the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, at last Mondays Ridgewood BOE meet in the during the Superintendents report Dr. Fishbein provided a COVID-19 update and explained that the district continues to monitor the COVID activity in our community and surrounding areas. Many districts around us have transitioned to remote learning for a significant period of time. While we have had to pivot to remote learning in some buildings, most of those schools will reopen for in-person instruction this week. We have been successful by following contact tracing and guidelines of the NJDOH in collaboration with the Village of Ridgewood Health Department. As a result of all of the surrounding schools that are closing, the district is, however, starting to experience staffing issues, and we will closely monitor this situation.
Dr. Fishbein shared that we are very fortunate to have a great local health department. Last spring, when the health department was faced with the challenge of contact tracing, our school nurses were trained as contact tracers. This has been extremely beneficial since our reopening in September. Our nurses are able to assist the health department with contact tracing, which has made this process more efficient. Dr. Fishbein reminded everyone of the importance of cooperating with contact tracers.
Finally, Dr. Fishbein thanked both the present and past Board of Education members. Additionally, he thanked the excellent teaching staff, support staff, and administrators and recognized that the accomplishments of the past 12 years were the result of teamwork.
Fishbein always says how great everything and everybody is in Ridgewood. Unfortunately other comments Fishbein’s made during this week’s public setting indicated he hoped Ridgewood parents were telling the truth to the contract tracer. With almost 60 cases and counting of virus spread to individuals that walk into the school buildings, it is implausable to think that almost all are of “unknown” causes, which if they were known by the tracer, the schools would now be fully remote. So Fishbein instead of congratulating yourself for keeping the schools open and creating the impression that if the schools were to close again it would be as a result of other neighboring town school closures that would result in Ridgewood school staffing issues, the most obvious action Dr Gorman can take tomorrow is to mandate that all be tested on a regular basis as a condition of school re entry.
GWM closed for a second time in the last 3 weeks??? We need a better approach regarding school safety for all as the holidays will likely bring more spread. The current Ridgewood BOE management of the the virus needs a more proactive stance by the new interim school superintendent.
Wyckoff schools to go fully remote until mid Jan 2021 with less than 1/2 of the reported positive cases than Ridgewood has reported over the last few weeks. The principal of the Ridgewood Somerville Elementary School is a Wyckoff resident with a few school age children of her own so we wonder how Somerville might be effectively managed during this time frame. Is this what Fishbein was getting at with respect to Ridgewood’s monitoring of the region’s schools and its impact on Ridgewood’s ability to keep its schools open??
https://patch.com/new-jersey/wyckoff/wyckoff-public-schools-institute-remote-learning-until-2021
He definitely has a soft approach for the wycoff parent mentioned above. So may be he is planning to close it all for her.
He did put the district through a lawsuit for her.
Hey angry folks – talk to the Governor. The rules come from the state.