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?”
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.
“The conditions the NJEA are on the verge of forcing the state to impose on life in the public schools are so draconian as to cause normal parents to recoil in horror. This is intentional. The NJEA has been working overtime to make sure the state offers all parents the option of keeping their children at home indefinitely from the start of the school year based on generalized COVID-19 fears and anxiety. The one-two punch routine is completed by the NJEA pushing school re-opening guidelines that are so drastic as to cause parents to conclude that the schools will end up becoming glorified detention centers or penitentiaries. The NJEA figures most parents love their children too much to force them to endure the degrading and dehumanizing treatment the public schools are certain to have in store for them.”
“The NJEA and the political puppet string-pullers that control it and every other state teacher’s union in this country must have determined that collective coordinated student walkouts and protests in favor of all things BLM and AntiFa would be too hard to instigate and organize in time to effect the November national election. So the decision is being taken in each individual state to convert the student population into a ready supply to fuel flash mobs. The school districts will be forced to keep the little shock troops at home with mommy and daddy who will be able to drive them to wherever they are needed at the drop of a tweet.”
“the costs to bring our school buildings to an adequate level of safety for students and staff are astronomical.”
There’s no need to do any of that.
New Jersey’s top high school graduates, as a group, outstrip the academic achievements, performance, and potential of those of every other state. This is borne out by the fact that the cutoff for National Merit Semifinalist status, which in every state consists of the top half of the top one percent of PSAT test scores among Junior Year PSAT test takers in that particular state (the Junior year being the only year that counts for purposes if National Merit competition), is higher in New Jersey than it is for every other state, year in, year out. In fact, in recent years, the PSAT cutoff in New Jersey for achieving National Merit Semifinalist status has typically been only one point away from a perfect score. Mind you, every Junior in every U.S. state who elects to take the PSAT to get involved in the National Merit competition takes the exact same version of the PSAT test on the exact same day. So there is no funny business involved, and it becomes possible to do a perfect apples-to-apples comparison data between states to see which states are producing the greatest number of top-shelf college-ready students as a proportionate to the total number of high school graduates they certify in a given year.
– Spineless RW school system won’t implement (let alone enforce) any mandatory structure nor enforce any substantive academic standards.
– Teachers whine about how hard they are working and what challenges they are overcoming
– NJEA/NEA are conflicted over whether it is more beneficial to the teachers (I mean students, wink, wink), to push for reopening schools in September or to push to keep schools closed in September.
– RW parents post teacher support signs on their lawns and publically espouse what heroes the teachers are while privately complaining about how the teachers are failing to address their kids needs (while never making sure their child attends virtual class or does his homework).”
Ridgewood NJ, With World Teachers’ Day around the corner and teaching among the lowest-paid professions that require a bachelor’s degree, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst States for Teachers as well as accompanying videos.
Ridgewood NJ, The Board of Education announces the following winners for the 2018-2019 Teacher Recognition Program: Educational Services Professional Karen Coates Hawes School Joseph Staunton Orchard School Maria Sullivan Ridge School Jill Marmo Somerville School Kathryn Droske Travell School Dawn Fleming Willard School Wesley Halter Benjamin Franklin Middle School Lisa Sutera George Washington Middle School Vanessa Kabash Ridgewood High School Charles Appel
The Ridgewood Teacher Recognition Award Reception will be held at the Education Center on Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 7 p.m. for the award recipients, their families, school parents, teachers, and friends. Each of the award recipients will receive a stipend of $500 ($250 awarded by the individual Home and School Association and $250 by the Board) for use in their classrooms next year.
Funny how teachers & staff only go to a board meeting when THEIR interests are effected, for example, when THEIR contract expired. How come they don’t appear at other Board Meetings? Funny how RBOE isn’t in the top 10 public school districts according the the State of NJ. Keep paying those high taxes for tenured teachers that can’t get reprimanded or fired. The teachers union sounds more like mafia. How about Ridgewood teachers spend a day in Newark or Jersey City classroom and see what a REAL school day is like.
Unfortunate that it happened at school. RHS is not responsible, the student is. RHS did not raise this child. I take responsibility for my children. They are wonderful kids and I raised them well. The district educated them as per state guidelines.
Shameful behavior and deserves to be addressed by school in some manner. School will focus on education and the parents should focus on the child’s deviant behavior. Vandalism is a crime and child should be turned over when she is identified.
Ridgewood NJ, the on again off gain teachers agreement is on again ,on November 19th the Ridgewood Education Association announced the REA and the Ridgewood Board of Education once again have reached a tentative agreement regarding a contract settlement.
Ridgewood NJ, The BOE Negotiations Committee has issued the following statement:
The Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) and the Ridgewood Education Association’s (REA) negotiating teams signed a Memorandum of Agreement on October 9, 2018. That agreement states that “Salary distribution and salary guide construction shall be mutually arrived at by the parties and are subject to Board approval.”
Ridgewood NJ, according to the Ridgewood Education Association , “Last week we were notified by the Board of Education that they are no longer in agreement with the contract settlement negotiated with the assistance of a state appointed mediator on Oct. 9. The issue pertains to the new salary guides that by agreement must be agreed upon by both parties. We submitted guide proposals to the Board on Oct. 10 and they waited almost three weeks to tell us they found them unacceptable and that they have a misunderstanding as to what the settlement actually means. Upon first learning this on Oct. 30 we informed the Board how we interpret the settlement and met again with the Board’s negotiating team on Friday to reiterate that point. Tonight the Board has indicated they need even more time to approve the settlement. We find this unacceptable and as such we find ourselves back at an impasse and potentially back at the negotiating table. Ridgewood’s teachers and secretaries have now been working for 128 days under an expired contract. Email Board President Vince Loncto at [email protected] and tell him to honor the agreement and settle now! “
Ridgewood NJ, according to the NJ Department of Education since 2008 Ridgewood High School’s ranking has declined from number 7 over all to number 36 . In the same 10 year period the Ridgewood school budget has nearly doubled to a whopping $110,000,000.
