March 7th 2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , Dr Fishbein made his recommendation to the Ridgewood Board of Education to go to a 2nd question on the November ballot to fund Traditional Full Day kindergarten for 2017. The Board unanimously agreed. The process will now begin to get ready for that vote.
Full day kindergarten will most likely require more classrooms. Meaning the Ridgewood School District will we be bonding more school construction for all 6 elementary schools in a couple of years. The usual move will be that the BOE will suggest more classrooms to accommodate full day kindergarten after the full day kindergarten is agreed to . Unless parents will be satisfied having kindergarten held in trailers in the parking lots of the schools.
So the reality is that like the Hudson Street Parking garage , this measure ,Full Day Kindergarten will result in further tax increases .
Maybe the superintendent will take a pay cut to help fund this glorified babysitting club. This is not needed. so those that use it should pay tuition stop putting the burden always on the taxpayer.
And the kids will be in prison all day. I remember hating kindergarten 100 years ago.
I wanted to be free to run around the neighborhood which was all woods at that time.
But kids now do better when they are trapped and regimented, the new studies say, right?
Maybe , just maybe that’s why we have a substance abuse epidemic. The only way to feel FREE TO BE YOU AND ME.
I want a dollar amount before I vote. This is not acceptable.
Sure. Full day K now, after I can take advantage of it. Tanks fer nuttin Danny Noonan!
There are many before and after care offered in Ridgewood and surrounding area. Let the parents pay for their children if they are unable to be home for their kids. No reason to shift the financial burden to the taxpayers.
Just like the council. Make recommendation without clear costs.
NO
this guy has been a disappointment.
not necessarily bad, but just maintaining the status quo… no real advancements in the actual quality and value of a RW education under his reign.
They have a hard enough time keeping the kid’s attention for 2-3 hours, now they want to shoot for longer. How the hell does this make any sense ?
Why not renovate Glen School and bring it back into service as an elementary school? Those on the east side of route 17 will now simultaneously scream NOOOOOOO! (because they love the Cadillac school bus service to and from Hawes school).
Glen school is already in service.
Cadillac school bus service, what are you nuts?You should see these idiot parents doing 45mph on S.Pleasant and Berkshire roads in the morning. Never a cop in sight.
I’ve been here 27 years and was hoping to stay another 27 but I’ll be putting the for sale sign up. I cannot afford any more taxes and I think the whole full-day kindergarten is being proposed to support the NJEA and selfish and/or lazy parents. When my oldest was in kindergarten, she went to private enrichment several days a week while I was working. My youngest is an early Sepember baby so he went to a full year of private kindergarten before starting at the RPS so he could mature a bit. While in kindergarten, he too went to private enrichment on days I worked. I absolutely LOVED picking them up after half-day kindergarten and spending time with them. I was their enrichment. Ridgewood does not NEED full day kindergarten (it does not improve anything in our socio-economic cohort). Mothers (or fathers) should be spending those last few precious half-days with their young ones.
Why would you expect anything else? Like preaching to the choir.
Just wanted to add that the first year cost is around 1Million and yearly 750k per the report to the board of ed. Add a 20% increase just for underestimating and there you have it…
VOTE!! And tell everyone you know to vote NO in November. This is a tax hike we don’t need and don’t want.
And I have kids in the mix. No no no yo demanding executive skills learned in CENTERS????? No. No and no. Vote no.
The cost to bring the Glen School to current building codes and standards it too high to bring it back online. This was looked at several years ago. And a large part of Travell and Somerville would have been realigned and parents were not happy about it. No one at Travell or Somerville wanted to have to travel to Glen.
I have two young kids who will be affected by this. Please get your friends and neighbors out to vote NO!
I moved to Ridgewood, in part, because it has half-day kindergarten. I have a child who was in kindergarten last year–it was non-stop busywork and worksheets. No toys or play. No time for socialization. No recess. Teachers who wanted 5 year-olds to sit still. It was completely age-inappropriate and the curriculum (coupled with the stressed-out teacher) was the perfect recipe for making children hate school. I thanked God it was only half a day and did not make my daughter miserable! My wife and I both work (she-part time), but half day kindergarten enabled us to make sure our child had time to run around and play in the afternoon (and my wife got those precious afternoons with her on the days she was not working! You never get those back.)
We DO NOT want full-day kindergarten. And there are many other parents like us here whose voices are being drowned out (or who did not even know this issue was on the docket).
The parents I know who do want full-day have the ability to be with their child in the afternoon AND/OR have the financial ability to hire child care or send their kids to the afternoon program of their choice. They are annoyed they have to be bothered to do so, especially because mid-day pick-up/drop-off interrupts their day so!!! (And, yes, many, many of these parents complainig so bitterly are affluent mothers who are at the gym, playing tennis, having lunch, etc.)
Let these parents PAY to have their kids in school all day, if that is what they need so desperately. Their desire to play tennis or not hire childcare should NOT be more important than our desire to spend time with our child and let a 5 year-old do what ALL the research says is crucial at this age: have unstructured play and time for socialization.
Please vote NO! Help the poor kids who do not have a voice here. I am sure that if they were polled, THEY would all vote this terrible idea down! Give them one last gasp before the rat race, with its tutors and sports trainers engulfs them! They will be better-off, academically, socially, and psychologically, in the long run! Thank you!