The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood Board of Education, approved the appointment as listed below, effective March 1, 2021 through June 30, 2025. The contract has been approved by the Interim Executive County Superintendent as required by law. Dr. Thomas A. Gorman, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gorman’s credentials are as follows:
Governor Murphy Signs Executive Order to Implement New Policies for the 2020-2021 School Year
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Ridgewood NJ, Governor Phil Murphy today signed Executive Order No. 214 to affect the following changes for the 2020-2021 school year: 1) waiver of the graduation assessment test requirement for any 12th grade student who has satisfied all other statutory graduation requirements; 2) removal of Student Growth Objectives (SGOs) as a component of formal educator evaluations; and 3) extension of the time in which certificated teachers or those in the process of becoming certificated teachers can serve as substitute teachers.
Continue reading Governor Murphy Waives Graduation Assessment Tests for the 2020-2021 School Year
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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Ridgewood NJ, Stacie Poelstra Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum opened the presentation with the New Jersey COVID-19 Activity Level Reports at the Ridgewood Board of Education meeting, which show an increase in the case rate and percent positivity approaching the high activity level. All cases are investigated by the Village of Ridgewood Department of Health. There have been 24 cases in the district up to this point. To continue to make improvements to our plan, several things have been done since October 19. Elementary special education students were given the option to attend school in-person on a daily basis. Elementary teachers received equipment and training to begin the implementation of live streaming for students on their at-home day in the hybrid model.
Continue reading Ridgewood School Reopening Plan Update During New Jersey COVID Spike
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Ridgewood NJ, at Monday nights Ridgewood Board of Education meeting Ridgewood Board of Education President Mike Lembo provided a brief update on the superintendent search being conducted by R-Pat Solutions, LLC. The posting is currently available online, and it is printed in newspapers on Sundays. Mr. Lembo was told there are a large number of applicants including some from out-of-state. A survey to collect input from stakeholders is currently being formulated, and it will be going out to the community. Based on R-PAT’s timeline, the Board is anticipating that candidates will be narrowed down in January.
November 11, 2020
Dear Ridgewood School Community,
In anticipation of Dr. Fishbein’s retirement from his role as superintendent of schools, the Ridgewood Board of Education conducted interviews of superintendent search firms at our regular public meeting
on Monday, November 2 and hired R-PAT Solutions, LLC to manage the superintendent search. As defined in our Board Goals for 2020-2021, we plan to name a permanent superintendent during the
spring of 2021, and we are confident that R-PAT Solutions will help us successfully achieve this goal.
Continue reading Dr. Thomas Gorman to be Named Acting Superintendent of Schools in Ridgewood
Continue reading Eight Ridgewood High Students Named 2021 National Merit Semifinalists
“This is an amazing remark to put in a written update, “Dr. Fishbein explained that some families of children who were beginning kindergarten opted to send their children to a private school for this school year with the intention of returning to the district the following school year. “, Kindergarten is the grade that sets all of the coming years for a school, lose K and there are no rising 1st graders, etc. How much school funding is lost due to the decreased enrollment? What if anything will have to be cut, what programs? “What business says, my customers choose not to come to our establishment, no worries.” Don’t we want to know why they are choosing to pay for private school instead of coming to our schools at no cost? What are we not doing right? To say that families are opting for “private school” in a district that “supposedly ” highly regarded, is a bad sign. How does this get glossed over as a nutin-burger? Is this really all related to covid-19? or is this a trend.”
“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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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.
Continue reading Ridgewood Board of Education Focuses on Getting Back to School
photo by Boyd Loving
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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 .
Click here to view the PDF of the presentation.
one of 100’s of emails
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Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood blog has uncovered disturbing Emails sent through Ridgewood public schools email system.
Groups like MoveOn.org and other far leftist propaganda organizations now have direct access to your children through the Ridgewood Public School email system , with no Opt-in. There also seems to be little to no opposing opinions or factual information just non stop propaganda . MoveOn.org is even soliciting donations !
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Ridgewood NJ, Brianna Alexandra Patek, of Ridgewood High School will present a research project Friday at the 2016 Research Symposium of the New Jersey Governor’s School of Engineering & Technology at Rutgers University’s Busch campus in Piscataway. Patek will be joining 80 of her peers in presenting the results of their respective research projects.
11:20 AM – 11:40 AM Health-Monitoring Wearables Amy Liang, Brianna Patek, Sruthi Srinivasan, Eileen Wang, Andrew Zheng
The introduction of the final symposium from 10:00 AM – 10:50 AM in the Allison Road Classroom Building Room 103 on Rutgers’ Busch Campus (directions at the end of this invitation). (Visitors on the day of the symposium may park in Lots 51, 59, 60B, and 67 without permits.
Links to the parking lots are at the bottom of this document). Light refreshments will be served. Students’ research presentations will run from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM concurrently in three locations: the Computing Research and Education (CoRE) Building Auditorium, located on the first floor of the CoRE Building; the Easton Hub Auditorium, located in the Fiber Optic Materials Research Building; and the CAIT Auditorium, located in the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation Building.
The schedule of presentations from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM there will be a one hour break for individuals to examine the final project results in the Life Sciences Building Atrium
Who should decide our children’s education
NOVEMBER 7, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
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Who should decide education?
David and Terry Anzano
Public education was intended to be locally controlled by parents and taxpayers. Ridgewood is arguably one of the best local, fully-funded districts in the state with some of the finest teachers and administrators working in our classrooms. For example, the wonderful music program showcases one of many areas of Ridgewood’s “Tradition of Excellence.”
We have become increasingly concerned that parental control is being replaced by mandated state and federal requirements which are tied to Stabilization Aid, waivers from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top money. This funding dictates high-stakes testing, nationalized copy written standards, state longitudinal data systems and teacher evaluations.
So who decides what is best for our students? Is it the parents working with our teachers and administrators setting an educational path best for the individual learner? Or is it the state’s “one size fits all” approach? What role does our superintendent and Board of Education serve in securing our right to control our local education? Indeed our superintendent has stated that he is an agent of the state carrying out mandated directives from Trenton and Washington, D.C.
