“Start the school year by letting the teachers and administrators, basically all the adults, stay home while all the students come in every day for a full day’s instruction. In addition to assembling in their regular classrooms the students will run the school and put one of their own in every office formerly occupied by an adult, including the principal’s office, secretaries and all the guidance counselors’ offices. The teachers will teach from home and the children will all do in-person learning together with each other. Easy-peasy. Yeah, by the middle of October the schools might all resemble the Lord of the Flies island, but by then maybe we will have shamed all the adults into coming back to work”
Ridgewood NJ, The following is an excerpt from a letter dated Monday, August 17 from Ridgewood District Superintendent Fishbein to district parents (Superintendent Fishbein appears to be hinting that he will change plans and ask the state to authorize the Ridgewood District to resume instruction this fall via so-called “Remote Learning” only, delaying an actual physical return of students to their schools until later in the school year):
Ridgewood NJ, as previously reported by the Ridgewood blog, the Ridgewood School district has undertaken 3 major Summer Facilities Projects ; Orchard School Soil Remediation, RHS Gym 3 Floor Remediation and Replacement and Stevens Field Turf Replacement . All three appear to be making good progress .
“I’ve seen some of those kids in the village and the park. Having been a misbehaving kid myself (and grown up ok), I’m less troubled by the above story. Kids of all stripes do silly stuff. They need their asses kicked to remind them who’s in charge. I do wholeheartedly agree on 2 points:
1. schools, even good ones like RDWD, need to tone down the preaching. Marxist BS doesn’t work and has no place in school. Focus on academics.
2. Schools need to open full time come fall. The union’s actions are disgraceful, targeting kids on a pretext of “safety.” What a joke. Who do they think they are? I don’t see grocery store cashiers protesting for “safety” even though they are way more exposed. Ditto for truck drivers who bring our food, amazon delivery, etc etc. I’ve lost any respect for the Union after this. The BOE need to start taking action on behalf of taxpayers. This is ridiculous. I’ve just received the fall schedule promo presentation from the school. A silly schedule that follows no logic and a ton of marketing material, inc video interviews. Our educators fancy themselves college professors or Fortune 500 salespeople, with all that pomp. They are not. They are paid a ton of money to deliver basic education to young kids. This entails being with kids! Not sitting at home on zoom. The parents need to wake up to the fact that they are being had.”
Trenton NJ, in a change of policy Governor Phil Murphy has decided School Districts that cannot meet state Department of Education standards will have the option of going completely remote. The governor’s decision largely leaves the issue in the hands of local districts as New Jersey continues to grapple with the COVID-19 crisis.
Thank you again for your ongoing support for One Village One Vote and our efforts to consolidate Ridgewood’s local elections to November. As a quick update, the Village Clerk has rejected our petition. After the Clerk’s office declined to provide guidance on the proper approach to writing the petition, we tried to use friendly language within the petition and collected it electronically as permitted under our understanding of Gov. Murphy’s Executive Order 132. The Clerk has now notified us of two deficiencies with the petitions:
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood teachers joined several other groups of teachers protesting the opening of schools this fall. According to North Jersey Media , “Ridgewood teachers gathered atop a Route 4 overpass to oppose a return to classrooms, saying in-person learning is not yet safe. NJ Education Association and other neighboring teachers oppose as well.
“It’s literally crisis-teaching in order to pretend that there’s some semblance of normalcy.” -Becky Catanzaro, a teacher from Ridgewood.”
“Technically, when this problem of taxpayers paying to educate pre-schoolers at a rather substantial financial loss came up, it was also illegal for a school district to offer a pre-school taking away from public providers. This has been pussy footed around–we all know about the board going to court to prevent retiring the old members at the appropriate time–and this apparently was another of their boon doggles. To top it off, they kicked out the profitable to us private school that had been using the facility to allow us to take losses with them gone. Is it just me, or does something smell about this whole deal?”
“Is it true that Sheila Brogan is making phone calls to gather support for One Vote? Sheila received one six month extension to her term when elections were originally moved from April to Nov.
In her current term also, she received an extension. Her current term was supposed to expire in Nov 2020. When council moved election to April, the board used tax payer money to file a court case and extended Sheila’s term to April 2021. Now if the election moves back to November, her term will extend again to Nov 2021, giving her a third 6 month extension over the years and making her current term a 4 year term instead of a 3 year term.”
Ridgewood N J, a reader stated that “Residents should not be supplementing other residents daycare obligations at ITDP. Any and all expenses of ITDP should be covered by tuition paid by the users, not from our school taxes. Diverting money to ITDP means less money for K-12. I paid day care for years; so should ITDP parents.”
At the request of the Board, Ms. Kelly gave a presentation on the Infant Toddler Development Program. The committee members, Ms. Brogan and Mr. Dani, met with Ms. Kelly and Dr. Fishbein to compile and discuss questions from the community and Board members, upon which Ms. Kelly conducted an analysis of the program. After providing a brief history of the program, Ms. Kelly reviewed the questions and provided responses. These questions and responses can be viewed on the PDF of the presentation.
“Bureaucrats, administrators…they definitely get paid by the word. No parent will suffer through this mess of information relating only to process. Moreover, the state is asleep at the switch. The districts and the NJEA know this and are confident that any scrutiny they receive for this mumbo-jumbo will end up being untimely and will only be partial. Nothing more than a post-game wrap-up. Therefore, they do as they please, everyone gets paid, nobody gets laid off or rendered superfluous, and the quantity of information absorbed by the students in the form of “learning” will continue to wither and shrink.”
Ridgewood NJ, at the Ridgewood Board of Education meeting on Monday , Ms. Poelstra the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum first shared the proposed Return to School Plan at a Special Public Meeting on Thursday, July 23. She repeated the presented at the July 17 Regular Public Meeting, as originally scheduled. At the start of the presentation, Ms. Poelstra shared data about the severity of the pandemic in New Jersey and how the actions we have taken have helped to mitigate the spread of the virus. She then reviewed the timeline from the mandatory emergency school closing on March 13 through July 31 when the district reopening plan is due to the County for review and approval. In May and June, administrative subcommittees were created to begin to think about what the district would need to do to transition back to school. The New Jersey Department of Education released The Road Back: Restart and Recovery Plan for Education on June 26. Since that time, the district started to develop its plans based on the guidance. This process involved administering staff and parent surveys, holding subcommittee meetings, attending NJDOE/Legal One webinars, collaborating with neighboring districts, and organizing comprehensive professional development for teachers over the summer. Last Friday, Governor Murphy announced that families will be allowed to choose an all-remote option, which is another challenge facing school districts. A few days ago, the deadline for the submission of the reopening plan was changed from July 27 to July 31. We still not have a checklist or template from the NJDOE about what needs to be included in the plan, yet districts are required to share our schedules with all stakeholders four weeks before the opening of school. This timeline reflects the rapidly changing situation, and we must be flexible and adaptable. Our goal is to have an education plan in place that allows our students to continue to learn while meeting the required health and safety standards.
Ridgewood NJ, Director of Special Programs. Dr. Michelle Fenwick presented an overview of 28-21 STEPSS: School Transition and Employment Program for Student Success. This program is an in-district transition to adulthood program for students ages 18-21, who have met state graduation requirements but continue to need more time and skill development before entering independent or interdependent adulthood. Dr. Fenwick explained that this program has been in the works since before the 2017 Special Education Review when this was identified as an area for growth for the Special Programs Office. The development of the program has included tours of other transitional programs, professional development on transition, meetings with other transition coordinators who were already engaged in 18-21 year-old programs, focus groups, surveys, and tours of potential sites. The philosophy of STEPSS that is shared with Ridgewood Public Schools and the Department of Special Programs is to provide specialized instruction and support services for meaningful readiness for employment and independence. Dr. Fenwick explained that the STEPSS team includes members of the IEP team that have worked with a student from the age of 14. The daily schedule of the program will consist of an instructional component and a community-based component. The benefits of the STEPSS Program include continuity of learning from our in-district special education programs, training and practice within our community, and cost-effectiveness of offering our own program as opposed to sending students to out-of-district programs. Recent events suggest Dr. Fenwick has his work cut out for him .
Ridgewood NJ, Due to the Governor’s Executive Order 104 citing the CDC’s recommendation for cancellation or postponement of gatherings of fifty or more people, the Regular meeting will be held utilizing videoconferencing.
Ridgewood NJ, The New Jersey Department of Education today issued clarifying guidance to allow parents to select fulltime remote learning for their children in the 2020-2021 school year.
Released last month, the Department’s guidance document, “The Road Back: Restart and Recovery Plan for Education,” emphasized that schools should prepared plans to open in some capacity for in-person instruction for the 2020-2021 school year. Since its release, the Department received feedback from many parents who wanted a greater voice in the decision-making process of whether their child should return to in-person learning. In addition, officials in some school districts called on the Department to release guidance to specifically allow for all-remote learning for those students.
