Category: Ridgewood Schools

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Reader suggest its time for New Leadership at Ridgewood schools

Ridgewood High School class of 2016

Ultimately Fishbein and Gorman are responsible. Their hefty salaries are funded by the taxpayers. If the rankings don’t improve in 2-3 years, then these two losers get FIRED. It’s that simple, folks.

What part of the budget (none?) is going towards improving the actual ACADEMIC QUALITY of Ridgewood schools?
.
Are the feckless superintendent and RHS principal doing anything to improve these numbers?
.
Ridgewood DID NOT make “The 50 highest scoring schools in NJ’s new school ranking system”
RHS is ranked 84 out of 386 in NJ High Schools (not even top 20%)

nj.com article link:
https://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_top_50_schools_in_njs_new_state_ratings.html
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Ridgewood DID NOT make the “top 10” (or even the “top 25”) in NJ High schools
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Ridgewood DID NOT even make the “Top 500” high schools Nationally (they were almost in the 600s)
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Ridgewood BARELY made the top 50% in College Readiness (53.6% of students are ready for college … which means almost HALF of RHS students ARE NOT ready for college)
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us news link:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-jersey/districts/ridgewood-public-schools/ridgewood-high-school-12746
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Pathetic. Pitiful.

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Reader asks Who is Responsible for the Dramatic Decline of Ridgewood Schools

RHS BEST theridgewoodblog.net

My God… we’re not even better than Bergenfield? Waldwick? etc…
Maybe we need a bigger budget. How about $125 million and a goal to break into the top 75…
Bergenfield, Dumont, Ramapo… Those towns must have massive budgets

 

The State of NJ ranks Ridgewood High School as 83 out of the 385 NJ high schools.
Apologies for being off by 1 in the original post (was counting the “header row” by mistake)
.
Lets see how bad Ridgewood #83 ranking really is…
.
Neighboring Glen Rock was ranked #13
(the top twelve are specialized “academies” and vocational schools which have academic standards for acceptance)
.
Here’s some other (local) schools that are ranked higher than Ridgewood:
.
#20 – Pascack Hills (Pascack Valley)
#25 – Northern Valley – Demarest
#28 – Tenafly
#29 – Mahwah
#45 – Northern Valley – Old Tappan
#46 – Pascack Valley
#48 – River Dell
#52 – Indian Hills
#55 – Emerson
#56 – Fair Lawn
#60 – Northern Highlands
#61 – Fort Lee
#72 – Waldwick
#73 – New Milford
#76 – Bergenfield
#82 – Ramapo
.
Then Ridgewood at #83
.
But at least we beat out Dumont (ranked #84)
.
.

Embarassing.
.
But let’s approve the $110 Million budget.
It’s money well spent.
We’ll keep deluding ourselves that we have great schools.
It’s all part of the “Tradition of Excellence”

What a dramatic decline. Fishbein and Gorman should take responsibility for this. Who holds their feet to the fire? In the meantime parents are oblivious as long as they feel good about “the new leaders (their kids)” being “vocal” about national issues

 

 

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Reader says forget college preparedness RHS’s student walkout performance this year is sure to boost its progressive poll ranking come next year

RHS 2017

Let’s take a guess: the rankings are weighted in favor of radical progressive political priorities and how well the high school in question advances the same. If Ridgewood High School is slipping in the poll, that is because RHS is not revamping its culture and curriculum quickly enough to the liking of the radical progressives, and is therefore falling behind other schools. To be fair, the rankings may have been tabulated before the recent school walkout protest, during which Ridgewood High School’s Students Demand Action club and complicit Principal joined forces to maximize student body participation, achieving a number of 1000 students, as attested to by Principal Gorman personally to the assembled media, and arrived at by the use of sophisticated and proprietary Reform Math algorithms. So RHS’s student walkout performance this year is sure to boost its progressive poll ranking come next year.

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Readers Lament on Flagging Ridgewood School Rankings

RHS_Sign_theridgewoodblog

Feigned outrage $110,000,000 budget to not place in the top 20% in the state , Ridgewood property values don’t come from rainbow flags and anti gun proclamations .

What a dramatic decline. Fishbein and Gorman should take responsibility for this. Who holds their feet to the fire? In the meantime parents are oblivious as long as they feel good about “the new leaders (their kids)” being “vocal” about national issues. On the path of self destruction.

Tradition of excellence was abandoned by Ridgewood’s school system years ago. Instead it’s all about the marvelous support staff that other schools are not “lucky?” enough to have. Compare the number of these currently compared to even 10 years ago.

Ugh. Sad day for Ridgewood but don’t tell anyone. We all have homes to sell and we want top dollar!! Brush it under the carpet like everything else

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The New Jersey School Counselors Association (NJSCA) has named RHS Guidance Counselor Laura Moore a Counselor of the County for Bergen.

RHS Guidance Counselor Laura Moore

March 29,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, On Friday, March 23, 2018 NJSCA honored school counselors from the different counties within the State of New Jersey at the annual “Counselor of the County” Awards Program held at The College of New Jersey. School counselors are nominated by their colleagues and are selected by their own county’s School Counselor Associations for this award.

The award honors the professionals who devote their careers to serving as advocates – and often lifesavers – for the nation’s students. Laura Moore, a school counselor from Ridgewood High School who was selected as the 2017-2018 Counselor of the County for Bergen County.

Candidates are selected for the Counselor of the County Award at their county-level school counselor associations. They are selected because of their ability to deliver an effective school counseling program which focuses on academic development, career counseling, and personal/social support. They further distinguish themselves by proving to be leaders of systemic change, advocates for students, and collaborative professionals who seek the success of the “whole” student in school and in life. For more specific information on this association, visit: www.njsca.org.

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The State of NJ ranks Ridgewood High School as 83 out of the 385 NJ high schools

RHS 2017

The State of NJ ranks Ridgewood High School as 83 out of the 385 NJ high schools.
Apologies for being off by 1 in the original post (was counting the “header row” by mistake)
.
Lets see how bad Ridgewood #83 ranking really is…
.
Neighboring Glen Rock was ranked #13
(the top twelve are specialized “academies” and vocational schools which have academic standards for acceptance)
.
Here’s some other (local) schools that are ranked higher than Ridgewood:
.
#20 – Pascack Hills (Pascack Valley)
#25 – Northern Valley – Demarest
#28 – Tenafly
#29 – Mahwah
#45 – Northern Valley – Old Tappan
#46 – Pascack Valley
#48 – River Dell
#52 – Indian Hills
#55 – Emerson
#56 – Fair Lawn
#60 – Northern Highlands
#61 – Fort Lee
#72 – Waldwick
#73 – New Milford
#76 – Bergenfield
#82 – Ramapo
.
Then Ridgewood at #83
.
But at least we beat out Dumont (ranked #84)
.
.

Embarassing.
.
But let’s approve the $110 Million budget.
It’s money well spent.
We’ll keep deluding ourselves that we have great schools.
It’s all part of the “Tradition of Excellence”

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Reader Suggest its time for Ridgewood Schools to Focus on Academic Quality

Ridgewood High School theridgewoodblog.net 3

What part of the budget (none?) is going towards improving the actual ACADEMIC QUALITY of Ridgewood schools?
.
Are the feckless superintendent and RHS principal doing anything to improve these numbers?
.
Ridgewood DID NOT make “The 50 highest scoring schools in NJ’s new school ranking system”
RHS is ranked 84 out of 386 in NJ High Schools (not even top 20%)

nj.com article link:
https://www.nj.com/education/2018/01/the_top_50_schools_in_njs_new_state_ratings.html
.
Ridgewood DID NOT make the “top 10” (or even the “top 25”) in NJ High schools
.
Ridgewood DID NOT even make the “Top 500” high schools Nationally (they were almost in the 600s)
.
Ridgewood BARELY made the top 50% in College Readiness (53.6% of students are ready for college … which means almost HALF of RHS students ARE NOT ready for college)
.
us news link:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-jersey/districts/ridgewood-public-schools/ridgewood-high-school-12746
.
Pathetic. Pitiful.

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$110 Million Dollar 2018-2019 Ridgewood School Budget Public Presentations

ridgewood schools

March 29,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Board of Education has approved the preliminary 2018-2019 school budget. Prior to the final Board vote on Monday, May 7, public presentations will be given at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 3 at George Washington Middle School Auditorium and on Monday, April 16 at Benjamin Franklin Middle School Auditorium.

Questions on the budget may be sent to [email protected].

View the 2018-2019 Preliminary Budget presentation, given at the March 20 Board of Education meeting: https://www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=13032001

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Reader says the goal of protecting the children pales in comparison to the nakedly political priorities

walk out against guns

If we want to have a debate about the 2nd amendment then fine, let’s have a debate about it for the next six months. But in the meantime, TODAY, let’s secure the schools. We know how. I would sleep better TONIGHT knowing that we have done all we could to protect our children TODAY. Why won’t the anti-gun left agree that it’s important to protect our children the best way we know how to TODAY?

“Why won’t the anti-gun left agree that it’s important to protect our children the best way we know how to TODAY?”
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Because as a goal, protecting the children pales in comparison to the nakedly political priorities: 1) Damaging the NRA, 2) Putting gun owners on their collective backs, and 3) Reversing or overturning the current Supreme Court jurisprudence that has it that the second amendment was instituted to protect the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms as an individual rather than as part of an organized group subject to at least some kind of government control (i.e., militia).

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Ridgewood Board of Education Misstep to Cost Taxpayers

tradition of excellence

 

March 27,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, despite many assurances the decision more than a year ago to move Ridgewood Schools to an all-day kindergarten format may finally catch up with residents to the tune of a $500,000 tax increase this year.

During that time there was heavy debate as to the value of full day kindergarten ,which seemed to amount to no more than a convenience for parents personal schedules.  Lately the schools have been under pressure due to a well publicized bullying incident , falling academic rankings and use of school time for administration sponsored protests .

This is looking like another poor decision by the Ridgewood BOE is going to cost Ridgewood ‘s over taxed residents .

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PARCC Tests May Finally be On the Way Out

SAT

March 27,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, One bright spot in education policy changes . Governor Murphy told audiences during his campaign that he would end PARCC tests “day one,” a promise that could not be kept due to state and federal requirements to use assessments to measure student progress and evaluate schools.  It would be unrealistic to think that PARCC assessments would be eliminated this spring with no plan to replace these state tests.  Acting Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet issued a memo on March 6 to school districts informing them that he will establish an advisory group to study the next generation of assessments and schedule a listening tour to meet with students, teachers, administrators, parents and community members in every county.

Commissioner Repollet affirmed his commitment to transition away from the PARCC tests and to improve NJ’s assessments. Understanding that this will take time, the PARCC tests will be administered this spring as planned.

Repollet stated that “ There are many issues to take into consideration when transitioning an assessment system, including the amount of time needed to procure a new vender, the fiscal and operational impact of assessments, and continued alignment of our NJ Student Learning Standards.  Additionally, as state and federal law require all states to use assessments as one method to gauge and compare progress of students and student groups and to evaluate how schools support learning, we need to ensure our next generation of assessments provides a fair and accurate picture of student progress towards the mastery of the skills we expect them to achieve.”

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Ridgewood Schools: Update on Spring Recess changes

Snow Blizzard of 2016 Ridgewood CBD

File photo by Boyd Loving

Update on Spring Recess changes:
March 26, 2018
Dear Parent or Guardian,
Although I hope this is the last time I need to write to you about emergency closing days, unfortunately, I must report that last week’s spring snowstorm and subsequent emergency closing requires that our schools be open on Thursday, April 12, during Spring Recess. This change is in addition to the previously announced date that schools will be also open on Friday, April 13.
Making the decision to close schools for weather-related events is never easy. Aside from the various meteorological scenarios that can cause a tricky weather forecast, there are also factors such as declared states of emergency by our governor that must be taken into account.
The two most recent nor’easters are good examples of the challenge of calling a school emergency closing. Based on the best predictions and fairly consistent forecasts across the channels that Ridgewood would receive significant snow and high winds, and also factoring in the state of emergency declared by Governor Murphy, there was no option but to close our schools. Frustrating as it may be, in many ways we were fortunate that the storm paths veered slightly from the predicted models, sparing us potential loss of power, felled trees and downed wires that are real issues for our Village.
Enjoy the upcoming long weekend, as we will be closed March 29 and 30 and then closed again for Spring Recess on April 9, 10, 11 but open on April 12 and 13.
Sincerely yours,
Daniel Fishbein, Ed.D
Superintendent of Schools

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Reader says Time For the Ridgewood High School Principal and the Superintend to Address Ridgewood’s Slipping Rankings

tradition of excellence

How much money is being spent to address this?
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RIDGEWOOD
#26 in NJ | #583 in National Rankings | Not Ranked in STEM Schools | College Readiness Score 53.6/100.0

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Maybe Gorman or Fishbein can write one of their useless letters or columns to address this…

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Reader says the School Budget gets bigger and bigger with Ridgewood continuing to go down in almost every way

ridgewood schools

Admittedly, we have been here since Jan 1971. When we moved in, the taxes were about half of what we now pay (and we thought they were very high then!). When we moved in Ridgewood was in the highest grouping in both national and state rankings. When we moved in there were approximately half the number of support staff. When we moved in, Ridgewood had some internal problems, Glen school had a Kindergarten teacher who actually told me “What did I do to deserve your child? She claims that kindergarten is for reading, writing, and arithmetic when the state law clearly states that that is not what kindergarten is for. I had a student just like her first semester and I had him promoted to first grade.” This was after I had already been told that both my first and second graders would have to be skipped because they were too far ahead of the comparable classes of Glen School students. And we came from an inner city public school! This is the point that the Ed center hired several “specialists” to make sure each school was learning the same material as the others. But the schools were far better then than now. Gifted and talented was a class in the grade schools–not now. Ridgewood has to spend so much time and money on special education that the gifted, and non-gifted, are given no extra challenges. Read the paper. Does Ridgewood participate in robots and all the other advance things that most of the area schools send students to compete in. Even the Debate team (if it still exists) never receives any recognition. Athletes, sure, but non-athletic competitions do not seem to exist any more. Yet our budget gets bigger and bigger with Ridgewood continuing to go down in almost every way. Our high school has decided one lunch period is sufficient. The cafeteria was designed for multi period uses and is too small for one lunch period. Kids actually eat sitting on hall floors. And we say we’re “excellent”?

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Ending Gun Violence in Schools More than Just Banning Guns

Maryland School Resource Officer Blaine Gaskill

March 24,2018

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, The handgun used in a shooting at a Maryland high school was legally owned by the gunman’s father, authorities said Wednesday. A reader replied to the sad story ,“I don’t understand. If a law was passed to outlaw a 17 year old from owning a gun how ever did he have a gun? He was breaking the law? What about the gun free school laws? Do you think he broke those too? How crazy is that?!? Why, if people keep breaking laws like that, how are we ever to keep our schools safe? I’m confused.”

Maryland generally prohibits any person under age 21 from possessing any “regulated firearm” (handgun or assault weapon).1 Maryland also prohibits any person from transferring a regulated firearm to a transferee who the person knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under 21 years of age.

Maryland also prohibits any person from selling, renting or transferring ammunition for a regulated firearm to a person under age 21, or any ammunition to a person under age 18.3 Maryland also prohibits the sale or transfer of a rifle or shotgun to a person under age 18.

Maryland law provides that a person “may not store or leave a loaded firearm in a location where the person knew or should have known that an unsupervised child would gain access to the firearm.”1 This section does not apply if:
The child’s access is supervised by an individual age 18 or older;
The child’s access was obtained as a result of unlawful entry;
The firearm is in the possession or control of a law enforcement officer while the officer is engaged in official duties; or
The child has a certificate of firearm and hunter safety.2
State administrative regulations may impose storage requirements in certain locations.

Federal law :

Dealers may not sell or deliver a handgun or ammunition for a handgun to any person the dealer has reasonable cause to believe is under age 21.

Unlicensed persons may not sell, deliver or otherwise transfer a handgun or handgun ammunition to any person the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is under age 18, with certain exceptions