the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, in 2007 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Detected at Orchard School which would require remediation . At the time the often quoted Ridgewood Board of Education Supporter made the comment, “tell your kids don’t eat the dirt” .
After attempting to sweep the incident under the rug for over a decade the NJDEP pressured the BOE to take action .
NJDEP letter arrived in May 2019, and the BOE disclosed in January 2020, initially only to the Orchard parents. They let kids play on noncompliant field for 6 months. Brogan let it fester form a decade.
It does appear that Board members Brogan and Kaufman (and partly Mahmoud) withheld Orchard field noncompliance info from the parents for 6 months.
In 2020 the Ridgewood blog Broke the story of the decade long cover up , “Don’t Eat the Dirt : Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Detected at Orchard School ….in 2007”
At the time is was viewed by the BOE and Ridgewood school supporters as a non issue , parents where told , “My goodness…you Ridgewood bloggers just LOVE to get all worked up. Did you read the letter? If your kid is eating dirt for an “extended period of time” then you have bigger problems than the soil.”
Brogan, Kaufman and Mamood should provide an answer to the residents!
Webcast of remediation disclosure (Jan 2020)… 6 months after the letter from the NJDEP.
https://youtu.be/G640ajf7ti0
BoE at the time:
Brogan, Kaufman, Mahmoud, Wilson, Morgan
Well don’t expect kaufmann to respond because he does not read board material. Ever.
Just wait and watch. I think a lot of dirty laundry will come out in next 4 months.
Our school rankings have gone down the drain under Brogan’s watch.
“Anonymous” is sure hard at work filing OPRA requests in order to get HER candidate reelected.
This hazardous coverup and gross negligence is just a tip of the iceberg. Shiela Brogan’s track record speaks for itself.; Ridgewood’s tradition of excellence is withering away, the school budget soared to new heights and she blindly supported a rogue administration that abandoned ship in the middle of a pandemic. Time for Brogan to resign.
Kaufmann: Actions speak louder than words. Pay close attention to what CK says/does during meetings. Kaufmann’s votes appear to be “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” motivated. He flip flops like a fish, is rarely prepared, often absent, and barely understands topics. His position on matters have more to do with winning a popularity contest over what is best for our ENTIRE community.
I feel for M. Mahmoud and the position he is in. The wolves in sheep clothing convinced him to take a seat in order to shift accountability , coverup and push their personal interest. However, I struggle with why he rubber stamped everything and didn’t stand up. Did he not know or care to know?
Anonymous, Mahmoud, did not rubber stamp. He traded his votes. His goal is long term change in curriculum. 10 years down the road.
People New exactly what was going on. Someone’s bullshitting us Again.
While on the board, Mahmoud didn’t mentioned anything related to academic. He was fixated on other things.
Why do you constantly publish negative stories. Issues will arise and they will be handled. You don’t need to be dramatic about everything.
that the the most egregious lapse of judgement for the Ridgewood school system of all time and there have been some big ones , blatantly ignoring the the risks to school children endangering their their health and anyone else who used the field ,being reprimanded by the NJDEP and to this day we are astonished groups of parents did not sue the system into oblivion ! Defending this behavior is DISGUSTING and PATHETIC !
I question the validity of the 2007 report. The land where Orchard is located was all swamp before it was filled for the school’s construction. Any contamination on that property would have been a leftover from when PSEG operated the adjacent property, which ceased around 40 years ago – and was extensively cleaned up before the condos were built. There is simply no way that Orchard’s playing fields are contaminated – it just isn’t so.
Can you imagine how many people Musta knew about this as soon as the soil was tested top officials from the state county village Board of Education had to know exactly what was in the ground . Are you kidding us wake up.The Board of Education’s full of shit anyway.
I blame Dr.Fishbein. He ignored the issue for years. He was a terrible communicator and many at the Board level never challenged him on anything. Mahmoud was on the Board for a very short time. Sheila was there for the whole Orchard debacle and basically ignored information she was privy to. I am voting for Kwak, Madison and Mahmoud. Kaufman doesn’t ‘t read the information he is given and took his own young child out of the district because of the RHS Wrestling Program. He is in for a rude awakening when he finds out just how competitive high school sports is and scholarships are few and far between. As far as Sheila is concerned, 20 plus years on the Board is too long especially when your kids are no longer there and your core people are administrators and not the people you are/ were elected to represent.
Steve – oh my. Perhaps Orchard was a swamp in pre-Cambrian times, but more recently it was used to dump coal ash from the surrounding homes and businesses.
I think you have some reading up to do before making a comment like that…start here, and then go to Government sources if you like. https://www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us/cms/One.aspx?portalId=207600&pageId=23327740
Very good point anonymous. Sheila represents the administration, not parents.
I totally agree with James. The school district failed to address the problem for several years and it was never even discussed at the Board level or brought to anyone’s attention for just as many. So much for transparency and ensuring the safety and well being of the students and citizens who used that field unwittingly. It is a known reality that unless you are part of a large group of informed people willing to rant and rave at Board Meetings over and over, it is as if it was never said and worse never recognized as an area of concern.
Sheila was on facilities committee for as long as I can remember.
She definitely knew what was going on.
To the idiot who says that the blog only publishes negative stories, apparently you are only reading the news stories that are negative. The blog publishes plenty of feel good stories. And the negative stories are news, you get it? News. We all want to know the news.
To the person who is blaming whoever found these documents, that is the oldest game in the book. Divert attention from the true story and blame the person who you are speculating is the source of the information. Sounds to me like Chris kaufmann probably wrote that post. Although I would question whether he did because that would’ve involved him reading in the first place, and we all know he barely read any pertinent documents.
Board member running to save his seat this November, Chris Kaufman wrote:
“Anonymous is sure hard at work filing OPRA requests in order to get HER candidate reelected.”
And that’s the lens through which he sees everything. How will it affect Chris Kaufman? He’s obsessed with these OPRA requests. So much for transparency.
Hey Chris, don’t be coy. Tell us who SHE is.
Chris doesn’t know who SHE is because he had no clue. And SHE could be a HE. Kaufman is such a self serving jerk. The point is not who revealed the damning information . The point is that the information is very important for voters to know NOT to vote for Kaufmann or his buddy what’s his name