“Even if we agree that teachers work as much as the average worker, they are only working 10 months out of the year and those are 6 hour days, not 8 hour days.
And lets not talk about “teacher prep time” done before and after their 6 hour day, that is canceled out by the “overtime” done by the average worker before and after their 8 hour day.”
Continue reading Reader Comments of Teacher Pay “…but they continue to whine”
photo credit https://writix.co.uk/
“As a teacher this is so discouraging to read. If you feel your tax money is going all to the school and the teachers are “ineffective” move elsewhere. My districts teachers have zero say in the decisions happening. It is sad you place blame on teachers being lazy when several go above and beyond to help children succeed and please parents. Remote learning in the spring was far from a vacation for me, it was difficult but I would rather do that than potentially get sick or infect a family member. Don’t diminish teachers, they are the ones who are with your kids all day.”
“Fact is the Ridgewood’s school rankings have been on a downward slide for a while now, before COVID. Fact is when the schools closed last year, many kids slipped in their performance relative to benchmark because teachers weren’t able to get the kids to thrive in those circumstances (not the teachers fault per se, but some were notably disengaged). Fact is there are some awesome teachers and great educators who can pivot under any circumstance, but unfortunately the fact is there is no shortage of those that can’t. Fact is the rate of transmission in NJ, Bergen County, and specifically Ridgewood are all materially down since the peak, with only a miniscule number or new cases in the last month. Fact is parents aren’t paying taxes for full time teachers to teach part time. Fact is if all-remote implemented, there is a plethora of excess teachers/administrators that can be furloughed until school resumes normal operations, yet the fact is no such plan was ever contemplated.
Fact is the truth sometimes hurts when pointed…”
Continue reading Ridgewood BOE Special Public Meeting on Friday August 28th at 3pm
“In my opinion CoVid has only exacerbated a dynamic that exists in any place of employment: Some people going above and beyond (whatever the motivation may be for their extra efforts), a lot of people meeting expectations and doing the job they are paid to do … and then the people I would describe as the Takers. No place of employment, public or private, is immune to this. Some of my kids’ teachers were very much present and obviously putting in a great deal of time and effort to make remote learning as good as possible. Others – crickets. Posting assignments, assigning kids to watch YouTube videos in lieu of teaching and just not interacting w/kids even remotely during the spring. In my (private company) – no different. Some decided to take advantage of WFH to not do all too much. I’m not speaking about people who had to care for sick family or step in to school their own kids. I hate to break it to people, but there are always Takers in society. The issue is if there is a tipping point, and productive people start to feel that they’ve been ‘had’ and decide why bother. In the private sector, it probably isn’t the right decision (in the long run) to so obviously show that you’re not really needed for the success of your enterprise.”
photo by Boyd Loving
“Public unions gotta go. Unionizing against the public is a travesty. Ppl turned a blind eye while good times rolled, but we’re in a right spot now. And the decade of transformation has just started!
Expect fewer white collar jobs, normalization if demand for IT specialists and entertainers, high inflation and much higher taxes on top earners as well as property owners.
Covid merely accelerated the existing trend. With these issues, last thing taxpayers can afford is subsidize 20th century style “public servants.” Especially those who teach their children how to hate their own family and nation.”
“residents here in Ridgewood know more about what happens than the eggheads at the BOE & REA who theorize on how to control thoughts as they trade bon mots at their cocktail parties. Should corona last for the long run, the intelligentsia and NJEA unions will be toast as they cling to their days gone by like the Luddites they are. I pity the truly great teachers in the district who have been lumped into the mix with the Marxists.”
“So REA, if the Ridgewood BOE installs high efficiency HEPA filters in each classroom , will you agree to return to teach? These are recommended for critical healthcare applications like anterooms, isolation wards and COVID-19 patient rooms. When educational institutions reopen after the coronavirus outbreak, ASHRAE recommends a portable HEPA and UV air cleaner for each classroom, with at least two air rotations per hour. Will that, in addition to the already planned health, cleaning and physical distancing protocols, be enough for you to return to the physical classroom this fall? Or do you just not want to have to work full time but still receive full pay?”
“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”
“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!”
…the fly has learned that the Ridgewood Schools system HVAC is rated a MERV 8 with is the standard for New Jersey schools and office buildings, but the word is the REA wants to see a hospital standard MERV 13 installed in all Ridgewood schools , teacher and administrators may have to suffice with opening windows , except cottage place which has over the years presented its own set of problems …
“Such excellent commentary from fair minded people calling out Fishbien and the REA for what they truly are… have never been”doing it for the children” as they tell you every other second but just concerned for their over the top pay and how to continue getting paid for half an effort..the teacher as hero myth had truly been debunked forever now…”Sorry Billy, Mrs Jones doesn’t really care if she ever sees you again” the children will quickly learn this and remember for their lives..no memories of nice empathetic classroom leaders just a money grabbing union worker…disgraceful.
How NOT ONE teacher feels it in their soul that this set up is unfair to the parents and taxpayers of Ridgewood belies their collective greed and union fueled expectations of more more more…NOT ONE voice calling for some sort of give back to the generous community during these highly stressful family conditions is unconscionable and sad.”
“In a normal society, this virus would be handled by having the sick or vulnerable stay home for as long as necessary, while encouraging the young and healthy to go about normally with life. Teachers that are sickly could stay home and go on unemployment like everyone else in the country. Young college grads with education degrees can temporarily Take their place. Very simple. How are parents that are not teachers or other government employees supposed to work and feed their families if they have to stay home and care for their children who are doing remote learning? This point is rarely brought up. How have day care centers and summer camps in NJ been open since June, but schools cannot reopen? Why are day Care workers and summer camp workers lives valued less than teachers lives? I drove by the Ridgewood YMCA parking lot last week and witnessed large numbers of children, of various ages, over the age of two years old, standing very close together and not wearing masks. Why is this permitted when masks are required in NJ outdoors when not social distancing?
Locking down everyone is actually making everyone more sickly in mind, body and soul. Why is it that the government and their followers only care about people sick or dying from covid19, but not from any other cause, like the annual flu, being killed in riots, or from not being able to receive necessary medical treatment? Yes there is a pandemic, however, like it or not, the fact is that less than 0.5 percent of all people will die from it. It is obvious that the pandemic has become a convenient, catch all excuse, which is being massively abused. This is to the detriment of all humanity, the effects of which will be ever lasting. Wake up people! Please please start thinking for yourselves and you will realize what is actually going on here. Only when teachers and all government employees are treated the same and feel the same pain as small business owners have, during this pandemic, will people actually see the truth, be on the same team and be able, willing and ready to work together.”
