May 24,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, this email was sent to the BOE and various Ridgewood school officials on the bullying problem in Ridgewood elementary schools.
To the administration in Ridgewood public schools:
Let me ask this district a question.
How does addressing a known and long term meanness and bullying problem in elementary school, by threatening suspensions and community service, actually help the problem??
The underlying long term problem of meanness and nastiness within your school? I’m saying you’ve known. I’m saying you’ve added to it. I’m saying you’ve done NOT ENOUGH to stop it. For years.
You did finally actually address the problem. But you did it in the manner of putting out the fire once started, Rather than actually address the problem at the root.
Threatening community service and suspension from school to students who are 9 years old does nothing except to add drama and angst to a situation you ignored long enough to become this big of an issue.
And yes. I posted about this on Facebook. I intend to make this VERY public. Very. I intend to take the (many) Mother’s on board with me who want to see change and not simply threats, and we will publicly hold all Ridgewood School accountable for the children they’re responsible for. Mothers who for a variety of reasons don’t want to rock the boat about how badly our kids feel and are treated in your care.
There are many. You have a wide spread problem. We want to see these kids CHOOSE KIND and we want you to help.
It’s remarkable how many mothers you can mobilize in 24 hours and if There’s a lull please be advised we are working on it. It won’t last.
Please know. YES. There will be no hiding from what goes on anymore. We expect to see how you implement CHOOSE KIND and we expect to see it swiftly.
This district will no longer happily raise our taxes and in conjunction provide less for our students. Particularly students who have an IEP and should be protected from the bullying, assaulting behaviors which brought this about.
Your method of threatening students with detention suspension doesn’t work. It’s putting out fires. What you need to do is become proactive and stop it at the source. Be a leader. Make your school one which chooses to be kind, choose kind, show kindness. Not one which threatens bad behavior in to secrecy and blame.
I say enough and I’m bringing a Mom army with me.
CHOOSE KIND should be a dominant statement within Ridgewood schools and homes starting NOW. What are you going to do to help that.
Is there any further information on what gave rise to this email message? More specific info? Otherwise it’s not too helpful for the ordinary reader…
This kind of BS led to the Parkland shooter. Instead of punishing his ass, the school district fell back upon and Obama admin driven ‘lets talk about it’ approach.
There is only one way kids learn and grow – action and consequences. It was crystal clear to me growing up (even at 8 years!) that if I did something nasty, there would be terrible consequences at home.
What this person is proposing is no consequences for misbehaving kids. ‘Kindness’ is not a consequence.
Obviously something prompted this. But the bigger issue is that most people are aware of the blind eye turned on bad behavior in school here. Victim blaming and ignorance along with the desire to squash any bad press.
I’ve seen it, most people I know have seen it. Kudos to whatever person has had it enough to finally speak out. I’d be interested in helping with whatever cause they plan to launch to help promote better behavior. I hope they make it more public so people can join in.
Amazing to see Obama blamed for Ridgewood bullying.
Our grandson was constantly being bullied by a neighbor’s child both in and out of school. The other child preferred to attack by using another child or a weapon to do his bullying. He actually broke my grandson’s bone directly above his eye with a hockey stick. We had talked to the neighbors many times about this problem but they were of the persuasion that “my child can do no wrong, your’s must be lying.” I finally literally called the cops after the bone breakage (it could just as easily been his eye instead of just a hairsbreadth above it) Since the damage was evident the cops believed our grandson and told his parents their son had to quit using weapons to fight. This helped for a while but the bullying at school became much worse. The other kid always used someone else as he was afraid of dealing with anything himself. Finally another kid threw our grandson into a locker and he retaliated by punching the kid who started everything. Of course we, and the other child’s parents, were called to school. We went, they refused. The Principal at the time said that he wasn’t surprised. They apparently had been called for prior instances and refused to come. So, nothing happened to the bullying kid except for him leaving our grandson alone. He happily continued on his way. And these were parents who were highly respected in the community.
@12:38 – Obama admin reached into everything from how children are disciplined in school, to who uses what bathroom, to what race your neighbor should be, to what races you can rent your house to, to how many multi-family buildings need to be built.
Are you under the assumption that none of these issues have anything to do with Ridgewood?
@9:25 – by that logic all of the bullying could in turn be blamed on Trump who takes the stance that anyone/anything is open to being made fun of with no consequences.
To the OP, I hear your frustration and pain. There’s nothing worse than witnessing your child being tormented. All of us seem to be unaware of the specifics which is fine. At the same time, please do not take a situation and generalize it. Clearly you are frustrated at the way some have dealt with the situation, but it is not fair to lump all teachers, all administrators, all schools and all students into the same category.
All students should be protected from being “bullied”. Students with IEPs should be protected the same as every other child.
I can feel your frustration, but bullying and threatening Ridgewood Public Schools to deal with bullying better seems counterproductive.
I hope your child gets the treatment they deserve
@9:25 – by that logic all of the bullying could in turn be blamed on Trump who takes the stance that anyone/anything is open to being made fun of with no consequences.
To the OP, I hear your frustration and pain. There’s nothing worse than witnessing your child being tormented. All of us seem to be unaware of the specifics which is fine. At the same time, please do not take a situation and generalize it. Clearly you are frustrated at the way some have dealt with the situation, but it is not fair to lump all teachers, all administrators, all schools and all students into the same category.
All students should be protected from being “bullied”. Students with IEPs should be protected the same as every other child.
I can feel your frustration, but bullying and threatening Ridgewood Public Schools to deal with bullying better seems counterproductive.
I hope your child gets the treatment they deserve
I blame the parents, you are the bullies and you should be ashamed of yourselves
@4:10 – You Trump accusations are speculation. What Obama did though his DoJ, DoE and HUD are official – written down in paper.