Ridgewood NJ, U.S. News & World Report released its annual list of best high schools in the country. The U.S. News rankings include data on more than 20,500 public schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on their performance on state assessments and how well they prepare students for college.
New Jersey high school students are assessed in math and English language arts via the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, exams. High school students are required to study a world language to graduate, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.
Ridgewood High School was ranked No. 24 in New Jersey and No. 577 in the country.
US News ranked Ridgewood High School 24th within New Jersey. Students have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement® course work and exams. The AP® participation rate at Ridgewood High School is 60 percent. The student body makeup is 48 percent male and 52 percent female, and the total minority enrollment is 28 percent.
The US News Score card :
College Readiness Index
55.5
AP® Tested
60%
AP® Passed
89%
Mathematics Proficiency
69%
Reading Proficiency
68%
To compare, Princeton is similar is size :
Princeton High School is ranked #230 in the National Rankings and earned a gold medal. Schools are ranked based on their performance on state-required tests and how well they prepare students for college. Read more about how we rank the Best High Schools.
All rankings:
#230 in
National Rankings
#9 in
New Jersey High Schools
#95 in
STEM High Schools
For details on the misinformation about the effects of additional apartments in Ridgewood, all you have to do is examine the poorly supported assumptions used in the decision to move to full day kindergarten. The town relied on a study (contracted for by developers) that concluded, with no real evidence, that the additional housing would bring no more than 50 students into the school system. The school board then argued that with 50 new students, the district would have roughly 4 additional students per grade. They did not look at existing apartments to get a sense of students per unit. The number 50 probably is a very low figure. Look at your own neighborhood to see the ages of kids when new families move to town. The distribution is not even across the ages. There is a high percent of kindergarten or younger students in new arrivals. It is rare that a new junior or senior arrives. The majority of new students in the first year will be in kindergarten, creating a bubble of overcrowding, one that will move through the schools and which will be continued as younger siblings move into the school system. Rather than 4 new students in kindergarten, we are more likely to see 15 or 20, based on past experience. The rooms do not exist for an additional kindergarten room or for anywhere near that many additional students in the existing classrooms. Expect a move to expand the schools, with its resulting new bond to raise the money.
Ridgewood Nj, Members of the Ridgewood Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel Fishbein will host residents for coffee and casual conversation on Monday, May 14 from 7-8:30 p.m. Please join them at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, Ridgewood. Residents are welcome to drop in and share their thoughts, questions, suggestions and concerns.
Ridgewood NJ, as expected the Ridgewood Board of Education passed a massive budget increase of 4.3%, your tax hit is 3.6%. Two members of the board had great suggestions, and the other three don’t seem to care what public say had to say . All three need to be replaced and have needed replacement for some time .
During the presentation, they basically the BOE took 2% is for granted, but needed to justify 1.62% which is above 2%.
They killed the ridiculous windows project, but replaced it with different capital projects.
James Morgan tabled an amendment to the budget, in which these two newly added items were not a priority, so they can probably wait until the referendum, and let’s keep the budget under 2%. His amendment was defeated 3-2.
They spent a lot of time pretending they were cost focused as usual , which no one believes but frankly its school performance that’s lacking .
College-Ready Student Performance :
High school students take AP® exams to earn college credit and demonstrate success at college-level course work. U.S. News calculated a College Readiness Index based on AP exam participation rates and percentages of students passing at least one AP exam. The index determined which types of medals (gold, silver or bronze) were awarded to top-performing schools. College Readiness Index 53.6
Ridgewood NJ, the Board of Education budget vote is tonight. The BOE will be voting on a $110,000,000 school budget and to increase the school tax by 3.62%. The meeting starts at 7:30, & public comment is first. I know people have busy lives, but anyone who does not speak up now, should have no excuse to complain later.This number gets compounded year after year after year.
The school budget is 65% of our tax dollars, so this is going to be a big hit. 2 of the 5 board members believe they can keep the budget within the cap, and without losing any teachers/programs at the schools. I would like to see the entire board to work together to achieve that.
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Board of Education will hold a Regular Public Meeting on Monday, May 7, 2018. The Board meets at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3 at 7:30 p.m.
The public is welcome to attend the meeting, or to watch from home on Fios channel 33 or Optimum channel 77. Meetings are also streamed via the “BOE Webcast” tab on the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us.
Meeting webcasts are immediately available on the district website.
Hamilton NJ, according to James Edward O’Keefe ,Project Veritas last month they sent undercover journalists who blanketed the state of New Jersey visiting dozens of teacher’s union offices. We wondered, how union leaders would react to claims that teachers were physically and verbally abusing students?
What you’re about to see is a man who is a union president, with a PHD, A LEADER; not working for children like the sign above his head says, but working to what he calls, “Bend the truth” and hide a potential crime.
In this undercover investigation, Hamilton Township Education Association President David Perry details the steps the teachers union would take to protect a teacher who physically abused and threatened middle school students from losing their job.
Dr. Perry says he would misrepresent the events of altercations between teachers and students by back-dating reports and instructed the teacher to not tell anybody about incidents with students.
The union president also stressed that a teacher who abuses his students needs to come to the union after any incident so that they can create a report that would best protect them from students that come forward about abuse.
Veritas will be releasing more undercover videos of teachers unions from ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY in the coming days and weeks. To be alerted as soon as they are published, sign up for our newsletter and check in to www.projectveritas.com frequently for any updates.
Ridgewood NJ, (from L) RHS sophomores C.J Lee, Olivia Jerdee, Annabel Mendoza, and Vanessa Cheng traveled to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a team on Thursday, April 27 as semifinalist competitors in 2018 Euro Challenge. The Ridgewood team competed against over 100 teams nationwide and was selected to advance as one of the top 25 teams overall. Each team selected a Euro Area member and issue to research and propose a policy recommendation for. Ridgewood selected Germany, with a focus on investment policies fo infrastructure. St. Albans School (Washington D.C.) took first place.
Ridgewood NJ, Members of the Ridgewood Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel Fishbein will host residents for coffee and casual conversation on Monday, May 14 from 7-8:30 p.m. Please join them at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, Ridgewood. Residents are welcome to drop in and share their thoughts, questions, suggestions and concerns.
The following column appeared in The Ridgewood News on April 27, 2018.
Dare I say that springtime is finally here? The crocuses and daffodils have had to push a bit harder to get to the surface due to some late snowstorms but it seems winter is now well behind us as we move from school closures and delayed openings to the spring sports calendar, Earth Day celebrations and the first barbecues of the season ahead … and yes, cutting the grass.
Along with turning our thoughts to the great outdoors, this is also the time of year in which the Ridgewood Board of Education finalizes and approves the next year’s school budget. For the past several months our administrators have been working to develop a 2018-2019 budget that provides resources for our outstanding instructional and co-curricular programs, our fine staff, and for the maintenance and operations of our facilities. Given rising costs and legal mandates, it is a tall order to put together a fiscally responsible budget but I am happy to say that once again we have succeeded.
The 2018-2019 budget, which will be approved by the Board of Education on May 7 and is approximately $110,000,000, maintains our outstanding staff, upholds and improves our excellent and rigorous academic offerings and supports new initiatives. As detailed in our 2018-2019 budget presentation, next year’s budget will also permit us to add new staff and programs, maintain and continue to upgrade our instructional technology equipment, implement new curriculum at all grade levels and undertake some facility renovations and improvements to school security.
How do we develop the budget? We start the process by creating instructional goals, which focus our work on the budget. Those goals for next year are as follows:
• Build capacity to create and implement authentic growth-based, innovative assessment practices to measure progress and foster student success. We do this through a review and update of curriculum and assessments, through formal and informal observations in classrooms, and by continuing to shift and leverage technology integration and learning environments.
• Continue to build capacity for implementation of interventions and instructional strategies for diverse learners to maximize students’ individual success. Examples of this goal are the two-year training of 21-plus staff members in multi-sensory reading strategies, and also curricular improvements such two new A.P. classes (Physics C and Human Geography) at the high school and many other courses in grades K-12.
• Build capacity to foster student wellbeing by focusing on social/emotional learning as an integral component of student health and achievement. We will do this by replicating our Ridgewood High School therapeutic program at our middle schools, by continuing to grow and infuse mindfulness activities into our classrooms and programs, and by fostering building initiatives like the “Choose to be Nice” programs within our schools. In addition, we are adding significant security measures to improve physical safety for staff and students.
Goals aside, some thoughtful residents have asked whether Ridgewood’s tradition of excellence continues to be upheld over the years. I want to share with you here some basic information taken from New Jersey official reports showing how the Ridgewood Public Schools continue to be effective and efficient:
• SAT and ACT scores: The RHS Class of 2017 had an average SAT score of 1272 and ACT score of 27, which exceed the average New Jersey SAT score of 1103 and ACT score of 23.75 and the average national SAT score of 1060 and ACT score of 21.
• Per pupil spending: Our per pupil spending continues to be significantly lower than surrounding districts. According to the 2016-2017 NJ Department of Education Comparative Spending Guide, Ridgewood came in at $15,119, while for example, Paramus was $18,826, Mahwah $18329 and Tenafly $17,049.
For additional information and commentary, I invite you to take a look at the full 2018-2019 budget presentation, which may be found on the home page of our website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us. I would also encourage you to browse through the Program of Studies for the elementary schools, middle schools and high school, which are located on the website under Academics/Departments. I also welcome any questions about the 2018-2019 budget, which may be emailed to [email protected].
The Ridgewood community is a critical partner in financing our mission of educational excellence. Due to the manner in which the State of New Jersey funds schools, the majority of our school funding is generated through the local property tax. Our proposed total budget for 2018-2019 of $110,167,997 will add $250.71 to the local tax bill on the average-assessed Ridgewood home.
In closing, the Ridgewood Public Schools continue to be fiscally prudent and efficient as well as educationally successful. For your support of the budget through taxes, and for the community’s further generous donations that this year exceeded one million dollars for curricular and co-curricular programs, I am grateful.
As always, please feel free to contact me with your questions or concerns.
Daniel Fishbein, Ed.D., is Superintendent of the Ridgewood Public Schools
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Public Schools launches mobile app: Download the new RPS mobile app by searching for Ridgewood Village School Dist. in your App/Play store! Features staff directory, calendar, news, sports, Skyward and more!
We formally request that you vote AGAINST the 2018-2019 budget proposed by the Ridgewood Board of Education. The budget amounting to $110,167,997 represents an egregious increase of 4.36% from the year prior, resulting in a tax increase of 3.62%. This above-inflation, above-cap pace cannot be sustained, and we refuse to accept it as a solution.
According to the Board Vice President James Morgan and Member Christina Krauss, who have abstained from voting on the budget, “options to ameliorate budgetary pressures have been discussed.” We believe these options should be presented to the residents of Ridgewood and the Village collectively should decide on a more budget-friendly course of action.
The spotlight is on the three members who have indicated to vote for the proposed budget: Mr. B. Vincent Loncto ([email protected]), Ms. Sheila Brogan ([email protected]) and Ms. Jennie Smith Wilson ([email protected]). They, along with the Superintendent Dr. Daniel Fishbein ([email protected]), need understand that tax dollars should be used judiciously.
Ridgewood NJ, Board of Education trustees have announced the following winners of the 2017-2018 Teacher Recognition Program:
Educational Services Professional: Maria Obregon
Hawes School: Julieanna Berry
Orchard School: Mary Saglimbeni
Ridge School: Meghan McDermott
Somerville School: Nancy Kaplan
Travell School: Nicole Graziano
Willard School: Robert Krokus
Benjamin Franklin Middle School: Kerriann Reilly
George Washington Middle School: Brittany Daidone
Ridgewood High School: Sean Turkington
The Ridgewood Teacher Recognition Award reception will be held at the Education Center on Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m. for the award recipients, their families, school parents, teachers and friends. Each of the award recipients will receive a stipend of $500 ($250 awarded by the individual Home and School Association and $250 by the Board).
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Crew had a remarkably good start to the 2018 season. Several of our boats consistently took first, second and third place slots in numerous categories during the 3rd, 4th and 5th Manny Flicks at the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.
The Manny Flicks act as brush ups for Ridgewood and many of the teams in the mid-Atlantic region before the championship season begins April 28.
Coach Boris Roque-Alvarez said the coaching staff was “extremely happy with the performance and results.” Weather conditions leading up to the Flicks proved frustrating. Snow and wind prevented rowers from getting in the water to hone their technique but strength training land practices proved successful.
The Girls Varsity 2x with Senior, Amanda Perez, and Junior, Alexandra Walton Roth held first place in all three regattas. The Boys JV 4x with Juniors, Alexander Melarti, Drew Johnson, Sebastian Rivero and Sophomore, Tommy Montgomery and the Boys Ltwt 2x with Seniors, Joe O’Keefe, and Spencer Campbell also hit the trifecta 1st place mark. The crew heads to the Cooper River for the Garden State Championships this weekend.
