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Ramapo Indian Hills School District Again Names a New Superintendent

Ramapo Indian Hills High School

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Oakland NJ , the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional School District school board has scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday to introduce its third candidate for superintendent — Shauna DeMarco.

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Ridgewood Superintendent Search Survey

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December 9, 2020

Dear Parents, Community Members, Staff and Students,
The Ridgewood Board of Education has begun the process of recruiting superintendent candidates. By way of this letter and survey, we request your input in identifying the key qualities that you believe to be essential as we build the profile for our next superintendent, craft the interview questions, and identify the goals and objectives for our new superintendent.

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Reader defends , “Dr. Fishbein, has presided over a period during which the corrosive influence of constructivist teaching methods has waned”

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“Dr. Fishbein, whatever some may say of him, has presided over a period during which the corrosive influence of constructivist teaching methods has waned somewhat and may now be losing its mojo. At the time Dr. Fishbein was hired, a huge push had been underway for years in the Ridgewood district in favor of denuding K-12 curricula of content and emphasizing process instead. As part of that push, the Trustees of our Board of Education put us on the brink of hiring for our superintendent the then-high priest of Constructivism and Reform Math (late of a Long Island district he conveniently abandoned rather than face the unmitigated displeasure of a growing army of pitchfork-bearing parents and taxpayers) together with his “man behind the curtain” wife as a kind of Bill and Hillary “two for one” deal. Like Hillary, who put her husband to shame in terms of her determination to promote the marxist/socialist agenda, the dedication our incoming supe’s wife had to the cause (as demonstrated by her history of hoovering up large amounts constructivism-promoting grant money and writing books on the subject), to say nothing of her radical street cred, probably exceeded that of her husband. We dodged a huge bullet when that zealot thankfully quit a couple of weeks before his scheduled start date and took his egghead wife with him to parts unknown. Within a few months, Superintendent Fishbein was hired. Within a year or so after that, we witnessed with enormous relief the resignation and apparent professional disappearance of long-time Assistant Superintendent in Charge of Curriculum Regina Botsford, whose radicalism and utter devotion to constructivist teaching methods was itself the stuff of legend among her K-12 curriculum development industry colleagues (Bill Ayers eventually went into that line of work, if that tells you anything). So the constructivist storm seems to have passed, at least for the time being, and Ridgewood was not established as the Mecca for constructivist teaching methods among U.S. K-12 public school districts. Your mileage may vary, but we might want to pause and at least thank Dr. Fishbein for what he isn’t!”

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Reader Recommends a “professional search process” to fill Village of Ridgewood Vacancies

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Absolutely there should be a more professional search process…. However, when talking about government related, other factors are involved. It’s not the private sector. Yes there may be SOME nepotism in RWood but it’s a LOT worse elsewhere and the ones that people bring up aka some certain police officers, the requirements, tests and training ensure that the brightest and best are hired, even though some local town cranks don’t believe it…. the other part is that there are a number of residents who will make a lot of noise and whine when an outside hire is not “attuned” to issues in our “quaint village”. Plus spending our precious tax dollars for professional recruitment will bring howls of protest as well. But yeah, the idea is a good one.

While it sounds good on paper and given the experience with former Village manager who had zero experience  as a town manager  and little experience in finance sounds like a very good idea . Long time residents will recall the “Marty Brooks fiasco” , for which the Ridgewood Schools District paid a significant sum of money to attract and hire a deeply flawed candidate , Marty Brooks of TERC math fame  . Fortunately Brooks declined and  the Village and the School system dodged a bullet on that one and was saved  .