1,100 applicants for Ridgewood BOE job openings in the past 12 months. Hopefully there are a lot more job openings once we get rid of the thugs pictured above. Can anyone name these people? The look on their faces tells it all: they are smug, self-entitled, and angry about $15 co-pays instead of the current $10… let’s fire the malcontents and replace them with educators who want to work with our kids.
These teachers and their benefits are out of control. Hold the line BOE. Thank goodness most of our volunteer BOE members don’t have kids in the schools anymore – the REA abused previous board members who did have kids with veiled threats and heaped abuse. The REA’s tactics are in BAD faith, and they are selfish. Support our students, support the BOE and support Ridgewood taxpayers.
The greedy teachers don’t $15 co-pays, they want to keep $10. And their platinum coverage covers up to 96% of medical expenses both in and out of network with full family coverage worth $28,000 a year in premiums…. NO ONE in the private sector gets a plan like that, only greedy public sector workers who think it’s their right.
Time for fresh minds, ideas and energy.
Thugs, malcontents…your remarks are reprehensible. You must have super human eyesight to see a face in this picture, never mind to know that it is smug, and angry. Can you also explain what does self-entitled look like?
If you bothered to educate yourself with all of the facts you would know the issues are greater than co-pays. I assume it is easier to espouse half truths than try to understand them.
What everyone seems to dismiss is that the REA is basing their requests on the standard across the state. Ridgewood teachers are not asking for anything more than their fellow teachers in adjacent towns receive based on the DFG (district factor groups). Please don’t jump on this comment and tell them to go teach there if they want…that is not what it is all about. The majority of the teachers in Ridgewood love their job, appreciate the students and don’t want to go elsewhere. They are merely asking to be compensated fairly and with a package that will allow them to continue to be effective, dedicated educators.
But at 12:07, they are higher paid to start! And our rankings have gone down so you can’t even claim that ridgewood has better teachers and are therefore more deserving of higher pay then their counterparts.
11:57–what besides the co-pays are the remaining issues? All the articles and Board of Ed communication says only co-pays. If there are other issues remaining it is important for the teachers to communicate it better so we understand…
It’s true, the REA is not asking for anything more than their fellow teachers in adjacent towns.
But that’s because their orders are coming from the NJEA in Trenton.
12:07, Ridgewoid teachers are compensated fairly with the highest wages in Bergen County. You don’t like it, move to the Paterson BOE. If they can’t be effective, dedicated educators with the offer proposed by our BOE, then it’s time to move on. We have 1,100 applicants to replace you.
Not looking for more, just to maintain. To speak to lower rankings, mandated state tests have ALL students required to be tested and results averaged. There are no exceptions, waivers or alternate assessments for those students who may not have been accountable in the past. Rankings can’t be held to task when the population/demographic has changed. PARCC and poor participation doesn’t help either.
12:07, are you suggesting we cut Ridgewood teacher salaries commiserate with what their fellow teachers in adjacent towns receive based on the DFG (district factor groups)? Good idea. Glenrock has better schools, pay our teachers what Glenrock teachers get.
1:09. You are looking to maintain making MORE. Have to agree with @1:10 here, perhaps the BOR’a opening position has been too generous?
1:10, both Ridgewood and Glen Rock teachers have an average salary of $76,000.
As someone who has averaged a 1% increase in the private sector over the last 3 years (and was lucky to get that) and resents a witless football coach making a 6 figure salary, I get there is resistance to teacher demands. But “thugs”? Really? The ones I know are good and decent people dedicated to their jobs and trying to provide for their families the best they can–like anyone else. They are not allowed to strike, so all they can do is protest. Or, as you say, “go elsewhere”. There can be a negotiated resolution to this. There will be a negotiated resolution to this. Neither side will be happy–that’s the nature of compromise. In the meantime, name-calling is not really productive. Calling the teachers “thugs” just makes you sound like a thug.
1,100 applicants…..N E X T.
I think the term “thugs” was used referring to union tactics but our teachers are not behaving professionally. If you look at the faces in the middle picture above none of them look very happy. I’d say malcontent is an accurate description. If I made a face like that at my job, I’d be placed on a PIP for having a bad attitude! I believe the majority of Ridgewood residents support the BOE holding the line given that we already pay our teachers very generously. We live in a beautiful town and we value education but a lot of us are struggling to make ends meet and our property taxes are getting out of hand. We don’t speak openly because we do not want our children punished in the classroom for our opinions.
Agree @4:22. Well said.
Love the teachers. All of them. Wish they could get what they want but please don’t ask me to pay for it. $40 co pay and a 401K – just like those of us that pay your salary. If I held out for better benefits than the stockholderers that pay my salary in the private sector I’d be replaced.
Well said 4:22
So 1:39, why do you need more than Glenrock teachers, which seems to be the basis of your negotiations? They have better schools.
The REA’s tactics are in BAD faith, and they are selfish. Support our students, support the BOE and support Ridgewood taxpayers.
Picketing our BOE with red shirts and signs is a union thug tactic 11:57. There is no room for your NJEA style tactics in our Village. Tell the full-time NJEA lawyers, activists and lobbyists advising the REA that we have no room for their thug-like tactics in our beautiful Village. Take it back to Hudson County.
If we have 1,100 applicants, why aren’t we replacing the teachers who don’t want to be here?
Free the teachers from unions. Allow them to move to the districts that will reward them. Tenure hold them back.
The simple fact that you work in a place that has a “performance improvement plan” is pretty sad. Is that really some place you want to go to everyday? A place where your nothing more than human capital?
7:06 Your comment indicates how out of touch you are with the real world! Almost every major corporation (and I am working for a Fortune 5) has annual performance evaluations for which employees must meet specified goals in order to qualify for a salary increase – that is, even if there employers are even offering any. If an employees are having issues, including “attitudes” they are placed on a performance improvement plan. Whether I like it or not, that is just how it is for most of us in the private sector. We may wish things were different but earning a living has become very difficult in the private sector which is why you see so many unsympathetic comments about the REA on this board. We don’t always have as many choices as we would like to meet our responsibilities. Do you know anyone who has been downsized, outsourced or worked for a company that has gone bankrupt (A&P) and scrambled around trying to find a job while n their late 50’s? There are a lot of people in Ridgewood, in NJ, who are in that situation and desperate to have a decent job with some benefits. If you need a paycheck, sometimes you can’t always have what you really want and you get on with life and don’t whine like the teachers and their unions are doing when in reality they have a very, very good deal monetarily and are hopefully getting paid to do something they enjoy..
7:06, what bubble are you living in? Perhaps in your world there are there tangerine trees and marmalade skies, or maybe rocking horse people eat[ing] marshmallow pies? PIPs are by most if not all corporate employer HR departments today. How does the BOE handle an underperforming, tenured teacher? Can they be fired?
Wow, 7:06 is a teacher? We’re nothing more than human capital? Or is it taxpaying monkeys? Pull your head out of your behind, you insult the very private sector workers who pay the taxes that subsidize your excessive wages and pension & health benefits. Time to diminish your benefits big time and fire teachers for underperformance. Tenure is killing our schools. I guess REA members think Ridgewood taxpayers are just going to roll over and accept your outrageous contract demands, like $10 co-pays, full lifetime pensions from ages 55-60, and Cadillac health insurance. Time to sympathize with real world problems, not just make smug, insensitive comments that we are “nothing more than human capital”. Obviously to you we are nothing more than taxpaying idiots who will bend over and accept whatever you ask for. Good luck with that. #enoughisenough, #taxedtodeath
Thugs? who writes this crap?
If 7:06 is a teacher he/she does not represent the majority and has spoken solely for themself. Teachers are definitely kept accountable, undergoing a yearly review that requires 3 classroom observations, written documentation of everything they have done all year (in various time-painstaking reports), meetings with supervisors and a final summation of their performance. If found to be ineffective salary increase is denied until things are improved. If no improvement they can be let go even if tenured.
Close down the public system and rehire the good teachers into a new Ridgewood Charter school system…problem solved