommendation for cancellation or postponement of gatherings of fifty or more people, the Regular meeting will be held utilizing videoconferencing.

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Updated Back to School CDC Guidance Explicitly Emphasizes the Importance of In-person School for Children

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ,  As the US moves toward the scheduled start of the 2020-21 school year, the US CDC published several updated guidance documents to support schools in preparing for classes in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of prominent US government officials, including President Trump, have publicly called for schools to resume in-person classes, but many state governments, school officials and teachers, and health experts warn that might not be feasible or safe in some circumstances. The updated guidance includes information for schools regarding the current understanding of COVID-19 risk to children and their role in driving transmission in the community and at home as well as recommendations for implementing appropriate social and physical distancing (including mask use), enhanced hygiene and sanitation, and disease surveillance and monitoring systems. The guidance also includes considerations based on the current level of community transmission, including the possible need to close schools due to uncontrolled community spread. In addition to schools, the CDC offers tools and information aimed at parents to help evaluate risk.

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NJ Department of Education Issues Guidance Allowing Parents to Choose All-Remote Learning for Their Children

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ,  The New Jersey Department of Education today issued clarifying guidance to allow parents to select fulltime remote learning for their children in the 2020-2021 school year. 

Released last month, the Department’s guidance document, “The Road Back: Restart and Recovery Plan for Education,” emphasized that schools should prepared plans to open in some capacity for in-person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year. Since its release, the Department received feedback from many parents who wanted a greater voice in the decision-making process of whether their child should return to in-person learning. In addition, officials in some school districts called on the Department to release guidance to specifically allow for all-remote learning for those students.   

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Ridgewood’s Proposed Return to School Plan

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewo0d NJ, Dr. Fishbein began by explaining that the primary concern when developing the reopening plan was the health and safety of our students and staff. Since districts are getting information from the Governor’s office and the Department of Education daily, everything is subject to change, and we need to be prepared to pivot at any time. The presentation, along with a link to a survey, will be embedded in a letter to parents which is being emailed on Tuesday, July 28. Transition to September was presented by Ms. Poelstra, who began by thanking the many stakeholders for their input and contributions to the development of the plan.

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