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Tag: Ridgewood Moms and dads
>Can your second grader handle this? These are words directly from the Everyday Math publishers
>“Inventing procedures involves solving problems that the students do not already know how to solve, so they gain valuable experience with non-routine problems. They must learn to manage their resources: How long will this take? Am I wasting my time with this approach? Is there a better way? Such resource management is especially important in complex problem solving. As students devise their own methods, they also develop persistence and confidence in dealing with difficult problems.”
I don’t know about any of you, but as bright as my kids are, and I’m sure yours are too, complex resource management and character development, all while trying to learn math, seems over the top for just about any kid.
>Earth Day and the Madness of Crowds
>
Natural Forces, Not Man, Causing Global Warming, Scientist Says
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
March 05, 2008
(CNSNews.com) – Natural forces, not human activity, are primarily responsible for any global warming taking place, prominent atmospheric and space physicist Fred Singer declared Monday at the Heartland Institute’s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City.
What’s more, the preponderance of scientific evidence about natural forces causing global warming is so great that the issue is settled, Singer said.
“The science is settled in the sense that we have evidence that most of the climate change taking place today is caused by natural forces and not by human activity,” Singer said during his luncheon address at the conservative Heartland Institute.
As was previously reported by the Cybercast News Service, Singer is a long-time critic of the “alarmist” view of global warming.
He was among 100 speakers and panelists taking part in the climate conference, which was attended by scientists from a dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, New Zealand, Russia and Sweden.
The conference is designed to give so-called “contrarian” scientists the opportunity to freely express their views on climate change. In a letter to the conference, Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast praised the scientists for taking a stand against political correctness and for protecting the scientific method at personal cost to themselves.
A summary of “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate,” Singer’s latest report, was released at the conference. Singer discussed some of the study’s major findings in his address.
The report, published by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), is a rejoinder to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Singer said.
The IPCC, he said, has failed to produce any hard evidence suggesting that humans are largely responsible for the planet’s current warming cycle.
The same information and data used by the U.N. IPCC was also applied in the NIPCC’s exercise, Singer said.
However, in contrast to the U.N. study, an effort was made in his work to “connect the dots” between greenhouse model outputs and actual observations, Singer explained. In the end, no significant amount of warming resulting from human activity could be detected, he said.
The consequences of these results are “far reaching,” especially as they pertain to public policy, said Singer. Since natural variability is responsible for climate change, it logically follows that warming and cooling periods are unstoppable and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, he noted.
Unfortunately, the political class has already attached itself to another set of assumptions that sees a strong correlation between man-made emissions and global warming, said Singer.
For this reason, “the train is already moving in the opposite direction” with all three leading presidential candidates embracing views that do not hold up under scientific scrutiny, he said.
Marc Morano, a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), agrees with Singer. “Consensus is a political construction,” Morano said in an interview with Cybercast News Service. Nevertheless, the alarmist view that argues in favor of substantial human contribution to global warming is actually losing supporters, he said.
On average, there are anywhere from two to four new scientists per week in the English-speaking world who are publicly announcing their skepticism about claims that human activity is primarily responsible for climate change, said Morano. (Disclosure: Marc Morano is a former investigative reporter for Cybercast News Service.)
Most of the speakers gathered for the conference agree that there is no genuine consensus on global warming and man-made emissions.
In fact, international survey results show that almost half of the climate scientists polled in 2003 disagreed with what is often portrayed as being “the consensus” view, according to a booklet published by the Heartland Institute.
Most recently, Dr. Joanne Simpson, an atmospheric scientist who previously served with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, outlined her views in a blog cautioning against excessive reliance on climate models.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization or receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly,” she wrote.
“For more than a decade now ‘global warming’ and its impacts has become the primary interface between our science and society. … There is no doubt that atmospheric greenhouse gases are rising rapidly and little doubt that some warming and bad ecological events are occurring,” Simpson added.
“However, the main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models,” she said. “We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts.”
>Eric has his defenders
>Reading these comments shows me just how much people are interested in the lives of other people. It’s sad the time people spend worried about other families when in fact they should be focused on their own families; let me tell you no family or person is perfect. Unfortunately for Eric’s sake he got involved in a relationship with Beth Rhoten, that ruined it for himself and the Rhotens. And yes Beth was charged in court, but Eric allowed her to take a plea deal so she would not go to jail. After this Eric was left with little certainty about his future. Being forced into Washington Heights was that much more difficult for Eric after being here. On top of that he could not play sports at all which probably would have been his future.
He was back in a home where is mother did not have enough money to survive and he did work in a hospital and gave her most of it.
Friends in Ridgewood urged Eric to get them drugs because they he could if he tried. This is clearly when Eric saw an oppurtunity to feed himslef, help is mother, and go to school. No doubt he made a mistake, but Eric never asked anyone to do drugs or that he sold drugs. He simply got drugs for his friends in Ridgewood when they asked.
As far as his arrest people are confused. A twenty year old from Ridgewood (many know who this boy is) who is a heavy drug user introduced Eric to an undercover cop because he got in trouble. This boy was doing herion and selling oxycotin, which was all from Irvington and Allendale. He threw Eric under the bus so he would not get in trouble (which he didn’t—great legal system). He told people he was going away to rehab but is still here and probably still doing and selling drugs. He knew Eric could help him by getting him drugs and then blamed everything on Eric so he would not get in trouble.
One could not say that Eric was selling drugs in Ridgewood for the past years because he was seriously into his sports until he got caught up with Beth Rhoten.He never filed a civil suit against the Rhotens nor wanted anything from them. He spoke up so the sexual problem would stop. And Beth his not a poor soul she talks about half this towns kids gossiping like her family is better than everyone else.
Eric learned his lesson and i know he is sorry what he has done to the community. I have heard his say “He will never have anything to do with illegal drugs again.” Everyone is trying to put Eric down when they don’t even know him and just beleive what they are told. He is a good person at heart and other people influenced him to do bad things for them, not the other way around.
People need to stop judging every single person they can criticize, everyone makes mistakes. If your kids really want to do drugs they are doing them there are plenty other of people who can get them. So if you are spending time reading this worried about Eric you should be with your family worrying about your own problems.
Signed a personal friend of Eric’s
>Readers 10 Questions : Sarah-Kate Maskin & Greg Lois
>Answers of Sarah-Kate Maskin & Greg Lois,
Candidates for Ridgewood Board of Education
To “10 Questions” Posed by The Ridgewood Blog
March 21, 2008
1) Would you support the expansion of the BOE from the current five member board to a seven member BOE?
Answer:
Ridgewood is a “J” district- that means that Ridgewood is one of 25 schools that falls into the highest categorization of personal income of its residents. Out of these 25 school districts, 14 have nine board members. Of the remaining eleven that we have data for, only four districts (including Ridgewood) have 5 members of the Board.
Given the size of our student population (second-biggest in our “J” category) and the small size of our Board one would expect that this small-decision making body would be more agile than a larger board.
Our experience in observing this board indicates that this “agility” which is born from “smallness” is wasted: we do not have a dynamic, quick-moving board. In opposite, we have a board that seems overwhelmed and which does not seem to question the administrators.
We would support the expansion of the Board from five to seven members.
[Our research on the other “J” districts follows:
Bedminster Township, New Jersey
K-8. 620 students. Nine board members.
Bernards Township School District
5,404 students. Operates K-12. Nine school board members.
Chester Township Public School District
K-8 only, approximately 1,500 students. Nine board members.
Cranbury School
650 students. K-8. Nine board members.
Essex Fells, New Jersey
K-8. 271 students. Five board members.
Glen Rock Public Schools
K-12. 2,472 students. Nine members.
Haddonfield Public Schools
K-12. 2,377. Nine members.
Harding Township, New Jersey
K-8. 321 students. (Bd of Ed website down).
Ho-Ho-Kus Public School
K-8. 650 students. Five members.
Little Silver School District
K-8. 802 students. Seven members.
Mendham Borough Schools
K-8. 650 students. Nine members.
Mendham Township Public Schools
K-8. 926 students. Seven members.
Millburn Township Public Schools
K-12. 4,573 students. Nine members.
Montgomery Township School District
K-12. 4,917 students. Eight board members.
Mountain Lakes Schools
K-12. 1,631 students. Nine members.
North Caldwell Public Schools
K-6. 731 students. Website down.
Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
Plainsboro and West Windsor are part of a combined school district, the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. 9,016 students. Nine members.
Ridgewood Public Schools
K-12. 5,551 students. Five members.
Rumson School District
K-8. 986 students. Nine members.
Saddle River School District
K-5. 207 students. Five board members.
School District of the Chathams
K-12. 3,380 students. Nine members.
Tewksbury Township Schools
K-8. 753 students. Nine members.
Upper Saddle River School District
K-8. 1,344 students. Seven members.
West Windsor Township, New Jersey
See Plainsboro. Plainsboro and West Windsor are part of a combined school district, the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. 9,016 students. Nine members.
Woodcliff Lake Public Schools
K-8. 895 students. Seven members.]
2) “In light of the unexpected departure caused by Mr. Brooks, what have you changed in your approach to a search for a superintendent candidate and what changes you have, if any, in the criteria for the superintendent candidate?
Answer:
We would start by conducting a search within our current staff to find a “home-grown” replacement.
Instead of simply “listing qualities” of a “dream superintendent” we think it is more important to (a) identify the problems we are facing and then (b) describe what type of leader we need in Ridgewood to address our problems.
(a) Problems – the challenges we expect our next Superintendent to deal with:
Our leadership staff (Principals) and teaching staff have had to endure a ‘revolving door’ of Superintendents. We need someone who is committed to Ridgewood – who will live here and become part of the community. This will inspire our staff and leadership and show that our superintendent is here to stay, and not just “passing through.” Permanence will lend credibility to our next Superintendent.
Ridgewood is heading into a crisis with the infrastructure in our schools. In the next 3-5 years our community-members (taxpayers) are going to have to face up to the years of neglect our lovely buildings and grounds have endured. This will be expensive. In the next several months and years not only does our Board have to show the taxpayers of Ridgewood they can exercise fiscal responsibility, but our superintendent must lead us towards the necessary reinvestment and rebuilding of our school infrastructure. This new Superintendent must demonstrate fiscal responsibility in order to convince the taxpayers that any ‘Second question’ or capital improvement monies will not be “frittered away”-the Superintendent must lead the way and build a community-wide optimism in rehabilitating our crumbling schools.
We have an instructional crisis in Ridgewood-our district has become embroiled in “Math Wars.” Our next Superintendent should have a strong instructional background so she/he can steer our district clear of “fads,” “experiments,” and “unproven reforms.”
The Superintendent must reduce our overhead and “flatten” the organizational tree. For example, why have the facilities supervisor report to the Business Administrator? The facilities manager should report directly to the Superintendent. This will “free up” our business administrator (and maybe we will not have to hire an assistant for our business administrator). Our next superintendent must reduce inefficient staffing.
(b) To adequately address these problems, Ridgewood’s superintendent should possess the following qualities:
Possess the highest standards and maintain the highest aspirations for Ridgewood – demonstrate a belief that Ridgewood can be #1;
Show a commitment to Ridgewood (permanence);
Be fiscally responsible and prepared to reduce waste; and
Have a strong instructional background.
3) What is your plan for ensuring Ridgewood kids receive a world-class education?
Answer:
The Maskin-Lois plan is:
(a) The Board must set the following goal for our school leadership and instructional staff: We must be #1 in Bergen County and #1 in New Jersey. Tolerance of other standards of success (such as the Board’s discussion of simply ‘meeting state standards’ and espousing success via state test scores) is a waste of time. Let’s focus on getting back to where we should be: #1.
(b) The Board must select and support an outstanding new Superintendent.
(c) The Board must create community-wide support for massive infrastructure improvement, including facilities, technology, and grounds. As set forth in our other answers, the Board must establish credibility within the community by demonstrating fiscal responsibility (doing more with less, identifying efficiencies, and cutting out the waste). The Board must come up with a sustainable and responsible plan to repair our school buildings in a timely fashion, involve the community, and secure the resources necessary to support the infrastructure development.
4) Do our HSA’s have a purpose beyond fundraising? If so, what is it and how can you help them achieve it?
Answer:
We have a talented, educated, and capable parent community that is willing to help our schools achieve excellence. To ask our HSA’s to solely fundraise diminishes the possibilities our parents can offer to benefit our schools, children, and faculty.
We believe the role of the HSA should be an avenue for parents to express their ideas, concerns, needs and goals within each school involving all topics that impact our children. The HSA’s in return can provide the parent voice by communicating directly to the principal at their meetings and then to the superintendent. This allows for changing that avenue from a one-way street to a two-way street.
5) What role should NJ’s state standards or lack thereof play in selecting our curriculum and do you agree with the direction the academic program has taken in Ridgewood Schools?
Answer:
Our goal must be to be #1 in Bergen County and #1 in New Jersey. That does not mean “#1 in NJASK, GEPA, and HSPA testing.” There is a need for improvement regarding our academic programming.
One example is the Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop. Our model is effective in producing solid results for elementary student achievement in both reading and writing. However, grammar and language mechanics are missing from this model. We should include grammar and language mechanics into our program.
Another area of our academic programming that must be addressed is the methodology of instruction dictated by district administrators. Our children spend a disproportionate amount of time working in groups or partnering with other students throughout all academic domains.
Our district must unify our curricula throughout all of our schools. Unifying the curricula will save tax dollars, guarantee the same content is provided to each student, and eliminate the divisiveness felt among parents that “one school is better than another.” We all live in Ridgewood, and creating unity has powerful results.
6) Is a “state teaching certification” enough to satisfy our standards for teachers we hire?
Answer:
Of course not. By law, all teachers must be state certified. That is merely the “minimum” requirement. We must continue to recruit outstanding teachers and invest in our teachers (continuing education, workshops, etc.). Ridgewood traditionally hired only those teachers who had at least three years experience. We would consider a return to this practice to ensure our children have experienced teachers.
7) Would require redistricting our elementary and middle schools to lower the student teacher ratio?
Answer:
There are many things we could do to lower the student-teacher ratio in our schools.
For example, Benjamin Franklin Middle School has a very high student-to-teacher ratio. The ratio of students to teachers at Benjamin Franklin is nearly 25 to 1. The New Jersey middle-school average is closer to 19 to 1.
Principal Orsini took an innovative approach to this high student-to-teacher ratio: he looked at ways of re-scheduling the class offerings to maximize his student-to-teacher ratio. The school is moving to a different scheduling system and Principal Orsini expects that this change alone will reduce the student to teacher ratio at BF. Changing the schedule is obviously a more cost-effective approach than simply hiring more instructional staff and does not require redistricting.
The mission of the school board and their administrators, consultants, leaders, etc., is to find and encourage efficient and innovative solutions to district problems, like the high student-to-teacher ratio at BF.
8) How do you think the recently released report of the President’s Math Panel should impact and inform our current discussion of Ridgewood’s math curriculum?
Answer:
The recent math panel report does not support the adoption of reform math teaching methods in our schools. The Math panel found that knowledge of basic math facts (using standard algorithms to solve equations) is necessary to comprehend math concepts.
It is a waste of learner’s time and taxpayer dollars to re-train our teachers and re-purchase new instructional materials to teach reform math.
We believe the traditional math instructional model, which has always been used in Ridgewood, best follows the math panel recommendations.
The report also recommends moving away from the spiral topic sequencing approach that reform math advocates espouse. The reform math currently in use at some of our elementary schools relies on a spiral approach and eliminates standard algorithms. At the middle school level, ‘Connected Mathematics Program 2 (CMP2)’ was rolled in for the sixth and seventh graders. It will follow them next year as they enter eighth grade. This middle school math program follows a spiral approach to learning and instruction.
After reading the President’s Math Panel Report, we strongly urge our administrators and Board to jettison all reform math programs from our district as not meeting the recommendations of the report.
We believe a traditional math program provides the necessary content and rigor to prepare our students mathematically and these suggestions are outlined in the Report. Any quality traditional math program inherently builds into its text both strategies and problem solving skills that reform math so highly promotes. Textbooks are a must. Sarah-Kate has sat on curriculum committees and knows it is absolutely possible to unify our districts math instruction with a top quality, proven successful program for this coming September.
For your information, below is a letter that Ms. Maskin emailed to our Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction on March 17, 2008.
Dear Ms. Botsford,
I am sure you have had an opportunity to read through the President’s Math Panel report that was released last week.
Now that it is published with its clear recommendations regarding K-8 mathematics, the district, I hope, will abandon its idea of partnering with a local university.
Short of the implicit response to re-train our teachers, I can’t imagine that this said partnership could possibly offer anything as insightful and detailed as outlined by the President’s National Math Panel. This august and inclusive assembly of experts spent two years researching and collecting information–something we could not do given our limited resources.
The guidance has been provided and I am sure that this report can truly help our district find a resolve to the current state of math programming here in Ridgewood.
Most importantly, do you still see any reason why delaying the implementation of a math program is necessary given its huge cost of another lost year for so many of our students. I look forward to your reply.
Regards,
Sarah-Kate Maskin
9) The BOE believes it has sought ways to improve communication with parents. Has it been successful and if not, what will you do to enhance this aspect of the board’s communication?
Answer:
70.6% of survey-takers said that the current Board does not “accept or want parent input” and 69.7% said that they “don’t feel well-represented by this Board.” (Source: web survey taken by Maskin & Lois for School Board – available online at https://www.OurRidgewoodSchools.com). Based on the results of our polling, the Board has not been successful in improving communication with parents.
Communicating with parents and the community is incredibly important because we are facing several challenges in the coming months: the hiring of a new superintendent, the restoration of a mission of excellence (we must be #1 in Bergen County and #1 in New Jersey and not accept anything less), and the fiscal pressures presented by our decaying infrastructure.
Our campaign exemplifies how to communicate with parents and the community: we have sent direct mail, sent email, created web surveys, drafted a website, and we have individually responded to questions presented by the community (in person at HSA meetings and through correspondence, like these responses). We do not think that the community’s communication expectations should have to change once campaign season is over and the lawn signs go to recycling.
We think the Board must do more to make their website responsive, to incorporate surveys and polling where appropriate, and to consider moving meetings away from Cottage Place and into the individual schools (The BOE has said they can’t hold meetings in the schools because of the location of the TV cameras . . . if the Orchard HSA can webcast their meetings remotely, surely the Board can too!)
Our district’s communication is one way and ineffective. The Board talks about being transparent but in reality, falls short. One of our goals is to provide the public with all information. Currently, the Board and administration impart carefully selected items that equates a partial picture.
There is a chain of command a parent must undergo when voicing their concerns about an educational issue. What has happened specifically regarding math could just as easily be about any issue. It is not the topic; it is the attitude of the Board that is of great concern and we would like that to change to truly represent the parent and tax-payer voice. It is our intent to make sure that no parent must experience the exasperating ordeal of being ignored. These are our children and our hard-earned tax dollars. Parents should be heard and respected in the process. Ms. Brogan does not share in this philosophy; her actions over the past few years demonstrate this point.
We would:
• Provide board minutes on the BOE website;
• Provide tallies of how Board members voted on issues before the Board;
• Hold Board meetings in all of the schools (on a rotating basis);
• Allow write-in (or emailed in) questions to be read into the record at public meetings if a resident can not attend;
• Continue our use of web surveys (see www.OurRidgewoodSchools.com) to include annual reviews of each school by the parents and community;
• Consider increasing the size of the Board to better address and represent taxpayer’s and resident’s issues (from 5 to 7 members); and
• Encourage community participation in the work of the Board committees.
Finally, we remind you that the ultimate communications tool is your vote: if you do not like the direction the school system is heading, vote for change!
10) Where would you rank the quality of our facilities and fields on a scale of 1 to 10? How would you handle the responsibility of ensuring that our facilities and fields are maintained?
Answer:
We give the quality and quantity of our recreational facilities a “5” out of “10.” Given that 1 in 4 residents of Ridgewood is a child (25%), versus a national average of 18%, open space and recreational opportunities are very important for our youth.
I direct you to the ‘Ridgewood Comprehensive Parks, Fields, and Recreation Master Plan’ (2nd Draft) (available here: https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/main.cfm?ArticleID=498). This plan provides a ten-year incremental map of recreational facilities development. The plan anticipates a ‘sharing’ of costs between the BOE and Village for fields and facilities (tennis courts, basketball courts, etc.).
The allocation of field resources (as opposed to the maintenance and creation of new resources) can be done more efficiently. A greater sharing of facilities between the BOE, the Bergen County park system, the YMCA of Greater Bergen County must be explored in addition to the sharing of township resources. The village has 16 parks and the BOE operates and controls 11 ‘active recreation facilities.’
Our Master Plan calls for the acquisition of additional properties over the next ten years. This is a joint plan involving the Village Council as well as the BOE.
We would fight to fully fund our infrastructure maintenance plan and improve our recreational fields. We do not think that we must “sacrifice” one part of our system (facilities, fields) at the expense of another.
The issue of field maintenance and recreational expense is really about the overall budget. Here is Greg Lois’ Letter to the Editor published in the March 21, 2008 Ridgewood News:
Dear Editor:
I asked Board Member Brogan whether she agreed with the statement that “The proposed 2008 budget does not include full funding for the infrastructure maintenance as presented in the LAN Associates district plan and does not include full funding for the recreational facilities maintenance and upkeep as set forth in the Schoor DePalma master plan.”
Ms. Brogan agreed with that statement.
She then went on to speak at length about why our district did fully fund the maintenance and recreational facilities plans. She specifically said it was problem of “allocating resources” and that the infrastructure needs had to be balanced with instructional costs, etc. The answer was quite lengthy and there was no time for other questions after the long response.
I am writing this letter because I do not want the attendees to get the wrong impression from Ms. Brogan’s response. Specifically, I want your HSA members to know that I do not subscribe to Ms. Brogan’s “shrinking pie” theory of the school budget, where we as Board members can do nothing better than just “slice up the pie” between competing school needs. I want your Association members to know that there is a more realistic and optimistic approach to addressing the district’s financial needs.
It’s not a static pie. The pie expands when efficiencies are found.
In order to most easily understand my approach to the school budget process I will provide an example of it in practice.
Benjamin Franklin Middle School has a very high student-to-teacher ratio. The ratio of students to teachers at Benjamin Franklin is nearly 25 to 1. The New Jersey middle-school average is closer to 19 to 1.
Principal Orsini took an innovative approach to this high student to teacher ratio-he looked at ways of re-scheduling the class offerings to maximize his student-to-teacher ratio. The school is moving to a different scheduling system and Principal Orsini expects that this change alone will reduce the student to teacher ratio at BF. Changing the schedule is obviously a more cost-effective approach than simply hiring more instructional staff.
In the BF example, the application of a different scheduling system (a time management system) “expanded” the budget “pie” and the school district is able to provide a benefit (lower student to teacher ratio at BF) without significant cost increase.
The mission of the school board and their administrators, consultants, leaders, etc., is to find and encourage these types of efficiencies. In relation to the budget, this really should be “job one” for the Board members. Not to throw their hands up, say “well this is all we can do” and give up. Not to lead us to believe that every added benefit (like lower teacher to student ratio) comes at the cost to some other district aspiration.
I was hoping to confront Ms. Brogan’s “shrinking pie” budget theory at the meeting. I am sorry we ran short of time because I really think that focusing on efficiencies and the application of technology (like the new time-scheduling system at BF) will be more successful for Ridgewood.
The question really becomes “how much more pie can we find?” in the current budget. I think there is plenty of efficiency to be found.
I have not given up on fully funding our infrastructure maintenance plan and improving our recreational fields. I do not think that we must “sacrifice” one part of our system (facilities, fields) at the expense of another (according to Ms. Brogan, “everything else”).
Very Truly,
Greg Lois
Please visit our website (www.OurRidgewoodSchools.com) for more information and information about our platform. Please contact the candidates with any questions regarding these responses. Sarah-Kate can be contacted directly at [email protected] . Greg can be contacted at [email protected].
>In their own words
>January 2008
January 2008
January 2008
January 2008
>the PARRCA program, which services our district’s autistic children is on the move again
>As I watched the proceedings at this evening’s Board of Education meeting, I was struck by the story that is unfolding at Somerville. As many of you know, the PARRCA program, which services our district’s autistic children at a major savings to the taxpayers, has been moved around in recent years, most notably with one of the classes moving from Hawes to Ben Franklin. Well, the program is on the move again.
When I first heard of the move, I looked at it like most people would. “Well, if they don’t have room at Somerville, they will place the kids somewhere where they can best be served.” But then the second speaker stepped up to the microphone. She mentioned that space was needed to accommodate students who will be joining the kindergarten class in the fall, as well as current kindergarten students who were temporally placed in schools such as Hawes because of this year’s overcrowding. The speaker asked the board if those children were more important than her child?
Unfortunately, since its inception, the PARRCA program has been seen as just that – a program. A program can move. But these are children. These are children who have made a connection to their school. They attend specials, play on the playground, and have formed relationships with teachers, administrators and other students. They are not just another program.
If you notified me that my child was going to be moved from her school to make room for others, my first call would be to my lawyer. I have a feeling that everyone else reading the blog would react the same way. Why do we feel that disabled kids have less rights than the general population? Do we think that they won’t know that they have changed schools? Do we think that it is justified since some of the students do not live in the Somerville district? Several of them do live in the Somerville district, and even if they didn’t, are they any less important to our community than the others who are slated to take their spots?
There has to be another way. I urge anyone with a thought on this matter to speak up. Let’s shoot for a win-win for everyone, especially for these kids.
>In their own words
>one year ago
may 6 2007
june 19 2007
june 5 2007
>Reader Comments on BOE Race
>Laurie Goodman refers to the extremists. Guess what, that’s you, because you secretly read “that blog.”
Currently there are a few HSA Presidents who continue to speak about how Sheila is experienced and has done a great job. A few of them have held private little coffees for Ms. Brogan. HSA Presidents say those upstarts who are running are stupid, emotional and rude.
So before you vote, look at our BOE track record.
-They approved curriculum in our middle schools that eliminated a math textbook(CMP2).
-They did not use purchasing power when dealing with curriculum companies when they allowed each elementary school to purchase whatever materials they wanted.
-They did not require all schools that feed into the same middle school to use the a standard curricula.
-They eliminated the Gifted(Potentials) program, which shows their overall disregard for our brightest children.
-They instituted a policy to hire young inexperienced teachers to save money, thereby changing the balance of experienced to inexperienced teachers in the schools.
-They approved “authentic assessment” in our high school which allowed teachers to improvise midterms and finals and thereby eliminated content standards across classes.
-They implemented a sole communication method, eNews email, which only reaches 1/3 of parent population.
If Ms. Brogan and Ms. Goodman are elected, the following will be implemented.
-The policy of group work will continue and the constructivist method will still be the primary method used in our schools.
-Reform math will be brought into the high school so the 8th graders using CMP2 can continue learning from a constructivist based program.
-Authentic assessment will remain; standardized departmental tests will be eliminated.
-The average teacher age in the district will go down.
-Your taxes will rise when the BOE asks for the maximum 4% budget increase every year.
-The HSA will need to fund raise even more for the fields, sports teams and playgrounds because the school will not allocate money toward those areas.
-The number of kids going to private schools will increase, depleting the school system of some very talented kids.
You may think, I must vote for Sheila, I went to this coffee and they all said they were voting for Sheila and Laurie.
Remember, you can say you voted for Shelia and Laurie, but vote for Sarah Kate and Greg.
>Poll Finds Almost Half of New Jersey Adults Want to Move Out of State
>Poll Finds Almost Half of New Jersey Adults Want to Move Out of State
Thursday , October 18, 2007
By Sara Bonisteel
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Even New Jerseyans can’t stand living in New Jersey, according to a new poll that said nearly half of adults residing in the Garden State want to pull up stakes.
The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll, released Wednesday, found 49 percent of those polled would rather live somewhere else.
New Jersey already is suffering from an image problem and bears the brunt of jokes because of its corruption and pollution problems. But 58 percent of those residents polled said the heavy financial burden of just living in the state is no laughing matter, and that’s why they want to leave.
Poll participants cited high property taxes (28 percent), the cost of living (19 percent), state taxes (5 percent) and housing costs (6 percent) as the main reasons they want out. The poll also found that 51 percent of those who expressed a desire to leave planned to do so, with adults under the age of 50 making between $50,000 and $100,000 the most likely to flee.
“If you have the ability to leave and you don’t see any possibility for change with the way the state is run — and that’s the No. 1 issue here — you have to vote with your feet,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
The study did not surprise New Jersey’s politicians.
“The high cost of living in the Northeast is not news,” Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman for Gov. Jon Corzine, said in an e-mail statement. “But it is one of the reasons Gov. Corzine has worked tirelessly to help poor and working-class residents of New Jersey by implementing the Earned Income Tax Credit, expanding S-CHIP and increasing — and sustaining — property tax relief.”
Gilfillan said Corzine also had cut costs by reducing the government workforce, though he noted people would continue to leave New Jersey as baby boomers retired.
“Demographics are only going to accentuate this trend, as the bulk of these folks have yet to leave the workforce,” Gilfillan said.
But Republican Assemblyman Richard Merkt said it was the fiscal policies of the governor and legislature that were to blame for the exodus.
“It’s no wonder that New Jersey is a national joke,” he said. “We’ve done it to ourselves with these just positively irresponsible policies.”
The Monmouth University poll, which was conducted over the telephone with 801 New Jersey adults from Sept. 27 to Sept. 30, did not predict a mass exodus, at least not yet. Of those residents polled, 44 percent would like to stay and 7 percent were not sure. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
But a Rutgers University report released last week found that New Jersey, with nearly 9 million people, is experiencing a population loss and said the number of residents who had left the state more than tripled from 2002 to 2006, with 231,565 people moving elsewhere.
The Rutgers Regional Report, which examined U.S. Census Bureau and Internal Revenue Service data, noted 72,547 people left in 2006, ranking New Jersey fourth — behind California, Louisiana and New York — among states with the highest population losses in the nation.
High prices aren’t the only thing driving people out. New Jersey ex-pats headed in droves to warmer climates, with 124,584 moving to Florida and 29,803 moving to North Carolina. Others (42,459) moved to neighboring Pennsylvania.
That migration depleted the state’s tax coffers of an estimated $10 billion in personal income and $680 million in sales tax, according to the Rutgers report.
“This really illustrates among a lot of other things that the public has thrown up their hands,” Murray said. “They don’t feel that there’s anything they can do that would change the situation.”
And unless there’s change, Merkt said, the flight will continue.
“One can only hope that the pendulum will stop swinging this way and start moving back the other way ’cause if it doesn’t, you’re going to see 9 million people suffer,” he said.
“Or you’re going to see the last person over the Delaware turn out the lights.”
>The HSA moms at Orchard sat at the front door at a desk to make, to demand voters sign in when they came to the polls.
>The HSA moms at Orchard sat at the front door at a desk to make, no to demand voters sign in when they came to the polls. That day I lost all respect for them. How could they NOT know that it was illegal to do that?
Stupid things like this earn them the derisive title “bottle blonds.” So what if the principal requested it. Some one should have spoken up to say no can do. It’s illegal. But they all went along like sheep. How can we trust them when they are so compliant? What other parental rights do they sign over to administrators during the course of a school year?
Sadly, they denude us of our power as parents. This is most serious.
>Ridgewood created the HSA to keep the powers of a PTA from interfering with the administration of the school system
>Ridgewood created the HSA to keep the powers of a PTA from interfering with the administration of the school system.The HSA’s can only be a fundraising entity. It can do nothing else for parents or children in the system.It has extended the art of being “non-confrontational” to being non-questioning. In other words, no pain, no gain.It’s motto is, “give me your money but keep your opinion to yourself.”
Talk about sycophants… Travell’s current HSA president hosted a coffee for Sheila Brogan recently. Does anybody else see the problem with this?
>Goodman Launches Mailbox Campaign
>
An eagle-eyed citizen spotted a Laurie Goodman campaign flier tucked into the mailbox of a Village resident. This photo taken by cell phone captured the deed. The Fly wants to know why Mrs. Goodman doesn’t know that accessing a private mailbox without express permission from the owner is…well a federal impropriety? Mrs. Goodman, in addition to squashing dissent and removing our right to vote on school budgets, do you also wish to see our federal laws on this issue changed to suit your predilections?
Kids being rushed past childhood.
>Ready, Set, Relax! is one town’s effort to stop hyper-parenting, in this exclusive excerpt.
Apr 05, 2008 04:30 AM
Carl Honoré
Ridgewood is the sort of place that comes to mind when people talk about the American dream. Nestled in the woodlands of northern New Jersey, this quiet, verdant town of 25,000 souls breathes affluence and well-being. The locals work hard at high-powered jobs in Manhattan, but they enjoy the fruits of their labour. Large, handsome houses sit on spacious lots dotted with swing sets and trampolines. Luxury sedans and shiny SUVs glide along wide streets lined with oak, dogwood and maple trees.
Move in a little closer, though, and this happy portrait starts to fray round the edges. At the school gates, around the tables in the local diner, and in the supermarket parking lot, you hear the people of Ridgewood voicing the same complaint: we may live inside a 21st-century Garden of Eden, but we are too damn busy to enjoy it.
Many families here are scheduled up to the eyeballs. Caught between work and home, parents struggle to find time for friends, romance, or even a decent night’s sleep. Their children are in the same boat, filling the hours not already occupied by school work with organized extracurricular activities. Some 10-year-olds in Ridgewood are so busy they carry Palm Pilots to keep track of their appointments. Eating dinner or doing homework in the car while travelling to swimming or the riding club is common here. One local mother emails an updated family schedule to her husband and two sons every evening. Another keeps her timetable pinned to the front door and the underside of the sun visor in her people carrier. With so many schedules to mesh, with so much going on, even getting toddlers together for a playdate can be a logistical nightmare. One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons was penned with places like Ridgewood in mind. It depicts two little girls waiting for the school bus, each holding a personal planner. One tells the other, “Okay, I’ll move ballet back an hour, reschedule gymnastics, and cancel piano. … You shift your violin lessons to Thursday and skip soccer practice. … That gives us from 3:15 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday the 16th to play.”
Unlike other towns, though, Ridgewood has taken a stand against overstuffed schedules. What started with a few moms grumbling over coffee at the kitchen table has blossomed into a mini-movement. In 2002, Ridgewood pioneered an annual event called Ready, Set, Relax! The idea is that one day a year this alpha town takes a breather: teachers assign no homework, extracurricular activities are cancelled, and parents make a point of coming home early from the office. The aim is to cast off the tyranny of the timetable, to let children rest, play, or just daydream, and to give families time together that is not built around driving to the next volleyball practice or band rehearsal.
Hundreds of households put down their planners to take part in Ready, Set, Relax! and the event has inspired towns across North America, not all of them as well-heeled as Ridgewood, to follow suit. To help out frazzled families, the school board in Sidney, N.Y., a blue-collar hamlet 210 kilometres northwest of here, no longer schedules any extracurricular activities or meetings after 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. In 2007, Amos, a small forest and mining town in northwestern Quebec, held its first activity-free day based on the Ridgewood model. Marcia Marra, a mother of three who helped set up Ready, Set, Relax! in tandem with a local mental health agency, hopes the tide is turning. “People are starting to see that when their lives and their children’s lives are scheduled to the hilt, everyone suffers,” she says. “Structured activities can be great for kids, but things are just out of control now.”
This is not a new panic. Warnings about children being overscheduled, racing from one enriching activity to the next, first surfaced in the early 20th century. Dorothy Canfield Fisher, a popular novelist-cum-parenting guru, warned in 1914 that American parents were stripping childhood of its “blessed spontaneity” by placing “a constricting pressure upon the children to use even the chinks and fragments of their time to acquire accomplishments which seem to us profitable.” In 1931, Ruth Frankel, a pioneering cancer specialist in Canada, described how “the modern child, with his days set into a patterned program, goes docilely from one prescribed class to another, takes up art and music and French and dancing … until there is hardly a minute left.” Her fear was that overscheduled children would grow so jaded that they would turn “desperately to the corner movie in an effort to escape ennui.”
That same worry has reached fever pitch over the last generation. Books with titles like The Hurried Child and The Overscheduled Child have carved out shelf space in the library of modern parenting. Even the kids’ section has tackled the topic. In The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Pressure, the famous ursine family goes into stress meltdown because Sister and Brother Bear are enrolled in too many after-school activities.
Why are so many children so busy today? One reason is the rise of the working mother. When moms stayed home, it was easier just to let the kids play around the house. But as women entered the workplace and the extended family dissolved, someone else had to pick up the slack on the child-care front. Extracurricular activities fit the bill perfectly, promising not only supervision but also enrichment. Yet putting children on a tight schedule is not always a response to the child-care gap. Many stay-at-home moms also sign their children up for endless activities. Part of this is self-defence: when every other kid in the neighbourhood is booked solid, who is going to indulge in free play with your unscheduled child? In our atomized, bowling-alone society, organized activities are also a good way – sometimes the only way – to meet other parents. Nor does it help that many extracurricular activities are designed like a slippery slope: you sign up your 4-year-old daughter for a weekly dance lesson, and then, before you know it, she has a class every other night and is travelling across the country to compete. Rather than rock the boat, though, we persuade ourselves that lots of scheduled activities are just what children need and want, even when they tell us otherwise. The other day I watched a mother drag her 3-year-old daughter from a nursery school near our house. The child was weeping. “I don’t want to go to ballet,” she howled. “I want to go home and play.”
No one is saying that extracurricular activities are bad. On the contrary, they are an integral part of a rich and happy childhood. Many kids, particularly in lower-income families, would actually benefit from more structured activities. Plenty of children, especially teenagers, thrive on a busy schedule. But just as other trappings of modern childhood, from homework to technology, are subject to the law of diminishing returns, there is a danger of overscheduling the young. When it comes to extracurricular activities, many children are getting too much of a good thing.
Wayne Yankus, a pediatrician in Ridgewood since the early 1980s, reckons that 65 per cent of his patients are now victims of overscheduling. He says the symptoms include headaches, sleep disorders, gastric problems caused by stress or by eating too late at night, and fatigue. “Fifteen years ago it was unusual to see a tired 10-year-old,” says Yankus. “Now it’s common.” Recently he hired a therapist to spend one day a week in his office to talk to families about the need to prune their planners.
The extracurricular merry-go-round can also ensnare the family in a vicious cycle. Parents resent children for taking up so much time and costing so much money – Britons spend £12 billion a year on their children’s hobbies, half of which are abandoned within five weeks – while children resent their parents’ resentment. Activities overload also squeezes out time for the unscheduled, simple stuff that brings families together – relaxed conversation, cuddling, shared meals or just hanging out together in companionable silence. Yankus sees this disconnect in many Ridgewood households. “When the snow comes and the activities get cancelled, everyone is horrified because they’re suddenly stuck at home and have to deal with each other,” he says. “They don’t know how to get along without a schedule.”
Ridgewood does not shut down completely on Ready, Set, Relax! day. Some residents regard the event as silly or patronizing. Sporting matches arranged with neighbouring districts are not cancelled, and the homework ban is not always as strictly enforced as it could be, especially in high school. Yet the town does feel different on the big day. With fewer soccer moms running red lights, the traffic is less frantic. People are more likely to stop and chat than exchange a brief nod before pointing to their watch and rushing off to the next appointment. To many families, Ready, Set, Relax! has been an epiphany. More than a third of those who took part in 2006 trimmed their schedules afterward. Consider the Givens. The three children used to be enrolled in so many after-school activities that there was barely time to eat, sleep or talk. Even though she felt overwhelmed and often found herself jogging round the supermarket to save a few seconds, Jenny, the mother, somehow felt that it was her duty to keep the family maxed out on extracurricular pursuits. “Every activity that comes up you want your kids to try, and you fear that you are failing them if they are not busy every second,” she says. “You want the best for them, but always at the back of your mind, even if you don’t admit it, you have the fantasy that they might turn out to be brilliant at something, that by signing them up for an activity you might uncover some latent genius.”
In the Given household, that translated into an eye-watering barrage of art classes, Spanish lessons, soccer, lacrosse, softball, volleyball, basketball, baseball, tennis, scouts and book club. Every weekend, the parents would split up to ferry the children to their various activities. At home, time and tempers were short. Ready, Set, Relax! came as a wake-up call. On the first night, the Givens made Mexican food and chocolate chip cookies together. Then they got down Cadoo, a board game that had been sitting unopened on the shelf since Christmas. The evening rolled along in a riot of laughter and cuddles. “It was an amazing revelation for all of us,” says Jenny. “It was just such a relief not to be rushing off to the next thing on the to-do list.”
After the Ready, Set, Relax! night, the Givens cut back, keeping only activities the children are passionate about. Today Kathryn, 16, does an art class, Spanish lessons, and a book club. Chris, 14, plays on basketball and baseball teams while Rosie, 12, concentrates on soccer, tennis and lacrosse. The whole family is more relaxed, and the children are all doing better at school since the cutback. The spirit of Ready, Set, Relax! has rippled out into other initiatives in Ridgewood. Every Wednesday, weather permitting, about 80 children aged 4 to 7 are now let loose in the playground of the local primary school. This is Free Play Day and parents are confined to the sidelines. Left to their own devices, the children skip, play hide-and-seek and tag, make up stories, throw balls around, sing and wrestle. The noise is exhilarating, the child equivalent of a Wall of Sound. To many parents it is a revelation. “It never occurred to me to do this, to just let them play like this,” says one mother. “You always feel like you have to be organizing something for them, but actually you don’t.”
There is, of course, something absurd – even a little tragic – about having to schedule unscheduled time, yet given the world we live in, that is probably the first step for many families. And clearly the Ready, Set, Relax! movement reflects a wider rethink.
Harvard urges incoming freshmen to check their overscheduling ways at the door. Posted on the university website, an open letter by Harry Lewis, a former dean of the undergraduate school, warns students that they will get more out of college, and indeed life, if they do less and concentrate on the things that really fire their passion. Lewis also takes aim at the notion that everything young people do must have a measurable payoff or contribute toward crafting the perfect resumé. “You may balance your life better if you participate in some activities purely for fun, rather than to achieve a leadership role that you hope might be a distinctive credential for postgraduate employment. The human relationships you form in unstructured time with your roommates and friends may have a stronger influence on your later life than the content of some of the courses you are taking.”
Most families that ease the load end up spending more time eating together. In a hurry-up, hyper-scheduled culture, where dining al desko, in front of the TV or computer, in the street or in the car is commonplace, the family meal often falls by the wayside. One study found that a fifth of British families never eat together. The irony is that many of the benefits extracurricular activities, including homework, purport to deliver may actually by achieved through the simple act of breaking bread en famille. Studies in many countries show that children who have regular family meals are more likely to do well at school, enjoy good mental health, and eat nutritious food; they are also less likely to engage in underage sex or use drugs and alcohol.
A Harvard study concluded that family meals promote language development even more than does family story reading. Another survey found that the only common denominator among National Merit Scholars in the United States, regardless of race or social class, was having a regular family dinner. Of course, we’re talking here about meals where both parents and children ask questions, discuss ideas at length and tell anecdotes rather than just watch TV and grunt “pass the salt.”
Why does a proper family meal pay such handsome dividends? When it comes to diet, the answer is obvious. A 9-year-old boy is more likely to finish his greens, or to eat any vegetables at all, in front of his mom and dad than when he is dining alone at the computer in his bedroom. Sitting around the dinner table, taking part in conversation, also teaches children that they are loved and cherished for who they are, rather than for what they do. They learn to talk, listen, reason, and compromise – all those essential ingredients of a high EQ. Of course, no one is saying that family meals are always a bed of roses. Sometimes they are sheer hell. Gathering tired toddlers, sullen teenagers and stressed parents around the table can be a recipe for open warfare. But then, dealing with conflict is part of life, too.
Excerpted from Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting. Copyright 2008 Carl Honoré. Published by Knopf Canada. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
>RIP Bill Zisa of Westside Barbershop
>Guglielmo Zisa
ZISA Guglielmo “Bill”, 77, of Ridgewood died on March 26, 2008. Born in Italy, he moved to America in 1962. Bill was the current owner of The Westside Barber Shop in Ridgewood for forty-five years. Survivors include his loving wife Nunziata (nee Nicastro) Zisa of Ridgewood, his three beloved sons Dino of Long Valley, Phil of Hendersonville, NC and David Zisa of Ridgewood. He is the grandfather of five adoring grandchildren. Funeral Services, Saturday at 9:30 AM at CC Van Emburgh Funeral Home, Ridgewood. Interment to follow at Valleau Cemetery, Ridgewood. Visiting, Friday, 2-4 and 7-9 PM. For driving directions and online condolences, please visit: (www.vanemburgh.com)
Published in The Record and Herald News on 3/27/2008.
