>Ridgewood News editorial: Keep voting in April
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Ridgewood News
Governor Christie recently gave local school boards the option to decide whether to move elections to November in a cost-saving effort. The Ridgewood Board of Education made the right decision this week when members voted to keep elections in April.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/138181894_Keep_voting_in_April.html
>Ridgewood BOE hosts informal get-together
THURSDAY JANUARY 19, 2012, 1:37 PM
BY BRYAN WASSEL
NORTH JERSEY MEDIA GROUP
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
In order to give the community a more casual venue to meet with school officials, the Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) has started a series of quarterly get-togethers with a focus on personal interaction.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/137685718_Ridgewood_school_board_hosts_informal_get-together.html
>Ridgewood News editorial: Teachers should attend charity basketball game
THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2012
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Ridgewood Education Association’s decision to pull teachers from a charity basketball game was a disappointing turn in contract negotiations with the school district.
Information from the contract negotiations is not made available to the press, but we can ascertain from the REA’s decision that they are not going well.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/137235708_Playing_games.html
Vincent Loncto is sworn in as Ridgewood schools trustee
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2011
BY EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD – A former chief financial officer for major corporations was sworn in Monday night as the school district’s newest trustee.
Vincent Loncto took his seat as a trustee at Monday’s school board meeting at the district’s Education Center on Cottage Place.
The certified public accountant was one of six candidates interviewed for the trustee post after Charles Reilly resigned earlier this year.
“The school budget is in the process of being developed, so I’m coming in at the right time,” said Loncto, who retired earlier this year from a 40-year career in financial management.
“It has to be done collaboratively,” he said. “What we are talking about here is enhancing the quality of the school system under budgetary constraints. It is detail-intensive work.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/Ridgewood_school_board_to_swear_in_new_member_tonight.html
>Ridgewood school board interviews six candidates for open seat
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011
BY JOSEPH CRAMER
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Board of Education (BOE) interviewed six candidates this week for the seat left vacant by trustee Charles Reilly’s departure last month.
Six candidates applied and were each questioned by board members on Monday night regarding their professional backgrounds, reasons for applying for the position, and goals as a potential BOE trustee. The decision on Reilly’s replacement will be announced at a public meeting on Nov. 7.
Among the candidates – James Morgan, Gwen Sullivan, B. Vincent Loncto, Janice Willet, Rei Shinozuka and Eric Gross – several themes were consistent across the six interviews. All expressed a desire to contribute to the reputation of the Ridgewood school district, which was a primary reason behind moving to the village for many of the candidates.
Issues of communication, whether relating to complex technical matters such as yearly budgets or simple instances of parent feedback, were also paramount in candidates’ responses.
>Interviews will be held on Monday, October 24, 2011 for Vacant Board Seat
APPLICATIONS RECEIVED FOR VACANT BOARD MEMBER POSITION
As of Friday, October 21, 2011, 4:00 p.m., the district has received applications for the vacant Board Member position from the following people:
Eric Gross
B. Vincent Loncto
James Morgan
Rei Shinozuka
Gwen Sullivan
Janice Willett
Interviews will be held starting at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 24, 2011, at the Regular Public Meeting, in the Board Room on the third floor of the Education Center.
>READER: Ridgewood BOE and Fishbein misrepresented the delivery of state grants in order to push through their pet projects
What a shocker. Ridgewood BOE and Fishbein misrepresented the delivery of state grants in order to push through their pet projects and get the town to vote on the yes on the bond.
I even seem to remember Fishbein and Lenhard guaranteeing that the grants would not be held up in spite of the economic uncertainty of the state.
IT IS TIME TO FIRE FISHBEIN and vote no-confidence in Lenhard & Brogan and get them out of there. I would rather have the state takeover the school system that let these useless fools continue to run our school system into the poor house and put a drain on the taxpayers in the community.
Just to be note, I am not against spending money to ensure the future success of our children. However, money needs to be spent wisely and have a strong and provable return on investment. Turf fields that need replacement and continuous maintenance (b/c they were idiotically built in a flood zone) does not represent wise spending. The return on investment does come close to breaking even as not nearly enough of the student population benefits.
Ridgewood school board seeking input from ‘no’ voters
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
BY KELLY EBBELS
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Staff Writer
The Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) Finance Committee is reaching out to residents to get a sense of why they cast their ballots in favor of or against the most recent school budget.
The committee will host two open meetings with residents about the budget ballot question; the first will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 16 at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place. A second meeting date will be determined at a later date, officials said.
Committee members said they would especially like to speak with those who voted against the $83 million budget for the 2011-2012 school year. The budget vote and election was held on April 27; 1,817 residents voted for the budget, with 1,448 voting against it.
if you can’t handle Ridgewood’s tax burden, then i suggest you MOVE. nobody is holding a gun to your head to live here. if you don’t want to pay state income taxes or don’t want to deal with high property taxes go to Texas!
if you can’t pay our taxes then you’re clearly too poor to be living in ridgewood.
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from the New Dean of Chess Blog
Orchard School, Ridgewood, NJ has become our 2007-2008 Grand Prix champions…again! Though Mt. Horeb School, Warren, NJ gave them a run for their money, with the home field advantage for the final tournament, Orchard outscored Mt. Horeb by only 10 points to take 1st place.
In the individual race, Simon Thomas, George Washington Middle School, Ridgewood, NJ gave another stellar performance to finish first.
Our final spots for the Tournament of Champions has also been decided. Michael Bender, St. Joseph’s High School, Metuchen, NJ has become the 7th qualifier while Richard Davisson, Shongum Elementary, Randolph, NJ is the wildcard.
Please visit our Grand Prix page for all standings and our Tournament of Champions page for more information.
Congratulations to all and good luck to our champions!
>NEWS FROM THE ED CENTER via rps eNews
Beef Recall Update The RPS district is in regular communication with Pomptonian, our food services provider, about the NJ Department of Agriculture beef recall.
Until the recall has been fully satisfied, the district has elected to remove beef from all K-12 menus.
>Charlie, you’re perspectives are reasonably well stated, but are unfortunately hopelessly outdated. I rarely derive much insight from your comments. Usually, you just come off sounding like a sycophant.
Years of stone-faced neglect and brainless posturing on the part of the Ridgewood district’s BOE have led us to the current curriculum crisis. In no small part, this is due to people, like yourself, who fail to take seriously the role a BOE trustee fills in seeing to it that the school district serves the interests of its residents and taxpayers, and those interests only.
The Ridgewood district does not exist to provide Assistant Superintendent Botsford with a big-budget playground to conduct her constructivist experiments, or to curry favor with Pearson Publishing, or to scoop up a fancy doctorate degree from Montclair State University, or to hold great sway when she jets down to the Big Easy to provide lectures to like-minded curriculum development administrators, as she plans to do next month.
There’s no question you have a right to speak your mind. And the fact that you tend to do so in complete sentences places you a cut above many who frequent this board. But for once, could you take a breather from your single minded support of the current BOE trustees? Even if they are comfortable having you as their sole defender in the Village of Ridgewood, which I tend to doubt, you should let them speak for themselves. In consideration of the upcoming election involving the seats currently held by Ms. Brogan and Mr. Bombace, I would much rather hear a straightforward defense/explanation of the BOE’s recent actions/inactions coming from the respective mouths of these two incumbents, or even from Ms. Brogan’s buddy Laurie Goodman, than to continue to be lectured by you.
>Regarding the Ridgewood News editorial on Fri. 11/30/07 describing as “shameful” the lack of public participation in the recent BOE meeting held to receive public comment relating to the ongoing search for a new super for the the school district:
It was not only the BOE critics that were absent from the recent meeting, but also BOE supporters. It was not only reform math opponents that were absent, but also its adherents. To whom, then, should this label “shameful” apply? One presumes that it must apply to each and every resident in Ridgewood, since everyone was equally absent.
How can a newspaper that is the namesake of a town justify indicting an entire town full of its own residents?
It is perhaps easier for the writer of such an editorial to lapse into that sort of lazy ‘badmouthing’ attitude if that same person does not live in Ridgewood. Otherwise, wouldn’t this be a self-indictment? No rational person would indict themselves without explaining the reason for such self-hatred (I couldn’t help myself), the motivation for such an epiphany (gee, upon further reflection, I really should have gone), or the particular reason why the indictment does not apply to them (my car broke down).
For what its worth, it’s also hard to see why an entire town full of residents should feel shame for failing to keep company with a Board of Education, the trustees of which are incapable of feeling any such emotion for the predictable results of their past actions/inactions/blatant negligence.
Sincerely:
An anonymous Ridgewood resident who blew off the BOE meeting for good reason–THEY COULDN’T CARE LESS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY, AND I WOULD PREFER TO AVOID THE INVIDIOUS RECRIMINATION THAT WOULD SURELY BE ADMINISTERED BY MY CHILD’S PRINCIPAL AS PUNISHMENT FOR MY FOOLISH DECISION TO PUBLICLY REBUKE THE TRUSTEES.
>Immediate work needed to be done:
– Restore home to school trust with clear expectations of the school
– Remove reform math programs TERC2 and CMP2 immediately as Administrator should be a proponent of world class practices and opponent of educational fads and failed practices.
– Restore gifted education with a dedicated budget amount for each school and document clear accelerated work goals in each school for such students.
– Restore content and academic achievement as the primary goal of our educational system across K-8.
– Revamp curriculum department to provide world class standards (capable of an A rating by an independent foundation) across all subject matters. Standards should de-emphasize pedagogy and emphasize knowledge to be learned and mastered.
Short Term Work To Be Done
– Perform an accounting of how much tutoring community has provided over the past 5 years. Of importance is the WHY behind the various tutoring and also the personal cost (time,money) spent. Offer plan of action for district to improve upon providing and meeting the needs over outside services.
– Eliminate authentic assessment and document the clear, concise, objective assessment that must be done for the students.
– Dissolve PRISM & Grant Wiggins affliations.
– Make a mission statement of Ridgewood Public Schools to be to provide an education to its children worthy of a world class ranking. And document that world class standards (This should effectively eliminate all dependence on standars from private teacher organizations, wich as NCTM)
– Must be good with large budgets but be sure budgets will now provide textbooks and workbooks to students in all grades.
– Must be able to provide oversight of curriculum and instruction group to develop acceleration flight plans for our top performing students (those that are not tested as gifted but are operating above the group). Ability grouping. Eliminate over dependence on group work; especially in those age groups where inappropriate (K-8).
– Must be willing tackle open campus issue at the High School, violence in the school and holding accountable all involved.
– Provide a strong voice in the community to ensure saftey of student environment (construction for 10+ years near a middle school should be a cause for concern by the school district and voiced by a capable leader)
– Be proactive and open and accountable. For example, provide cost of materials when the local reporter asks for it or hold accountable the department, supervisor, for the answer. Require your leadership team to return phone calls, emails, letters promptly and to follow through on answering questions to the satisfaction of the inquiring person.
And finally, recognize this is a partnership with the community but since we pay for this respect our voice as being as important as yours.
Administrator with an affection for educational fads need not apply. Administrator must value content knowledge and have demonstrated such work in prior districts. Adminisrator seeking glory or publication need not apply. Administrator will be subject to googling.
ORDER FINE ART/ STOCK PRINTS ON-LINE
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Hindsight shows (again the Ridgewood News Violated its sacred policy of not quoting anonymous sources, not posting on blogs or flogs and front running for particular organizations) that the reporter was doing his job (yes its time to toss him under the bus)– reporting – not passing judgment (we speak for everyone and your not allowed to speak for your self )on what was being exchanged, just reporting what was taking place. Isn’t that what he was supposed to do? Remain objective?(objective to this poster means you agree with them) And didn’t the editor simply back up the editorial integrity (no the editor did a hack job and violated all the journalist policies it purports to up hold)of the newspaper by not yielding to public criticism (covering up for cowards on the other flog)and printing the news as news? (only I can say what’s news )Spare me the conspiracy theories, would ya!( but they are ok for the editor to use, can you say “tactics”)
Now as for the math controversy (yes TERC is banned in California and condemned by the US department of education). Sure, I knew people were up in arms (yes some parents in town care about their kids), and yes, I’ll admit that some of the protocols for teaching left me baffled (they were such bull even I the elitist could not get it straight how could an idiot like you understand it), but I saw my kids NJASK and Terra Nova test scores and, well…can kids get higher than 99th percentile? Something must be going right in the school system.(can you say tutors and of coarse if you lower standards enough everyone becomes a genius)
No question that all the bloggers love Ridgewood ( I hate it) and that discourse is healthy. But, informed (this means you are stupid again and how dare you taxpayers challenge the great and powerful, “know it alls” at the BOE) and objective (this means agreeing with me is the only option, so do what your told otherwise you’ll be sorry) discourse is healthier still.
