Sick and tired of hearing some the highest paid teachers in the State complain. Get a grip – the real world does not get automatic increases every year and in many case each year the contribution towards health insurance increases and coverage changes to economize. Let them strike and fire them. Lots of fresh new faces with lots of energy or teachers working in lower paying districts would love to have your jobs and be happy to work for a lot less
Teachers voted for Obamacare which is why health premiums are rising faster than wages. But now they want taxpayers to carry the extra cost so they can keep their Platinum health benefits? Give us all a break. Its great the REA can’t bully our BOE members as parents like they’ve done in the past with former BOE members. These are hard working volunteers trying to protect Ridgewood taxpayers from hostile and abusive REA/NJEA who has no interest in negotiating in good faith. They just want to keep screwing Ridgewood taxpayers as our school rankings keep declining. $102mn school budget for a town of 25,0000 and yet the REA wants more! This is abject greed.
NJEA and the REA is shameless trying to bully BOE members and their families. We can only guess the abuse the hard working volunteers have faced privately from the REA and NJEA thugs, and if they did have kids in the local schools what challenges that might present. If you don’t like your health benefit premiums, then downgrade to Bronze level coverage like the rest of us in the private sector. Remember, it was your union who supported Obamacare. So now accept that taxpayers are done subsidizing better health benefit plans for you elite teachers at everyone else’s expense. The rate of contribution is determined by your salary, simply the more money you make the more you are forced to contribute. Lower contribution levels don’t work for taxpayers, so suck it up like the rest of us and enjoy your paid summer vacation.
The law requires teachers to contribute a certain amount towards medical premiums.
That results in a certain dollar amount in the budget that reduces the remainder that must be paid by taxpayers.
The teacher contribution should not go down by a single dollar.
I object to paying additional taxes to provide better medical benefits than what I have myself.
The full day kindergarten should be voted DOWN in Nov. When studies were presented for multifamily housing, the ‘expert’ assumed new staffing for full day kindergarten was already in place. If we vote the full day Kindergarten down, then the schools will not have funding for new teachers needed to serve newly built apartments. At that point hopefully the builders will be charged an impact fee, instead of sneaking the higher cost caused due to apartments in the name of the KG program.
A career in teaching has always been more of “a calling” rather than one to make good money. Would-be teachers know this going in. Yes, in an ideal world, teachers would probably make better money. In an ideal world, dumb celebrities would not be multi-millionaires.
You made your career choice. Either live with it, or take your talents elsewhere. No-one is forcing you at gun-point to be a teacher.
10:20. Times change. Teaching is not a “calling”. People expect a fair salary. You may have noticed that religious organizations in the US are having trouble finding men and women who have the calling.
I am not a teacher but that comment was a ridiculous throwback. This is not the 1950’s. If you want the best to go into teaching you have to pay them.
Completely agree with you 9:27, the teacher contribution should not go down by a single dollar and I also object to paying additional taxes to provide better medical benefits to REA members than what I have myself.
These teachers need to understand the private sector reality – taxpayers cannot be subsidizing better benefits for teachers than they have themselves, it doesn’t work.
Ridgewood should be getting the best for $102 million. We’re not, and the rankings reflect that.
The rankings do not affect my children’s education.
It is a distraction to think that the rankings are an indicator of the quality of an educations.
Look at how the colleges game the rankings. There are more rankings now because there is money in this silly obsession. My kids are doing well and being challenged in Ridgewood Schools. I met all the teachers. I do not need a ranking to tell me how things are.
11:23 – “People expect a fair salary.” Therein lies the/your problem. Our future is doomed.
“A fair salary”. Yes, nice and vague. Just like “hope and change:. Just like “paying your fair sharer”. These are all deliberately vaue sayings that appeal to the masses as everyone is expected to interpret their own details in these messages. Listen to a Bernie speech. It’s line after line of all these kinds of messages. .
If you want to go into teaching, you know what you are going to make. I just don’t get this whole nonsense about getting all upset about not getting enough when you knew damn well what you were getting into. Same deal with the nimrods who decide on a career in fast food and then start complaining about not being able to raise kids and pay the rent on minimum wage.
11:23 sounds like a Bernie Bro… Give us all a break. Why should my taxes be going to provide better health benefits to teachers than me and my neighbors have ourselves? Is it because teachers are special?
$81,000 average salary for Ridgewood teacher. Glen Rock, Fairlawn, Wyckoff are around $72,000 average. A $102,000,000 budget for around 5,500 students is approx $18,000 per student. Ridgewood also ranks high for greater number of teachers making over $100,000. Easy commute, easy district, unlimited fundraising from parents to fund better technology, environment and resources, not to mention intelligent students served by private tutoring, parent involvement and less negative secondary factors. I love and respect our teachers and feel fortunate to have such a wonderful school district for my kids. But, I need either more information or stronger argument from teachers to be convinced they are getting a bad deal in these negotiations. Anyone?
This blog should ha e a like button so I could show how much I like most of the comments. They make sense. We can’t continue to subsidize teachers and cops increases while we are not getting increases ourselves
Obamacare imposed an excise tax on Cadillac insurance plans. They created a fudge wherein the tax is paid by the employer but as Jonathan Gruber said – the economic effect is the same.
Teachers’ unions whole-heartedly supported Obama and Obamacare. Now is the time to suck it up and pay your FAIR SHARE of Obamacare taxes, like the rest of us.
Teachers can’t be blamed for “low” rankings…focus on the curriculum which isn’t their doing. Look at your principals, superintendent etc… incidentally these positions receive raises and enjoy the very benefits the commenters of this blog apparently don’t feel educators are entitled to. Why is no-one spewing their hate at these positions?
These comments expose the uniformed and pathetically mean spirited quite effectively.
wait let me get this straight , because taxpayers do not want to pay for teachers what they cant afford themselves : is spewing hate?
Focus 1:32. Nobody is spewing hate. We are just taxpayers that believe teachers are demanding increases and reduced healthcare contributions that we no longer can afford. The current BOE budget is $102,000,000 per year. That’s about a billion dollars over a 10 year period. You have enjoyed substantial pay increases for years, and have enjoyed gold plated medical benefits at no cost. Those days are over. The sooner you realize that, the better it will be for your mental health.
1:32, you don’t deserve better health benefits than the taxpayers who are subsidizing your health benefits and wage increases. We’re taxed to death and yet you want more.
My health insurance cost has gone up substantially over the past 3 years – thanks to Obamacare. It is kind of rich of teachers I pay for to demand that their cost stay flat!
1:32, it’s the mean spirited, unprintable hatred spewed by your Union, the REA and its behind the curtain masters from the NJEA, towards our hard working volunteers on the BOE board that needs to be exposed. You people are outright nasty. I know what you did to the last BOE member who had kids in the schools while negotiating a contact. You and your Union are despicable thugs. Shame on you, shame.
If you say one word against the teachers’ demands, somehow you are considered to be anti-teachers and anti-children. This is so unfair. I am afraid to speak out against their demands because a couple of my friends teach in the Ridgewood Schools and this would pretty much end our friendships.
Reality is that years ago we all had more benefits, shorter work days, full health care, etc. In the corporate world we all had to give in and give up this and that over the years. Some of us, myself included, went through three years of salary freeze because the company was not doing well – you either took it or you quit. No one quit. Maybe we grumbled, but at the end of the day we were grateful to keep our jobs. Doctors make less at the end of the day than they used to. Lawyers are no longer guaranteed gigantic salaries. The teachers need to face reality. They have pretty darn good jobs with decent benefits. Yes it is hard to teach, and yes the parents are grateful for their dedication. But they are not on another level from any of the rest of us. Whether you are a scientist or a store clerk, a shop owner or a waitress, a scientist or an economist, whatever you do it is essential to keeping society running and we are all important in our own ways. Teachers are not holier than the rest of us and they do not deserve whatever they ask for. They need to give in because frankly we the citizens of Ridgewood are getting pretty tired of their constant demands.
The signs that say SUPPORT OUR TEACHERS are popping up all over town. I will not put one in my yard. No need to. I support our teachers with my tax dollars so the fact that own a home here in town means that I support them.
Funny how no one ever argues that movie stars, professional athletes, or Kim Kardashian makes too much money, but everyone is ready to say those that are educating the future of America only warrant a certain amount of pay. Make teachers have a real marketplace salary, take away tenure, and reward those that are truly passionate about educating the future!!!
@ 1:05 – An average teacher makes way more than and average movie star or an average athlete. For every successful movie star or athlete, there are 1000 who tried and failed, and never saw any money. Moreover, athletes and movie starts have a few peak years that end early, and they have to live the rest of their lives off whatever they earned in that peak. Very few become successful in second careers as producers or coaches/newscasters.
You apparently want the average teacher to be paid the same as the top 20 athletes and movie stars. Knock knock. This is reality. Stop dreaming.
“Outraged” quite frankly I think the teachers in Ridgewood do have a marketplace salary. They make a very decent wage. And they have a TON of time off. And they have much shorter work days than most of us. They can use that time to be with family, relax, travel, or pursue other interests. Some opt to use the time to tutor at a very respectable hourly wage (and I have yet to meet a teacher tutor who is claiming this income). Some work at Kumon and those places in their spare time. Some work all summer doing various other jobs. People with 12 hour days and 49 week years do not have any of those options. Comparing them to Kim Kardashian is a ridiculous argument. Compare them instead to their friends and neighbor’s who go to work every day.
1:04- Very well said !
Maybe someone should look at the administrators salaries – they have great benefits, time off and huge salaries – are they worth it?
Thank you 1:04. I have a similar experience with friends and relatives who are educators. I also agree with 9:47. It might be time to look at the administrators. I don’t think they have the same amount of time off as teachers but still the great benefits and pension with lifetime medical is something to consider when looking at the entire remuneration package.
Classic Union tactic – focus on something other than the key issue, which in this case is health benefit premiums for ALL BOE employees including all teachers and administrators. Stay focused and stop trying to muddy the waters. Also please stop with the “anyone who complains about the cost of health benefits is anti-teacher” campaign . It’s a union thug tactic and has NO place in good faith negotiations. Village taxpayers have caught on to your scam, but that doesn’t allow you to disrespect us.