Laurie Goodman's Blog

We need to amend Ridgewood's underage drinking ordinance

2012-01-26T10:11:00.002-05:00

I was not a supporter of Ridgewood's underage drinking ordinance when it was adopted in 2007. I'm still not a fan. Not because I advocate underage drinking, but because I felt the ordinance was not really going to have an effect on the ways kids do what they do and the way the police do what they do. I felt it would give the grown-ups in town a false sense of having "handled" the problem, while driving the teens to get more secretive and hurried (which is dangerous when it comes to drinking). But the point is moot now because the ordinance has been in place for 5 years.

What I'm advocating now is an amendment to the ordinance that makes teens and parents aware of a state law designed to save lives and prevent injury.

Here are the comments I made to the Ridgewood Village Council at their work session last night:

In October 2009, the State of New Jersey signed into law 911: Lifeline legislation – also known as the “Amnesty Law” – which says that if a minor calls for medical assistance for an intoxicated person, they can not be prosecuted for underage drinking themselves, nor will the intoxicated person be prosecuted if they are underage.

This is an important law – its intention is to avoid a situation where a teen doesn’t call for help because he’s afraid he’s going to get in trouble.

It’s not a “get out of jail free” card, there are very specific rules to be followed, and it doesn’t protect teens from punishment from mom & dad, but it can keep kids safe when they find themselves in a dangerous situation and have to make a decision.

Amnesty is already the law in Ridgewood, because it’s the law in the entire state of New Jersey. And yet – this potentially-lifesaving law is only effective if kids know about it. In order for it to work, to potentially save a life or prevent injury, kids must know, in advance, that they can call 911 to get help, without fear.

I’ve talked to many Ridgewood teens since the state law was enacted, and I can say that none of them knew about this law.

One way to get the word out is to amend Ridgewood’s underage drinking ordinance to include the language of the state amnesty law, and I know you have such an amendment on the agenda tonight.

Several other towns and municipalities in New Jersey have revised their municipal codes in this way, and I urge our Council to take this step.

As you review the amendment tonight, I hope parents will be paying attention, and will take this opportunity to discuss the law and inform their children.

I hope teens will hear about this amendment, will talk about the law with each other, will know that it’s for real, and will remember it should they be faced with a dangerous situation – a friend that needs help – on any Friday or Saturday (or any other) night in Ridgewood.

All of us want Ridgewood teens to be safe. We all hope they make smart choices. But when they make a mistake, and it turns dangerous, this law can help ensure that mistake doesn’t turn into a tragedy.

Following my comments and those of Municipal Alliance chair Sheila Brogan last night, a few Council members had questions. Some of the questions and comments focused on perceived problems with the proposed ordinance's wording. As Village Attorney Matt Rogers explained, the wording is taken verbatim from the state law. If anyone has a problem with wording of the state law, they should take that up with Trenton. All we are trying to do is highlight the state law for Ridgewood teens.

The Municipal Alliance (of which I'm a member) will be putting together some materials and hopefully distributing to our high school students soon.

I've heard too many stories of close calls -- kids who dropped off a drunk friend on their doorstep, or invited a friend to stay and "sleep it off," or left a friend passed out on the curb or the right-of-way -- that luckily turned out OK. Kids make mistakes. We know that. It's normal for their development. It's also normal for them to fear getting in trouble and, in their immature brains, this fear can trump good decisions. I'm proud that our state had the good sense to enact the Amnesty Law and I hope Ridgewood's ordinance amendment will help get the word out in our town.

Class of 2012 is "sick" (or looking good)!

2011-12-14T20:07:00.001-05:00

The early college acceptances are starting to come in and, to quote my son, "the class of 2012 is sick!" He meant that in a good way. As in, the Class of 2012 is going to be impressive in where its graduates get accepted for college. He may be right...

This week some Ridgewood High School students got their Early Action and Early Decision answers, plus some got answers from rolling admission schools to which they applied early. Just anecdotally, my son has told me about two of his friends accepted ED at Stanford, three accepted at Cornell, two at Amherst, two at Colgate, plus some Columbia, Boston University, Lehigh, Duke, UNC... Keep in mind, these are all Early Decision or Early Action, which tends to be more competitive. (My own son was accepted to Penn State...really proud of him!)

The college process is a crazy whirlwind in Ridgewood. We've tried to keep things sane for our family. My philosophy is that there is not one single "best" school for every child. There are a lot of good schools and each student's success depends a lot on what he/she puts into it. Colleges are different than back in my day (not so long ago...30 years). They compete, with services and marketing. Students have become more savvy and more demanding. I get frustrated when people outside the school system complain that Ridgewood "isn't sending enough kids to the Ivy League." I've got news for you: not very many students want to go to the Ivy League. And why should they? Should they incur those high costs and high pressure environments for the name on the diploma? Today's students have learned to shop hard for their schools, and demand the education, the facilities and the services that feel right for them, personally. Maybe it's an Ivy...probably it's not. But if they work hard and make the most of it, they'll get an excellent education.

I can't wait to watch these young people embark on the next stage of their lives...the rest of their lives. The application and acceptance process will be rolling on through May, so let's remember this is a marathon and not a sprint. When the final list is complete, I'll update you here.

Love letter to New York City.

2011-11-06T02:41:00.002-05:00

I love this video love letter to New York City, created by the talented Andrew Clancy who shot the video and edited it together. The music is beautiful, too.

A Year in New York from Andrew Clancy on Vimeo.

Read more about the video by clicking here.

Innovative special ed is the Ridgewood way.

2011-11-01T01:38:00.002-04:00

Innovative special education? It's just how we do things in Ridgewood, at least as long as I've been here and clearly since before then. The mission statement of our school district is the real thing, especially the part about "enabling students to maximize their unique potentials." In some school districts, special education is seen as somehow other...separate...different...well, special. But in Ridgewood, special ed is just part of how we educate and care for every student and his or her unique potential, whatever that may be, from overachievers to underachievers, from superstars to kids who struggle with basic everyday survival. Most Ridgewood residents have no idea the range of needs and challenges faced by Ridgewood youth, and are unaware of the lengths our educators go to educate students of all aptitudes and developmental levels. The very fact that our special ed programs operate somewhat "under the radar" is a testament to how these programs are part of the very fabric of our school system. The recent referendum and construction projects to add/change spaces at our schools and better accommodate special programs is further confirmation. Financially smart, yes, but also simply the right thing to do.

That's why it's truly great when a Ridgewood program is recognized outside on the larger stage. You may have read recently that RHS principal Jack Lorenz was recognized by Bergen County for his leadership in developing the S.A.I.L. (Strategic Actions & Innovations for Learning) program at the high school, and kudos to Mr. Lorenz. According to the story on Ridgewood Patch, the S.A.I.L. program "houses special needs students in-house, focusing on providing lessons of independence." The program consists of a curriculum that combines academic lessons with internships, job training, counseling and technology. S.A.I.L. also saves the district money, since the students remain in RHS instead of being sent out of district where we would have to pay tuition for their education. It's a win-win for the students, their families and the district (not to mention the other RHS students who have the benefit of working with and getting to know these students, too).

I think it's important to mention that many people created, and currently give life everyday to, the S.A.I.L. program at RHS. In particular, Kerry Huntington, Director of Special Services, and Pat Staab, Supervisor of Special Education, were architects of the program along with Mr. Lorenz. And, seriously, I save my strongest praise and respect for the teachers with, as they say, the "boots on the ground," who work with the S.A.I.L. students day in and day out. Yes, it certainly takes leadership to get a program such as S.A.I.L. off the ground (thank you Board of Ed, too, for funding it). But it takes a District with an overall commitment at all levels to create an environment where such a program could be theorized, designed and implemented pretty much in the background, business as usual. Thank you Ridgewood, and thank you to all the educators involved, for making it a reality.

The higher education bubble is coming. Watch out.

2011-10-26T15:02:00.000-04:00

I heard someone recently say if you thought the "housing bubble" was tough, wait for the "higher education bubble." It's gonna be worse. This graphic helps explain the situation. (Note: Even though I'd like to see a graphic like this include sources for the data, I do believe that the general message (or messages) in it are true and accurate.)

Go to this link (sorry, I can't paste the full graphic here without it getting chopped off).

Technology and innovation in education.

2011-10-16T01:45:00.000-04:00

Had a good time at the Edscape conference today in NewMilford. Last year it was called the Tri State Technology Conference and thistime the format was basically the same – sessions all about different ways touse technology to create teaching, schools and classrooms that arecollaborative, innovative, engaging and high-performing. There was a little toomuch SmartBoard focus for my taste, but it makes sense – SmartBoards areeverywhere and they do offer a lot of opportunity to engage students inlessons.

There was also a lot of focus on MLDs – Mobile LearningDevices. AKA cell phones, iPads, tablets, etc. It’s becoming more and moreclear that as our students carry smart phones and other devices, schools camefficiently take advantage of this and incorporate them into teaching. Whywouldn’t we allow students to use the small, handheld devices that can connectthem to just about all of the information in the world and which they arealready carrying in their pockets – at no cost to districts! We should beallowing, enabling and encouraging this use throughout our schools, especiallythe high school.

I attended sessions on:

Professional Development: What is it and what should it be?
Mobile Learning
"What If" – what kind of technology do teachers want?
Building a Culture of Literacy – how do we ensure books and literature are not lost in the push for technology

I enjoyed learning about Edmodo, which is basically "Facebook for schools." It's a platform that allows a teacher and students to collaborate, share work, give feedback, plan, get assignments, take quizes, participate in polls, etc., using an interface that looks a lot like Facebook and works the same way, so it's intuitive and kids are engaged right away. It's a completely closed and secure system so everything is private and...it's free!

Probably the best part of the day was the keynote address byDiana Laufenberg of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Diana focusedon innovation in schools and described how everything her school does – everysingle lesson, every single project – incorporates the school’s core values:inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. As Diana said,and as is stated on their website, “AT SLA, leaning is not just something thathappens from 8:30am to 3:00pm, but a continuous process that expans beyond thefour walls of the classroom into every facet of our lives.”

As you may have predicted by now, that kind of talk isgetting me energized again to focus on technology and innovation in ourRidgewood schools. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get traction on this subjectduring the three years I was on the Board of Ed. I’m not giving up. As a “regular”parent now, I am pursuing the subject again, and will be bringing some ideas tothe Board in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted!

Losing some school safety.

2011-09-26T09:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday’sBergen Record had a story about budget cuts forcing school districts tolose their School Resource Officers. Ridgewood lost its SRO and it’s definitelya loss for our students.

It may surprise some people that I am a fan of policeofficers in schools for any reason, but the SRO is not simply an armed-guard.Rather than intimidating students, frisking kids, searching lockers or chasingdown youthful offenders, the SRO’s benefits are more subtle and long term. InRidgewood, our SRO formed relationships with students in the high school andmiddle schools. Actually, elementary school students became acquainted with himas he would occasionally talk to their classes, then when they got to middleschool they’d see him more often and perhaps get to know him one on one. Andthen by high school they were comfortable enough to share information aboutactivities and interests of kids in Ridgewood – things that might happen in schoolor outside of school. The SRO got to know many students by name, he had his earto the ground, and heard stories about parties or incidents. He knew who hadbad home situations. He helped get assistance for kids with substance problems.And the kids felt he genuinely cared about them. Students could come to him foradvice. If he heard about an issue that was in the principal’s purview, he’sshare that info. And vice versa. Without a doubt, the SRO prevented some crimesfrom happening and when there were incidents, he was able to follow-up withmore precision and success.

It’s nice to read that some towns, such as New Milford,stepped in with funding from the town budget, to keep SROs in place. Our BOEwas unsuccessful in getting the Village of Ridgewood to fund our SRO when grantfunding ran out. So the Ridgewood SRO was reassigned to “regular” police work.

Does my opinion of the SRO program conflict with my opinionof extracurricular codes that punish kids for activities that take placeoutside of school? Absolutely not. I still am not comfortable with a schoolimposing sanctions – such as barring a student from sports or clubs – becauseof something they may have done on aSaturday night. But the SRO program was different. It was about communicationand rapport and the “it takes a village” mentality, not simply a shortcut toofficial police reports.

It’s too bad we lost it.

Hawes School ribbon-cutting Wednesday night

2011-09-12T17:30:00.002-04:00

Residents, neighbors, parents and kids are invited to the official ribbon cutting ceremony at Hawes School Wednesday night 9/14. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. I haven't seen the new addition at Hawes since back in March or so...can't wait to see how it all turned out.

This is the addition that was funded as part of the 2009 bond referendum. Other projects include the addition at Ridge School (not going as quickly, different contractor, different challenges), additions at Willard and GW (in progress), the RHS fields (need to be repaired) and lots of important but not-so-obvious work at RHS, BF and other schools.

Lunch point-of-sale system confusion.

2011-09-07T20:02:00.001-04:00

Received this email from the Ridgewood Public Schools tonight:

Hello Parents of Ridgewood Middle Schools and High School,

As you may know, we have implemented a Point-of-Sales system in the cafeterias at the Middle Schools and High School. In order to make the lunch period run quickly and efficiently, we ask that you remind your students that they will require a Key Pad number for purchasing items from the cafeterias, either on account or in cash. Your students key pad number can be found in Skyward Family or Student Access under Food Service. If you need assistance, please email skywardhelp@ridgewood.k12.nj.us.Thank you for your patience during this transition period.

I do encourage everyone to be patient (and nice) during the transition, but I have to agree with some of my friends who find it utterly baffling that students must enter a PIN number in order to purchase something with cash. Makes no sense to me. (Not to mention -- if you don't use Skyward to pay for lunch in advance, then you don't have a PIN...or you don't know you have a PIN.) I'm hoping this is something that can be tweaked and corrected. I don't understand why a Point of Sale system needs to track cash purchases.

I'll let you know if I hear about anything changing.

The high cost of low salaries.

2011-09-07T18:00:00.000-04:00

Now that my daughter (RHS Class of 07) has begun working on her Master’s and started student teaching at an elementary school in New Hampshire, I’m getting a fascinating look at the process of becoming a teacher. The view from the very first days of one’s career is so interesting – especially when that career is constantly in the news and the topic of blog posts, speeches, political posturing, national debate and local ridicule. More than a few young or aspiring teachers are asking themselves, “What am I doing? Is this really the smartest thing for me to do with my life?” For most young adults who enter the teaching profession right out of college, teaching is a calling. They’ve always wanted to be a teacher, or they’ve always know they wanted to work with children. Teaching is certainly not the career one lands on when scanning the list of Top 10 Starting Salaries or Top 10 Growth Careers, where it seems the primary focus is on how fast can you get out and how much money can you leave with. Teaching is no way to get rich – there are much higher starting salaries and much more lucrative fields. This fact, I believe, is directly related to the current worries about the quality of our schools.

I read a great piece in the NY Times about teacher compensation and the high cost of turnover -- as 46% of teachers quit before their fifth year. (The High Cost of Low Salaries, 4/30/11) According to the piece:

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates.

I find it difficult to argue with this premise. What do you say?

The article discusses a McKinsey study that looked at countries with successful education systems – you know, the countries frequently cited as shining examples of school systems that are “better” than ours, namely Singapore, Finland and South Korea. The study found:

Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.

The authors also remark that “turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.”

Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so. Great teachers are going to be the key to improving our education system, and great teachers – who possess the best and brightest minds and who can afford to teach and contribute for the long haul – will cost money.

The NY Times column concludes:

For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.

To which I add, it’s time to rustle up our collective will, leave the politics out, and make it happen. This is not to say it must happen by being fully funded by local property taxes. It's a federal issue. Right? Isn't our nation's overall approach to education a national issue? Hello? Is this thing on?

And to the young teachers just starting their careers now, perhaps in your first classrooms this week: Hang in there. Don’t be discouraged. Think for yourself and not your union’s political agenda. Be part of the conversation. And thank you.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to save someone's life.

2011-09-07T13:56:00.002-04:00

As we sit here in our cozy Village, chilly rain falling, going about our daily lives, it's easy to forget some of the challenges experienced by people in other places around the globe. We're here getting riled up about fields and lunch-buying programs and teacher contracts. Those are all worthy topics of some concern. But sometimes our local issues make it easy to forget we're part of a bigger world. It's easy to remain uninformed, as we constantly filter the news that comes at us via the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, TV, radio, etc. But please don't filter this one out. It's about a problem that is literally killing millions of people -- and which each and every one of us could help fight with just pocket change and a few minutes of our time. Really.

Check out Seth Godin's blog today, which is End Malaria Day. Malaria? Isn't that some disease you get if you're on a safari and get bitten by too many mosquitos? It's far, far worse than that. Worldwide, a child dies of malaria every 45 seconds. But this disease could be virtually wiped out by something as simple as mosquito netting. Godin's blog post, and the End Malaria Day event, are designed to give people like you and me an easy way to learn more and save lives by contributing to the purchase of mosquito netting for families on the other side of the globe. Here's how simple it is:As suggested by Seth's blog:

Right this minute, right now, please do three things:

1. Buy two copies of End Malaria, an astonishing new book by more than sixty of your favorite authors. In a minute, I will explain why this might be the most important book you buy this year (not the best book, of course, just the most important one). You should buy one in paperback too so you can evangelize a copy to a colleague.

2. Tweet or like this post, or email it to ten friends (It only takes a second.)

3. Visit the End Malaria Day website and share it as well.

What would happen if you did that? What would happen if you stepped up and spent a few dollars?

Here's what would happen: someone wouldn't die.

A child wouldn't die from malaria, a disease that causes more childhood death than HIV/AIDS.

It's that direct. Malaria bednets are simple nets that hang over a window or a bed. They're treated with a chemical that mosquitos hate. The mosquitos fly away, they don't bite, people don't get malaria.

I hope you will do this. I'm going to do it right now.

First day of school 2011!

2011-09-05T14:49:00.001-04:00

So here we are again, back to school. This time it’s strange for me for a couple of reasons. My son, who is my youngest child, is starting his senior year at Ridgewood High School. It’s hard to believe we’re already here. Hard to believe his college applications will be done in a couple of months. And hardest to believe he’ll be going off to college in one year. He is such a different person than my daughter, that the college app and senior process will be much different this time around. Let’s just say things aren’t quite so buttoned up. At the same time, things don't feel so stressful, either.

We did manage to get a few things done this summer. We researched and visited several schools. At the beginning of the summer, his list of potential colleges was around 40. It is now a manageable 11 schools – and that’s how many he will apply to. I think he’s got 2 reach, 3 target/reach, 4 target and 2 safety. Part of the challenge is that he is completely undecided in terms of what he wants to study or what he wants to do with his life. And that’s OK with me – in fact I think it’s great because I don’t think 16 or 17 year olds have the experience or knowledge of themselves or the world to be “deciding” on their careers. So while I’m glad he’s open to a lot of possibilities, it changes the college search process from one focused on finding the school with the perfect program to finding a school with a wide variety of options, where the important thing is he feels comfortable enough to explore.

I appreciate the fact that college is a priority among Ridgewood students – as my daughter used to say, it’s actually cool to be smart at RHS – but I don’t like the constant comparison and “where are you applying” and “what are your SAT scores” that can reach a fever pitch among some/many of the students (and parents). My number one goal with my son (and my daughter in 2007) was to get them to keep their heads down, focus on themselves and what’s right for them, and don’t listen to what everyone else is doing.

As a parent, it can be helpful to hear what others are doing as a way to get ideas, hear advice from those who’ve lived it before and to relieve stress (whew, glad to know all the boys are procrastinators!). But for the students, I think the constant talk and comparison is not helpful. So I try to be a counterbalance to that.

Anyway, the beginning of senior year is an exciting time. Even though I know that at the very end of the process there will be a letting go, I’m looking forward to the experience – the one I’ll be sharing with my son and husband and the one I’ll be sharing with my fellow RHS Class of 2012 parents.

Have a great year, everyone. Here we go!

That Einstein was a pretty smart guy.

2011-08-28T23:27:00.002-04:00

Don't have time for more at this moment (this is an awesome solution for days when I don't have time to write a thoughtful post). Any thoughts?

The search for relevance.

2011-08-28T03:58:00.005-04:00

A friend alerted me to a post on another blog that referenced something I tweeted. The person commented, apparently about my blogging or tweeting, that I am “desperately trying to stay relevant.” And then they said it was “sad.”

My first thought was, Isn’t that what we all want? To be relevant? To matter? Whether it’s feeling like we are valued by the people in our lives, or by vast numbers of strangers in our community, our state, our nation or the planet, I’d say the quest to feel like one matters is one of the primary pursuits of mankind. My excellent high school English teacher, Louis Hill, would have said it was part of the “hooman condition.” (For some reason that’s always how he pronounced it…hoooooman condition.)

People all over the world are participating regularly in online communities, from Facebook and Twitter to blogs, message boards, and various other social media. What’s driving this explosion of communication and creativity? A big part is the search for relevance…the quest to belong…the need to matter. People who, prior to this digital revolution, felt disenfranchised and disconnected from each other, from their government, and from their future, now have a chance to join in the conversation. To participate in the debate. To share their unique perspective and opinions, even if it’s as simple as clicking “Like.”

In Ridgewood, the reach for relevance can be seen in some of our local blogs as well as online news sources like the Ridgewood Patch or NorthJersey.com. Patch and North Jersey are legitimate news sources, with the addition of a comment capability, which is where local residents can find their connection, their relevance. Local blogs, like my own, are pet projects (NOT news sources), with posts reflecting our personal opinions, our individual interests. In the comments section of our blogs is where you can see certain residents grab for their share of relevance. But is there a catch?

I wonder…How much are we participating, how much do we matter, if we only participate anonymously? If we don’t use our name or any other recognizable identifier, are our comments relevant? Are we relevant? Is there a difference? Does anonymous posting only allow us to feel relevant?

I certainly understand that some people are naturally comfortable speaking up publicly and others may be shy. I also know that the “cloak of invisibility” gives some people license to A) say things they don’t actually believe, for the fun of “stirring the pot;” B) say things that are socially or politically “incorrect;” C) use hate speech, bully others and just generally be mean in ways they never would to someone’s face; D) lie. Basically, all these behaviors stem from the lack of accountability that comes with anonymous posting.

And herein lies the monkey wrench. Can we be relevant and avoid accountability? Or when we communicate anonymously, are we simply being relevant-ish? What do you think?

(And, really, I’m not calling you out and demanding only named comments (not yet haha). I’m just thinking out loud and exploring a concept. If you have a thought on this topic, please feel free to comment, by name or by nom de plume or by anonymous…I know that old habits die hard!)

Thumbs up & down: online payment system.

2011-08-23T13:10:00.004-04:00

Talking with some friends (also Ridgewood parents) about the announcement that the school district has moved to a new system for online payments for things like activity fees, lunches, etc. One friend complained that the district is now "nickel and diming" us with the $3.50 transaction fee for online payments. She said something like, "the system was working fine before, and it was free!" Another parent commented that the District had successfully found a new revenue stream.

I give a mixed thumbs up and thumbs down on this. On the one hand, a better online payment system, that lets parents "load" their account with cash and then use it as necessary, seems good. I never did the online lunch ordering with my kids, so I'm not sure how it works if you order a lunch and then don't end up using it. Do you get your money back? It seems like with this system, you could order lunches but then if your child doesn't actually receive a lunch, then your account won't be charged? That's what it sounds like to me. I also like that now high school students will be able to draw on the account to buy lunch. Previously there was never a cashless way to get lunch at RHS. I don't know how it works, though. (Swipe your ID card? Do they even have magnetic stripes?)

I guess I can see an advantage to being able to check my account online in Skyward, then make payments, etc., in one place. (Although I notice that the instructions say you have to do activity fee payments and lunch payments separately, so that's not such a time saver.) I read that the system will allow me to "monitor" my child's food selections...I'm not sure what that means exactly. If kids are in elementary school, there isn't a "selection" is there? Don't they just get whatever is served that day? Maybe it means middle school and high school. Eh. Maybe that's important for some people to know if your kid had a sandwich or a cookie. I guess I'm neutral on that feature.

On the other hand, it does irk me that the District says they are charging the $3.50 as a "convenience fee." It's not really more convenient for me to use Skyward vs. Community Pass. Whether I click on this URL or that URL, neither one is more convenient than the other.

It might have been better if the District had explained that the previous processing of online payments with Community Pass also cost $$ per transaction -- only in the past, the cost was absorbed by the District. It was never "free." It was just free for parents. There is a difference. (From what I understand, the District was spending around $30,000 per year between the user fee and the transaction fees.)

The reality is, now the cost of processing online transactions will be paid for by only those parents using the service, instead of being paid for by all taxpayers. This seems fair to me. I just think it wasn't explained well.

So I give the new online payment system a thumbs up, but the communications about it a thumbs down.

When incentives are incentives to cheat.

2011-08-22T14:19:00.003-04:00

Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that the NYC principal who was removed from her job for changing students’ grades and giving course credit to failing students was retained by the NYC public schools as an “Achievement Coach?” (See New York Times article.) That seems like a stretch. Apparently she will still be paid a principal’s salary “but will no longer be eligible for a $25,000 performance bonus like the one she earned in 2009.” Well, that’s a relief.

I’m not even going to bother being outraged (or even surprised) that this principal wasn’t fired, that the NY schools chancellor seemed to think this wasn’t a very big deal. Let the NYC parents get upset about that. I’m more concerned about the lesson to be learned by those who push financial incentives for higher test scores. This type of thing – tweaking scores or massaging grades or “misapplying grading policies” or, let’s be real, cheating – is going to become tempting as the stakes get higher and higher. Perhaps you’ve heard about the cheating scandal recently coming to light in some Pennsylvania public schools? Or what about Atlanta? Desperate people, in desperate times, will do desperate things to keep their jobs.

Of course, another irony is the fact that incentives like bonus pay have been shown to have ZERO effect on student performance. (Click here and here.) But lawmakers don’t want to hear that. The public doesn’t want to hear it. It’s easier for them if the answer is simply to reward educators for higher test scores.

Seems pretty clear to me that this is not going to end well…

Update: There's a new story today on the NY Times website, reporting that allegations of cheating and grade tampering in the NYC public schools have tripled since 2002. Yep, expect to see more and more stories like this...

Share the road.

2011-08-21T03:37:00.006-04:00

Alright so this is my first “real” blog post in a month or so and I decided to start with…bike riding. Early in the summer, I bought a new bike (the photo at left is my sweet new ride!). What I really wanted was a new car. I haven’t had a new car in years. We’ve had plans for new cars now and then, and my husband got a new car so he could commute to his new job, but it’s hard for me to make the case for a new car when I work out of my home office! So…I placated myself with a shiny new bike, and it’s been great. I made a commitment to try and ride the bike for any errands within two miles of home, inspired by the Clif 2 Mile Challenge. I was intrigued to learn that (according to the 2 Mile Challenge website) “40% of all urban travel in the US happens within 2 miles of where people live. And 90% of that travel is by car.” The premise of the Challenge is to get people to ride a bike for those under-2-mile trips, in order to reduce the effect of carbon emissions on climate change.

While I like the idea of reducing carbon emissions, I was motivated by some other benefits of bike riding in Ridgewood. For starters, no more parking hassle! There aren’t exactly bike racks everywhere, but there are lampposts, signposts and fences to which I can lock my bike. I love pulling up to whatever store or restaurant I want and parking my bike – FOR FREE – within a few feet. Next benefit – exercise. I had not ridden a bike in years, perhaps decades, and I forgot that you can get some pretty good exercise peddling around town. (There are hills and grades where I never noticed before.) The final benefit is saving a little on gas money. Hey, every little bit helps!

So this summer, I’ve been riding the bike for my typical errands, most of which are: bank, post office, Stop & Shop, nail salon, haircut, friends’ house. That’s pretty much my life outside the house. (Exciting, I know.) We’ll see how long I can keep riding when the weather starts cooling off. I can tell you I don’t ride in the rain and I won’t ride in the snow. I’m not that crazy.

But I did want to make one point after all this explanation: the streets of Ridgewood are not a welcome place for bike riders! I had no idea. The hazards are many: potholes, uneven pavement and deep sewer drains. People who open their doors without looking over their shoulder. People who follow too close in their cars, or who don’t pay attention when they make a right hand turn and you’re right there. Hello, I’m riding here! It’s frustrating…and more than a little scary sometimes. Now, I will never advocate bike riders who ride two- or three- (or more) across. That’s rude. But I think we all need to make it easier – and safer – for bike riders in our town. Fewer cars on the street benefits all of us. You don’t have to ride a bike if you don’t want, but please watch out for those who choose to get some exercise, reduce pollution, and leave a parking space open for you. You're welcome.

Update 8/23 @ 4:56 p.m.: A girl on a bike was hit by a car today at E. Ridgewood Ave. and Hope Street. It was about 10 minutes after I did my errands by bike. As I rode today on Ridgewood Ave downtown, squishing as far to the right as possible to avoid passing cars, hoping no one pulled out into traffic without looking over their shoulder, I realized how I should probably avoid Ridgewood Ave. Of course, it's impossible to avoid it completely when running errands downtown, but I gotta say, it is a little scary on a bike! I already make a habit of getting off the bike and walking across Ridgewood Ave or its cross streets downtown. It's just too risky to ride across. And forget about the offset intersection of Franklin and Maple...I have not figured out the best way to get across Maple there by bike. People...there are too many pedestrians and bicyclists being hit in our town! Pay attention, everyone!

Hey, welcome back!

2011-08-21T02:47:00.002-04:00

I haven’t been blogging much (at all) over the past couple of months. It’s been a busy summer on the work front. I’ve been writing a lot for several clients, including writing a frequent blog (on home décor) for one client, so maybe that has something to do with my lack of energy for this blog of my own. It’s true that at the end of the day (or in the wee hours of the morning), after writing for hours, it can be a little difficult to get revved up to write some more. Especially when there's no deadline and no paycheck attached. I guess I just got a little tired...

Also playing into the situation is my status, as of April, as a “regular” Ridgewood resident. That is, not a member of the Board of Education. When I was on the BOE, I felt a very real obligation to write about various topics in a timely manner. If there was a topic that we discussed at a BOE meeting, I might write about it the next day to explain or to add my own opinions. I often tried to fill holes in District or Board communications. Since April, there’s no real rush or obligation for me to write. Not to mention, it’s definitely different to be commenting completely from the outside. I don’t want to be the armchair quarterback who simply lobs commentary or complaints on BOE decisions or actions, especially since I don't have all the information anymore. I may not really have a handle on my role these days, but I can say that I’m not interested in being a gadfly.

That being said, I am absolutely and completely just as concerned and interested in our schools in particular and in education in general today, as I was before the April election. My silence these past couple of months should not be interpreted to mean that I don’t know what’s going on, or, worse, that I don’t care what’s going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've been reading, corresponding, paying attention and researching, especially in education areas that particularly interest me, such as technology in schools, curriculum, communications and funding. Honestly, I'm just trying to figure out my role.

I'm not gonna lie...I have enjoyed the quiet a little bit. I enjoy waking up and reading my email and not finding half a dozen messages from people who are angry. I have enjoyed not receiving 200+ pages to read on Friday night. And I've enjoyed not running back and forth to the Ed Center for various Board meetings, reviewing bills, committee meetings, etc.

HOWEVER, now that we’re approaching the beginning of the 2011-12 school year, and having just enjoyed a couple months of quiet, behind-the-scenes observation of our Ridgewood schools, Village politics and life in our town, I’m feeling like I need to start blogging again. I don't really like being quiet. Vacation’s (almost) over! It’s true that Ridgewood can be a bit of a ghost town in the summer, but since I’m not one of those lucky enough to have a vacation home to escape to, I can tell you this: there’s been plenty of stuff going on in Ridgewood – both in our schools and out.

So I'm just starting to think about some of the topics I’d like to explore with my blog. Here are a few random things on my radar:

-U.S. schools/ education reform/comparisons to Finland and others
-Teacher pay
-Fast food retailers coming to Ridgewood?
-Bike riding in Ridgewood
-Results of the latest parent surve re: schools
-The latest on fields and lights
-School construction / additions at Ridge & Hawes / Status of Glen school (again)
-Technology in schools
-Overbooked children / Overdoing it with the extracurriculars
-Adventures of a first-time teacher
-Graydon
-Village Council effectiveness

These are just a few things I'm thinking about. What about you? What would you like to talk about?

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Please come back. My blog's re-start may be a little rocky at first, but I'll try to get ramped back up as quickly as possible.

Ridgewood BOE to discuss what to do with $$ returned by state.

2011-07-18T15:42:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of activity on my blog recently. Work has alternated between super-busy and very slow, and in the latter times, I try to catch up on family stuff, my son’s college search, baking, sleep…things like that.

The Ridgewood Board of Ed meets tonight at 7:30, and I’ll be watching on FiOS Channel 33. One of the primary topics of interest is the Board’s decision about what to do with the aid that will be coming back to the District from the state. Governor Christie’s people are making a big deal about how this aid represents the governor’s “commitment to education,” but I can’t help but wonder why, if he was so committed, he took it away in the first place. But that’s neither here nor there anymore. Now districts like Ridgewood need to figure out what to do with the money – within all the budgetary restrictions and rules imposed by the state. The biggest issue, that most people don’t understand, is that the money really should not be used for anything that will be an ongoing cost. For example, teachers or staff. Why? Because if you add staff now (like, to reduce class sizes in a grade or two replace a program that was cut), then when next year’s budget rolls around, we won’t be able to fund those salaries. The budget cap (which is really a tax levy cap) will prevent those positions from being funded, because they were not funded by this year’s tax levy. The state’s tax levy cap makes it impossible for districts to most effectively incorporate a windfall-type infusion of funding. Just another unforeseen drawback that taxpayers don’t always see.

(I hope Governor Christie and his minions don't think this return of part of our funding makes up for the delay in reimbursing us for the referendum construction grant monies. Boy, the shell games they play...maybe we'll have to use the state aid money to pay for the construction, while we wait again for the state to fulfill its legal obligation...again.)

I’m not sure what the other options and restrictions are for these funds coming back from the state. Presumably, the funds could be placed in the district’s surplus account for now, and then applied according to the rules that guide that line item’s use. I presume that Dr. Fishbein will make a recommendation, or a couple of recommendations, to the Board as to how he thinks the funds should best be used. I’ll be interested in that conversation tonight.

I see from the agenda that there’s opportunity for public comment regarding the district’s alternatives, so if you have an opinion, please go to the Ed Center and share it.

Also on the agenda: a proposal by Dr. Fishbein to have the District reimburse BOE members for the cost of their state-mandated criminal history checks. I don’t know what these background checks are going to cost, yet, but I think it’s reasonable for the District to pick up the tab. (Frankly, I think Trenton should pick-up the tab.)

I also see that the Board will have the second reading of new and revised policies, one of which is the Extracurricular Code of Conduct policy which I think is confusing and problematic with regard to enforcement. Will be interested to see if there is any discussion.

I’m going to try and start posting more regularly again…I have been reading all the education news and info blogs I’ve always followed, just haven’t felt the need to talk much these days. I’ll be visiting colleges the rest of this week with my son, but feel free to send your comments, especially after tonight’s discussion/decision re: additional funding. Let me know what you think!

P.S. Sorry there are no links to the agenda, etc. For some reason Blogger is no allowing me to post links. Just one more reason I'm considering moving to another blog platform...

Project Graduation 2011 -- another winner!

2011-07-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

Project Graduation 2011 was another successful event in this 50+ year Ridgewood tradition. As I think I've mentioned in the past, Iam a huge huge fan of Project Graduation. I co-chaired it in 2007 with Tracy Autera (whose mother, Barbara Dittrick, chaired it in the 80s). Next year, Tracy's sister Lindsey Barclay will co-chair with Kelly Coakley for 2012. As my son is a member of that class, I'm excited to be involved again.

The theme of PG11 was Ice Hotel. The BF gym, hallway and cafeteria were transformed into an icy winter wonderland. The gym was cooled with temporary air conditioning, adding to the effect. As usual, the kids all had a great time, as mentioned in a letter in today's Ridgewood News (click here).

Project Graduation 2012 parents are brainstorming ideas for a theme. If you have a good idea, send it to ProjectGrad2012@gmail.com.

Here are the past few Project Graduation themes:

1997 - Honey I Shrunk the Kids
1998 - Western
1999 - Wizard of Oz
2000 - Cruise
2001 - NYC
2002 - Rock and Roll
2003 - Down at the Shore
2004 - Pirates of the Caribbean
2005 - Survivor
2006 - Harry Potter
2007 - Midnight at the Oasis
2008 - Beijing Olympics
2009 - Batman
2010 - Alice in Wonderland
2011 - Ice Hotel

RHS students gain new perspectives at global classroom conference in Sweden.

2011-07-01T09:52:00.003-04:00

There's a story in today's Ridgewood News about a group of eight Ridgewood High School students who traveled to Sweden recently to participate in the annual Global Classroom Conference. They spent 10 days working with students from around the world on issues of sustainability, meeting in small groups, making presentations on research tasks and sharing ideas from different perspectives.

It's great to see the opportunities that RHS students have to expand their high school experience. As the story in the Ridgewood News mentions, this type of trip is more like the things you do in college. Great program for Ridgewood. Previously our students traveled to the Shetland Islands for the conference and one year students from around the world came to Ridgewood as the conference was held here.

Click here for the full story.

Disciplining the conduct of students outside of school.

2011-06-29T23:06:00.004-04:00

I went to the Board of Ed meeting on Monday night to ask some questions and raise some concerns about one of the sections of revised policy that was having its first reading. Specifically my comments were about Policy #5600, which is the Extracurricular Code of Conduct. This is the policy that says actions of a student outside of school – for example, drinking or smoking – can be punished by the school, by restricting the student’s participation in extracurricular activities such as sports or clubs.

I’ve always had a problem with this policy, mainly because it seems to stretch the school’s business a little further than necessary. On top of that, I feel that if the school is going to have this type of policy, then it needs to be extremely clear and detailed, and should clearly spell out exactly how infractions that occur on a Friday night when no adults (let alone school staff) are around are going to be confirmed. It bothers me that a kid might be present at a home, it might even be a party, he might choose not to engage in any illegal behavior, but could be reported to the principal as drinking. How is he going to prove otherwise? Where is the due process? The presumption of innocence?

The policy contains very specific information about consequences, but what the behaviors are, and how that info will be verified, is not specific at all – in fact it’s not even mentioned. I think this opens up some confusion on the part of students and parents.

The policy mentions that the principal may act if there is a reasonable basis that a violation may have occurred. I think that language is vague and a little bit concerning… Whether it’s done within the policy or whether it’s communicated in another way, as a parent I would like to understand what guidelines or rubric the principal will use in deciding what to pursue and what not to pursue, how will he separate rumors from facts…and how will students’ due process rights be maintained?

Dr. Fishbein’s answer to this question Monday night was that the principal will rely on the reports of witnesses. I don’t think that really answered my concern.

The final issue I raised on Monday was to ask how Ridgewood’s extracurricular code of conduct differs from that of Ramapo-Indian Hills, which was overturned by the Commissioner of Education, who found it to be unlawful. As I understand it, that precedent applies to all districts in New Jersey. Dr. Fishbein pointed to a sentence in the policy that was added by our district’s lawyer, which purports to address the Commissioner’s objection. It states that the school may only impose discipline for activity that occurs outside of school, if that behavior “materially and substantially interferes with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school or its programs…” I trust that the lawyer believes this addresses the concern…I can’t say I’m sold on the idea that a kid having a beer on Friday night automatically materially or substantially interferes with school on Monday. I guess it will take someone challenging the policy legally to put it to a constitutional test.

As I said Monday night, of course I support the intent of this policy, insofar as it deals with safety of students, but I think it’s confusing and vague and, for that reason, I don’t think it actually improves the safety of students enough to warrant the conflict with their rights. Truthfully, sometimes when I think about it, I admit I'm torn: if the policy results in some kids changing their behavior because they're afraid of the consequences, and if that means a kid avoids injury or worse, does that make it all worth while? Does the end justify the means? Does it ever? Are the rules different when kids' safety is involved?

It was a little odd to attend the meeting and make comments from the podium, but I thought it was important to ask those questions in public so there’s a record of the dialogue and so that other parents who might have questions can participate.

You can click here to read the Patch.com report on my comments from Monday night.

White dresses and red roses.

2011-06-22T20:05:00.004-04:00

The Ridgewood High School Class of 2011 graduates tomorrow and once again I got choked up seeing the Stadium Field set-up for the occasion. I truly have never seen a graduation ceremony anywhere that's as beautiful as Ridgewood's. The white dresses, the white dinner jackets, the red roses...such a great tradition!

Graduation starts at 5:00 tomorrow. I'm sad that I won't have the honor and privilege of walking with the graduates as part of the Board of Education. I did love that part of the job -- the view of the ceremony is great from the dais. Instead, tomorrow at 5:00 I'll be at BF Middle School heading up the Project Graduation "watch dogs" -- parents of the RHS class of 2012 who are keeping an eye on the BF party decorations while the parents who created the scene are watching their children receive their diplomas. I also have the important job of sending the buses to RHS to pick up the kids and take them to the first stage of Project Graduation, the Dinner Dance at the "secret, undisclosed location," (where the Dinner Dance has been held for at least the last 30 years...ssshhhh!).

Graduation is a great day in Ridgewood. Congratulations, Class of 2011!

Improving the ability to survey students.

2011-06-16T10:43:00.004-04:00

Today the NJ Senate Education Committee is holding a hearing on a bill, S-1696/A-3242, which will change (slightly) the way that schools secure parent permission to survey students. Sort of surprising that word of this bill is just now reaching Ridgewood, since the current law was inspired by the infamous Ridgewood survey of 1999. And surprising, too, (encouraging!) that some lawmakers have the good sense to bring this issue forward. The current law seriously undermines the ability of a community to collect data on issues that affect our students and to appropriately and locally develop solutions to keep our children safe and healthy.

The bill would allow students to participate in a voluntary survey if the district sends prior written notification to the student's parents, and the parent does not object. This is known as “passive consent” and the important word to note is consent. This bill does not “ignore” or “take away” parents’ rights. Parents absolutely have the right to prohibit their child from participating in a survey. In fact, some argue that passive consent maintains that option with increased anonymity.

Why is this bill important? Information about youth use of alcohol and drugs is used by a community, and the state, to develop effective prevention programs. In comparing the participation rate and cost of conducting a survey as proposed in this bill versus the current law, the NJ Department of Health and Senior Services found the cost of implementing a survey would be $1.80 per student versus $16.97 per student - nearly 10 times the cost. The overall average response rate was 91% versus 42%. As anybody who understands statistics knows, the higher the participation rate, the more meaningful and useful the data. Under the current law, the DHSS has concluded that participation rates of 42% are not adequate to provide meaningful information about youth populations – not to mention that state agencies cannot afford to conduct statewide surveys if they cost 10 times more.

More and more, school districts are being charged with caring for more than simply the “book learning” of students. Schools – as a constant and consistent point of contact with youth – are expected, and in many ways legally required, to care for the whole child: education, social development, physical wellness, mental/emotional health, etc. Beyond schools, agencies such as the DHSS are certainly and directly responsible for physical and mental health of our youth. Making it more difficult to gather real information in order to do their jobs makes no sense. One of the tools both school districts and state agencies need is the ability to compile information related to youth trends regarding attitudes and use of alcohol and drugs. The best way to do this is via a voluntary and anonymous system that respects parental concerns about the material children are exposed to in surveys administered at New Jersey schools.

I’ll be following the progress of these bills and I’ll keep you posted. As you know, the New Jersey legislative process is unpredictable (at best), so who knows what will happen next, or when.

'Neon Safari' -- no idea what it means, but it sounds like a good time for Ridgewood teens.

2011-06-09T21:16:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow night (Friday, June 10), the Ridgewood Guild and the recently formed Junior Guild will host their first teen dance under the stars at Van Neste Square from 8:30 to11:00 PM. Admission for RHS students is $5.00. The "buzz" that I've heard is that Ridgewood teens are looking forward to the dance. I hope the rain stays away -- I'm not sure if there is a rain plan or alternate rain date.

According to an email sent to RHS parents, "It is the goal of the Ridgewood Guild and Junior Guild to bring teens to downtown Ridgewood for safe and substance-free weekend events. Guild events are not school-sponsored and therefore are dependent on community volunteers and hired off-duty policers to insure the safety of the attendees."

Parent chaperones are needed. Please contact David Zrike if you are able to assist: dzrike@zrike.com

The theme of the dance is "Neon Safari." Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means...makes me feel old and out of touch. But when I asked my 17-year-old son, he said "It doesn't mean anything, Mom, it's just a dance."

Wait, I'm confused, I thought NJ wanted good teachers?

2011-06-09T00:19:00.003-04:00

For a state that ranks pretty high in student achievement, and in quality of schools overall, New Jersey sure seems to be going out of its way to discourage quality teachers from coming to (or staying in) our schools. I'm not talking about Governor Christie's rhetoric, the so-called "demonizing" of teachers. And I'm not talking about those brave school boards that are right this very minute struggling to change the financial paradigm in contract negotiations (aka "taking away" or modifying some of the benefits teachers have enjoyed for generations). Those are other topics for another day.

No, I'm talking about two recent news items that got relatively little publicity.

First, there was the story that at least one NJ school district, in Medford, is considering forcing student teachers to pay for the opportunity to do their student-teaching internships in Medford schools. I couldn't believe this. Just the other day I was musing on the great deal districts (and universities) get thanks to student teachers. Think about it: The student pays tuition to the college, while spending no (or very little) time using classrooms, professors or other college resources. The District gets a young, energetic teacher, who can work with struggling students, give enrichment to advanced students, sub for sick teachers, perform playground and lunch duty...all for free! The idea that a student teacher would be required to pay $1,200-$1,500, on top of their tuition, will surely discourage them from doing their internship in such a district.

The second story was about the bill to require in-state residency for New Jersey public employees, including teachers. According to bill S-1730, all state, county and municipal employees, as well as anyone working for political subdivisions of the state, employees of public authorities, boards, agencies and commissions and, finally, employees of schools, colleges and universities, would also be required to have their principal residence in New Jersey, making it their legal residence for the purposes of voting and paying taxes. Public employees now working in New Jersey would have 2 1/2 years from the date the law is enacted to establish their residency in the state.

For sure this will be devastating for Districts located very close to state lines. For Ridgewood, I don't know the exact number, but I do know we have some teachers who live in Rockland County, Manhattan and Connecticut.

This is silly. Don't we want the best teachers, wherever they live?

Honestly, you'd think excellent teachers are just growing on trees. Yes, there are lots of great teachers, but treating them like a commodity is no way to appreciate value.

RHS Class of 2011 College Destinations.

2011-06-09T00:07:00.001-04:00

As an RHS parent, I recently received the annual “Senior Survey” from the Guidance Department. It’s a report on post-graduate plans for the Class of 2011. According to the survey of 412 graduating seniors:

90.8% are attending a 4-year college (Last year, it was 88.8%)
4.6% are attending a 2-year college (Last year, it was 4.5%)
42.3% are attending a Public/State college (Last year, it was 40.7%)
57.7% are attending a Private college (Last year, it was 59.3%)
18.4% are attending a college in New Jersey (Last year, it was 21.4%)
9 seniors are attending an Ivy League College (Last year, it was 16 seniors)

College destinations for the top 20% of the Class of 2011:
Amherst College
Bates College
Bentley University
Binghamton University
Boston College
Boston University (2)
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University (2)
Brown University (2)
Bucknell University (2)
Colgate University
College of the Holy Cross
College of William and Mary (3)
Columbia University
Cornell University (4)
Duke University
Emerson College
Fordham University
Georgetown University
Hamilton College (3)
Johns Hopkins University (2)
Lehigh University
Middlebury College (3)
Muhlenberg College
New York University (3)
Northeastern University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Penn State
Providence College
Rutgers University (2)
Stevens Institute of Technology
The College of New Jersey (2)
The George Washington University
Tufts University
Tulane University
Universidad Interamericana de Costa Rica
University of California at Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbano-Champaign
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Michigan (5)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2)
University of Notre Dame (3)
University of Richmond
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College (3)
Washington and Lee University (2)
Wesleyan University (2)
Williams College

BOE and Council meetings broadcast on FIOS!

2011-05-27T10:20:00.003-04:00

Finally! I'm so happy to learn that Ridgewood has public access channels on Verizon FIOS. This is something I started working on so long ago with late Councilwoman Annie Zusy, probably in the first month of my term on the Board of Education. From a purely selfish point of view, as a FIOS customer, I wanted to watch Village Council meetings without having to go out to another weeknight meeting. As a BOE member, I wanted to ensure all residents had a chance to see Board of Ed meetings. The Village and Ed Center have now got it all worked out.

Village Council meetings will be broadcast on FIOS Channel 34. BOE meetings will either be on Channel 33 or 34 (the info I saw was unclear...I guess we'll know by the time of the next BOE meeting, which is June 13).

Both BOE and VC meetings will continue to be shown on Cablevision Channel 77.

Back home…and just in time!

2011-05-26T01:11:00.003-04:00

I’m back home from my daughter’s college graduation…and just in time for one of my favorite topics -- a free speech discussion – this one courtesy of the Ramsey Board of Education.

Today’s Bergen Record featured a story about Ramsey’s new policy, entitled, “Maintaining a Non-Disruptive Environment in a School Setting,” which prohibits teachers from “campaigning” while on school property during school hours or during officially sanctioned school activities. Campaigning also is prohibited “while in the presence of students or in locations where students are likely to hear such messages.”

The article continued,

The policy defines “campaigning” as engaging in speech, displaying signs, posters or buttons or wearing clothing with a political message. The policy also bars employees from assembling on school property in an “intimidating” manner and handing out leaflets or fliers.

Naturally, the teachers’ union (and some Ramsey residents) are opposed to this, offended by it, and a little upset. They are interpreting the rule to mean that they cannot, for example, talk about their contract negotiations – or even a national election – at the grocery store or on the street, if there might be children nearby who could hear them.

The District claims they are only concerned about potential disruption of classes.

There are a couple of things I find interesting about this. First, the story seems to focus on teachers doing things like putting “settle now” signs in their car windows (in reference to the union contract). This is similar to the actions of some of our Ridgewood teachers in 2005, when many Somerville teachers wore their REA t-shirts on Halloween instead of dressing in costumes, upsetting some kids at the school parade. Would that be considered "disruptive?" I also find the terms “campaigning” or “political” odd when applied to contract negotiations…who are the teachers campaigning, the 5 or 7 school board members?

The main thing that caught my attention in the story was the justification for the policy, that the District enacted the prohibition because such speech might be disruptive to learning. I recall* the landmark school free speech case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), which dealt with students’ rights to free speech at school, and the attempt to censor student speech because it might prove disruptive to learning. One of the key elements of the decision held that speech could not be prohibited (or censored) because the authorities had “a mere desire to avoid discomfort and unpleasantness…” The U.S. Supreme Court held that the authorities cannot prohibit speech just because they are worried...they must have some sort of proof that the speech will be disruptive.

It seems to me that this Ramsey policy is attempting to do the same thing… prevent “speech” (defined pretty broadly, BTW) that might be disruptive. Nowhere in the story did the school board president refer to any actual instances of learning being disrupted.

Now, before you get all crazy and think I’m encouraging teachers to wear union t-shirts on Halloween, complain to students about their contracts during class, undertake job actions (like stop writing college recommendations), and the like, please know that I think all those (and other) actions are wrong. They’re unprofessional. They’re in bad taste, unsporting and petty. But unless they are actually interfering with teaching and learning, I think they’re covered by the First Amendment, just like students' right to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War was protected under Tinker.

*Student free speech issues have interested me, ever since my own run-in with the topic, when I edited my college newspaper. We tested the First Amendment with our annual April Fool’s issue, which contained two pages of jokes from the book Truly Tasteless Jokes. In our youthful envelope-pushing, we managed to offend every possible group – women, minorities, senior citizens, the handicapped, babies. The repercussions were awful: protests, threats, hate mail, many apologies on our part, stuff like that. But it was a great learning experience and, to its credit, the University of Denver supported our right to be tasteless in the exercise of our free speech. I’ve been interested in student free speech, in both high schools and colleges, ever since.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens with the Ramsey policy. The Bergen Record story mentioned a similar policy in Tenafly, which is being challenged legally (and at great District expense) by a teacher there. I’ll keep an eye out for developments.

Graduating.

2011-05-20T01:09:00.002-04:00

Heading up to New Hampshire early tomorrow for my daughter's graduation from UNH. Cannot believe how fast these four years went. She'll be graduating with honors, with a BA in Psychology with a minor in Education, and she'll be returning in the Fall to complete her Master's in Education and do her student teaching. (Then she'll probably start her teaching career in NH or Massachusetts.) She's talked about one single career goal for her entire life -- to become a teacher. She's a natural and it's so exciting to see her getting close to that goal. A year or so ago she called in a panic --she was hearing about the politics and trashing of teachers by the governor of New Jersey. "Why am I even becoming a teacher, if everybody hates them...I should find something else to do." Of course, on second thought, there is nothing else she has ever wanted to do, so changing really isn't an option. Truly, she doesn't care about the benefits and the contracts and even the evaluations or whatever. She just wants to get in a classroom and start teaching. The fact is, whatever the rules are when she starts, whatever the contributions to health care, etc., that will be her (and other new teachers') "new normal."

Anyway, we're proud that she's graduating with honors. She has said many times that she felt extremely well-prepared for college, when she got there with her Ridgewood education. I hear this from other college students as well, and apparently the high school HSA had some students visit the last HSA meeting to talk about how they transitioned to college. It's good to know.

So I probably won't be posting for a few days, unless I get inspired and also have a little free time in-between various ceremonies and dinners and such. Have a great weekend!

The future of the library.

2011-05-17T12:49:00.000-04:00

I am re-printing this from Seth Godin's blog...I think it is something important to think about as the Ridgewood Village Council proposes underfunding the Ridgewood Public Library, and as the high school talks about evolving the RHS library/media center into a learning commons.

Click here to read the post in its original location on Seth's blog:

What is a public library for?

First, how we got here:

Before Gutenberg, a book cost about as much as a small house. As a result, only kings and bishops could afford to own a book of their own.

This naturally led to the creation of shared books, of libraries where scholars (everyone else was too busy not starving) could come to read books that they didn't have to own. The library as warehouse for books worth sharing.

Only after that did we invent the librarian.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

After Gutenberg, books got a lot cheaper. More individuals built their own collections. At the same time, though, the number of titles exploded, and the demand for libraries did as well. We definitely needed a warehouse to store all this bounty, and more than ever we needed a librarian to help us find what we needed. The library is a house for the librarian.

Industrialists (particularly Andrew Carnegie) funded the modern American library. The idea was that in a pre-electronic media age, the working man needed to be both entertained and slightly educated. Work all day and become a more civilized member of society by reading at night.

And your kids? Your kids need a place with shared encyclopedias and plenty of fun books, hopefully inculcating a lifelong love of reading, because reading makes all of us more thoughtful, better informed and more productive members of a civil society.

Which was all great, until now.

Want to watch a movie? Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library, than any library in the country. The Netflix librarian knows about every movie, knows what you've seen and what you're likely to want to see. If the goal is to connect viewers with movies, Netflix wins.

This goes further than a mere sideline that most librarians resented anyway. Wikipedia and the huge databanks of information have basically eliminated the library as the best resource for anyone doing amateur research (grade school, middle school, even undergrad). Is there any doubt that online resources will get better and cheaper as the years go by? Kids don't shlep to the library to use an out of date encyclopedia to do a report on FDR. You might want them to, but they won't unless coerced.

They need a librarian more than ever (to figure out creative ways to find and use data). They need a library not at all.

When kids go to the mall instead of the library, it's not that the mall won, it's that the library lost.

And then we need to consider the rise of the Kindle. An ebook costs about $1.60 in 1962 dollars. A thousand ebooks can fit on one device, easily. Easy to store, easy to sort, easy to hand to your neighbor. Five years from now, readers will be as expensive as Gillette razors, and ebooks will cost less than the blades.

Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

Post-Gutenberg, books are finally abundant, hardly scarce, hardly expensive, hardly worth warehousing. Post-Gutenberg, the scarce resource is knowledge and insight, not access to data.

The library is no longer a warehouse for dead books. Just in time for the information economy, the library ought to be the local nerve center for information. (Please don't say I'm anti-book! I think through my actions and career choices, I've demonstrated my pro-book chops. I'm not saying I want paper to go away, I'm merely describing what's inevitably occurring). We all love the vision of the underprivileged kid bootstrapping himself out of poverty with books, but now, (most of the time) the insight and leverage is going to come from being and fast and smart with online resources, not from hiding in the stacks.

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

The next library is a house for the librarian with the guts to invite kids in to teach them how to get better grades while doing less grunt work. And to teach them how to use a soldering iron or take apart something with no user servicable parts inside. And even to challenge them to teach classes on their passions, merely because it's fun. This librarian takes responsibility/blame for any kid who manages to graduate from school without being a first-rate data shark.

The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.

Wouldn't you want to live and work and pay taxes in a town that had a library like that? The vibe of the best Brooklyn coffee shop combined with a passionate raconteur of information? There are one thousands things that could be done in a place like this, all built around one mission: take the world of data, combine it with the people in this community and create value.

We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.

Toddlers on the fast track to academic stress (um, success).

2011-05-16T14:20:00.003-04:00

Did you see the story in Friday’s NY Times about kids as young as 2 years old being tutored in writing, reading and numbers? This is the latest example of parents overreacting and ramping up the pressure on kids to perform, out of fear of being left behind or not getting into Brown or losing a future job to China or some other such fear.

In the classic “don’t confuse me with the facts” American way, the article says, “Research suggests that there is little benefit from this kind of tutoring; that young children learn just as much about math, if not more, fitting mixing bowls together on the kitchen floor.” One mother talks about the result she likes best in her 3- and 5-year olds: “These results translated into a self-esteem boost that I didn’t anticipate…They’ve gotten that there’s a thrill in achieving something.” You need to pay $200 a session to have someone else give your kids a self-esteem boost via worksheet drills? Even better, she adds, “I treat them with more respect now, because I see what they’re capable of intellectually.” So….previously you didn’t respect your children and their ability to learn? Honestly, statements like that make me queasy.

The article goes on to talk about parents who are ambivalent, who say things like, “This isn’t right, 3-year-olds should be playing in the sandbox and putting together mixing bowls,’ but then they’re thinking that maybe if the kid next door is doing it, it’ll be time to go to Harvard and my child won’t have the same advantage.” So they go ahead and sign their kid up because they don’t want to be the ones who step off the merry-go-round.

When people talk about tutoring in Ridgewood, I wonder how much of it is for true help, and how much of it is the fear of falling behind? The fear of not being an achiever? Sort of “preventative tutoring.” A child might be doing just fine, getting As and Bs (or even Bs and Cs), but why not get a tutor and turn those Bs into As, or Cs into Bs? I suspect this happens a lot here. It’s the same thinking that drives the big business of pitching coaches and goalie coaches and one-on-one training for young athletes.

Click here for the full story in the NY Times.

BOE wants to hear from "no" voters.

2011-05-16T01:25:00.004-04:00

The Finance Committee of the Board of Ed is inviting any interested voters to the Ed Center (3rd floor) tonight at 7:30 p.m. for an informal discussion about the recent budget vote. They especially want to hear from people who voted "no." Let's try to not be too cynical (you know who you are) and instead I hope you'll take them up on it. I argued for three years that the budget process needed to get input from the public much earlier in the process. The problem has always been that by the time the Board is discussing the budget and parents or taxpayers come to the microphone during public comment, it's basically too late to change anything. There's a tight schedule, dictated by the state, for when the initial budget is presented, when it must be finalized, delivered to the county, etc. It's been a constant source of friction...people come give their opinion about what they feel should be different in the budget, the Board listens, but since the budget has to go the county, and since the administration and Board has already spent weeks or months exploring alternatives, nothing really changes.

In addition, in spite of the District holding additional public meetings on the budget, and inviting questions at those meetings and via special budget emails, there are still many voters who have misconceptions or misinformation about certain facts about the budget and the process. Hopefully this informal conversation tonight will allow some of those questions to be answered.

So here's your chance to start the process for the April 2012 budget earlier...barely two weeks since the last election. Whether you feel this is a watershed moment in BOE history or just a blip in an imperfect process, I hope you'll agree that it's a step in the right direction.

Click here for the story about this meeting in Sunday's Bergen Record.

A crisis in civics education.

2011-05-11T11:33:00.003-04:00

Did you see the NY Times story last week about American eighth graders’ failing grade in learning civics? (Click here for the article.) The story began:

Fewer than half of American eighth graders knew the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the most recent national civics examination, and only one in 10 demonstrated acceptable knowledge of the checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches, according to test results released on Wednesday.

At the same time, three-quarters of high school seniors who took the test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, were unable to demonstrate skills like identifying the effect of United States foreign policy on other nations or naming a power granted to Congress by the Constitution.

“Today’s NAEP results confirm that we have a crisis on our hands when it comes to civics education,” said Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice, who last year founded icivics.org, a nonprofit group that teaches students civics through Web-based games and other tools.

I remember Civics being one of the mandatory classes I took in high school. It was a whole semester of learning about how our government works, holding class debates on various issues of the day. Our teacher was dynamic and really encouraged us to understand government so that we could question it, live within it and change it, if necessary.

I assume that Civics is covered in social studies or history classes today. Ridgewood High School does have two courses – American Government & Politics and Introduction to the Fundamentals of American Government – but these are electives for students in grades 11 and 12. I don’t know if an entire course on Civics or Government was ever required in New Jersey.

What I do know is that this truly is a crisis. Some people might argue that Civics is an “old fashioned” class. On the contrary, I think it’s even more necessary today. In olden times (when I was a teen), government was something that took place in Washington, D.C., or Sacramento and we regular folks could participate by….hmmm…well, we could write letters to the editor, we could write our Congressmen, we could talk amongst ourselves. Not much of a conversation and not much potential for real impact. Today, with the proliferation of blogs and online magazines and sites devoted to social issues, politics, government, ideas, etc., everybody has the opportunity to participate. There are debates going on everywhere. Everybody’s got an opinion. Unfortunately, not everyone knows what they’re talking about. They don’t understand how our government works. They read posts -- often anonymous -- and have no basis for evaluating the credibility or veracity of what they read.

I think we need civics education now more than ever.

Click here to read the full story in the New York Times.

Click here to check out icivics.org, the website founded by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, with the purpose of teaching students about civics.

RHS fundraising success…and an apology.

2011-05-10T22:55:00.005-04:00

Last week, the Ridgewood High School HSA President, Arlene Sarappo, reported that this year’s annual appeal and phone-a-thon raised more than $53,000. (More info click here.) Congratulations to the HSA and Development Committee leadership on a job well done! The money will be used to fund academic and classroom needs, including 24 state-of-the-art digital microscopes and 30 student laptops with charging cart. Thank you to all the parents who worked on the fundraiser and also to all those who pledged funds (including the Ridgewood Education Foundation, which donated a $6,000 challenge grant).

In a blog post on March 30, I hoped to explain to Ridgewood residents who were not familiar with the high school and its budget, why the HSA parents chose to fundraise. I expressed a personal opinion about the challenges of fundraising during the District’s “budget season.” My well-intentioned comments were misunderstood by a few of the very people I had hoped to help, and while I’ve already apologized to them directly, I’d like to do so again now. I am sorry that my comment caused anyone concern or disappointment.

Mostly, I want to acknowledge the immense work, sacrifice, personal commitment and dedication exhibited by the Development Committee and the HSA as a whole. As a parent, taxpayer, former HSA president and Board member, I appreciate everything that they do for our schools and for our children.

Once again, thank you and congratulations to the HSA for this successful effort!

RHS fields receive excellent G-max ratings for safety.

2011-05-10T17:14:00.002-04:00

I just saw on the District homepage that the G-max tests that measure the softness (and safety) of the RHS Stadium and Stevens fields came in, and they show that the fields are rated well within the safety levels for artificial turf fields. Those who are worried about the results of flooding possibly affecting the cushioning of the fields can rest a little easier now. There was some dispute at last night's BOE meeting between neighbors who feel important information is being withheld, and there was confusion among some neighbors who felt that G-max tests had something to do with drainage. I haven't had time yet to write anything on this topic this week, but the good news is the fields are playable, they are being cared for according to the recommendations of the turf manufacturer, FieldTurf, and they are safe. This is good news in time for LAX Day, which is this Saturday, May 14, the primary events for which will take place at the RHS fields.

Communication issues were the highlight of last night's BOE meeting.

2011-05-10T16:48:00.001-04:00

I attended the Board of Education’s Reorganization Meeting last night…It was a little weird to be sitting there in the audience. I wanted to show my support for the new Board and to wish them well in the new year. Michele Lenhard and Bob Hutton were returned to their offices of President and Vice President, and Michele read a resolution thanking me for my service to the Board. That was really nice and sort of awkward for me to sit there listening to the list things I had contributed to the BOE. They gave me a beautiful orchid and a framed copy of the resolution.

I had planned to just stay for part of the meeting, but decided to stick around for the full experience. A couple highlights for me:

Sheila Brogan suggested that the Board look at its process for public comment, to see if there might be some changes that could be made to make it more inviting and more productive. She mentioned the feeling residents and audience members get when they hear questions asked at the microphone, but don’t ever hear the answers, even if those answers are sent directly to the speaker at a later date. I’m glad to hear that the Board will be taking this up, perhaps over the summer. I have to point out that most of what Sheila said are things I said at my first BOE “retreat” meeting in April 2008 and again in 2009. But whatever, better late than never. I’m just glad they’ll be looking at it again. Change really does take time, doesn’t it?

Bob Hutton said he wants to invite all “no” voters (and even “yes” voters) to come talk about the school budget, share concerns and ideas for what changes they’d like to see, that might influence their support in the future. I think this is an awesome idea…I hope they’ll be able to get the message out. The challenge is always in communicating with those taxpayers who don’t have children in the schools. I hope there will be a mailing to taxpayers or some other way to get the word out…and I hope those of you reading this will pass the word along.

Two meetings will be scheduled. The first session has already been set for Monday May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Ed Center. BOE Finance Committee members Michele Lenhard and Bob Hutton will attend, along with Business Administrator Angelo DeSimone. I’m going to try and make it, but might have to wait for the next meeting. Please attend – especially if you want to tell the Board what’s wrong with the current budget.

Those were my main take-aways from last night’s meeting. I don’t know how often I’ll attend in person. I’ll probably watch the streaming webcast online. When (if) the Village ever gets the Verizon FIOS hook-up for community access broadcasts, I’ll watch on my TV, too. (Supposedly this is still inching forward.)

Survey says...

2011-05-10T12:03:00.004-04:00

Rather than write this lengthy response as a comment in the previous survey thread, I thought I'd move it to a new post. I wanted to give more detail regarding the previous Board's decision to print only summary comments with the parent survey results.

Within the Communications Committee, as we prepared the first survey, one of the things I argued strongly for was the release of comments received on the survey. I felt that the shared experience of speaking our minds and hearing what other parents said was an important exercise and had value in and of itself. The counter argument focused on protecting confidentiality regarding personnel issues. Certainly in any organization, personnel issues are normally confidential. In a “regular” business, employee performance reviews are not shared with all the other employees plus a company’s customers and vendors. We talked about how teachers or other staff might feel in reading anonymous comments about themselves, with no opportunity to answer or refute or explain or even question veracity.

We also talked about the Board’s relationship with, and obligations to, staff. The State of New Jersey’s Code of Ethics for School Board Members (18A:12-24.1) has three sections that apply:

g.) I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which, if disclosed, would needlessly injure individuals or the schools.
i.) I will support and protect school personnel in proper performance of their duties.
j.) I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution.

Board members’ interpretation of these ethics provisions, among other things, can color how they approach public conversations about staff.

When the comments came in, we endeavored to avoid any issues by removing (from the report) comments in which a staff member’s identity could be discerned. This sounded simple and turned out to be so much more complicated and time consuming. We had committees of staff and parents, we worked in groups, it took forever. But we came up with what we thought were “releasable” comments for each school. We knew this was a dramatic change in District culture, but we thought it was important and we thought we had been sensitive and had succeeded in a solution.

After the reports were released, some administrators immediately began to hear from staff members who were uncomfortable or concerned or upset. This was not something considered “normal” in the District’s culture. We were shown examples of where, in spite of our efforts, we had missed deleting identifiable comments. With such a large number of comments, and a committee of several people assessing, not always consistently, we needed to pause. The comments were quickly removed from the reports, so that the committee and the Board could discuss how to proceed. (Note: each report did retain a summary of comments on key themes.)

I was surprised that we didn’t hear a peep from parents about removing the individual comments from the online reports. It was mentioned in the newspaper, at BOE meetings and at HSA meetings. No one complained. No one seemed to mind. I had expected to hear from someone or to read criticisms on a blog, mine or others, but nope.

As I mentioned before, all the comments were distributed to BOE members, principals and other administrators. Principals reviewed them with staff at faculty meetings.

When it came time to plan the 2nd survey, the committee recommended that the Board not publish the comments in public reports. I had to grudgingly agree that no one had seemed to mind last time, and it would allow us to get the reports out weeks earlier than last year. We hadn’t really had time to address the staff response and how we could keep the process positive for the entire community…my intention at the time was to keep working on this concept and hopefully find a way to evolve to more disclosure with future surveys. The bottom line (for me) was: the most important result was that all the comments be seen by administrators and the BOE.

So that’s the story from my perspective. I don’t know what to say to anonymous claims of “repeat abusers.” Any alleged abuse or misconduct must be reported and the administration is required to address it. There is a clear process that elevates unresolved issues to the BOE (but only after the chain of command has been exhausted). In my experience, BOE members take such reports extremely seriously.

In an earlier comment, I said I would research the legal basis for BOE members not discussing staff members' performance in public. The Code of Ethics sections cited above are part of it, but I'm still researching what Board policies, as well as employment law and state education law, apply.

I'm not sure when the emails for the new survey will go out -- presumably soon -- but I hope all parents will participate and will be free and open with their responses and their comments.

2nd annual parent/guardian survey next week.

2011-05-06T09:54:00.003-04:00

Once again, the Ridgewood Public Schools will be conducting a survey to determine parent/guardian opinions on a variety of topics related to the District. Parents should watch their email boxes for the email(s) containing their custom link to the survey.

The purpose of the brief survey is to gather parent and guardian opinions on district schools and the education Ridgewood students receive. The data collected will be shared with the community and will be used by the Board of Education as part of its evaluation of district policies and practices.

Remember, parents will receive the surveys next week via e-mail, and you'll get a separate email -- and separate link -- for each school your children attend.

Responses to survey questions will remain completely confidential and anonymous -- responses are not linked back to individual parents or students.

If you have any questions about the survey, contact the District at survey11@ridgewood.k12.nj.us.

RHS New Players presents The Arabian Nights.

2011-05-05T23:01:00.007-04:00

Ridgewood High School's excellent theater program, New Players, will present The Arabian Nights next weekend. All are welcome to attend and see what talented students we have.

Showtimes are:

Friday 5/13 at 8:00 PM
Saturday May 14 at 2:00 PM
Saturday May 14 at 8:00 PM

In The Little Theater at RHS.

Tickets are $10 for Students/Staff/Senior Citizens and $15 for Adults. For advance purchase, click here.

I'm in awe of these students. The time and effort they give to the theater program, on top of their classes, is amazing. Of course, theater isn't part of the "core curriculum" or the 3 R's, so I worry about the state of the arts in New Jersey schools in general and Ridgewood in particular. For some of these students -- as with athletes, or artists, or TV club members or ___ -- these so-called extracurriculars are the way they connect with school. The arts (and sports, too, for that matter) aren't "extras." They are vital to the Ridgewood education, contributing to our students' overall success, scores, identities, achievement and happiness.

Anyway, looking for something new to do in town on a Friday or Saturday night? Why not take in a show at our own high school Little Theater. You can have some fun and support some talented kids doing what they love.

You (and probably your kids) have no idea how big Africa is.

2011-05-05T13:17:00.002-04:00

We've got illiteracy, innumeracy...some are warning that our children are suffering from immappacy, or "insufficient geographical knowledge." To illustrate, check out this cool post and map from the website Good.is, which said:

[Africa is] about 11.7 million square miles, which is really big—big enough to fit the United States, China, India, Japan, and much of Europe within its borders. And that's precisely what Kai Krause did with this inventive map, "The True Size of Africa," which he describes as his contribution to "the fight against rampant Immappacy."

What is immappacy? Krause explains:

In addition to the well known social issues of illiteracy and innumeracy, there also should be such a concept as "immappacy," meaning insufficient geographical knowledge.

A survey of random American schoolkids let them guess the population and land area of their country. Not entirely unexpected, but still rather unsettling, the majority chose "1-2 billion" and "largest in the world," respectively.

Even with Asian and European college students, geographical estimates were often off by factors of 2-3. This is partly due to the highly distored nature of the predominantly used mapping projections (such as Mercator).

A particularly extreme example is the worldwide misjudgment of the true size of Africa. This single image tries to embody the massive scale, which is larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe ... combined!

See the full version of the map here.

First track meet at BF on Saturday.

2011-05-05T09:09:00.004-04:00

The new track at Ben Franklin Middle School is being striped today, will need to cure tomorrow and will be ready for the inaugural track meet this Saturday, according to Ridgewood High School track coach Jacob Brown. "Many race winners will come away with new track records, even if short lived," Brown said in an email.

The meet will be an open USATF meet, so it's open to athletes of all ages. I'm not sure how interested runners get entered in races. If I find out anything, I'll update this post with the info.

There will be some opening day words beginning at 9:30 AM, a singing of the Star Spangled Banner, and then at 10:00 the first race will start, with Superintendent Dan Fishbein shooting the gun for the start.

Thank you again to the residents of Ridgewood for approving the referendum that allowed this excellent facility to be built for our students and our community.

Come on down to BF this Saturday to celebrate the beginning of a new era in Ridgewood Track & Field!

Seth Godin wrote something for me?

2011-05-04T10:55:00.002-04:00

My husband sent me a link to Seth Godin's blog post for today and I thought he was making it up...Wait, marketing guru Seth Godin actually blogged about losing a school election? Wow. I'm posting the text of Seth's post below. Be warned: if you're not a regular reader of Mr. Godin, you should know that he's a pretty frank writer, doesn't pull punches and features an abundance of common sense that's not always what you might call "politically correct." Here's the post with it's lesson I'm taking to heart this week:

What's the point of popular?

You'd think that it's the most important thing in the world. Homecoming queen, student body president, the most Facebook friends, Oscar winner, how many people are waiting in line at the book signing...

Popular is almost never a measure of impact, or genius, or art. Popular rarely correlates with guts, hard work or a willingness to lead (and be willing to be wrong along the way).

I'll grant you that being popular (at least on one day in November) is a great way to get elected President. But in general, the search for popular is wildly overrated, because it corrupts our work, eats away at our art and makes it likely we'll compromise to please the anonymous masses.

Worth considering is the value of losing school elections and other popularity contests. Losing reminds you that the opinion of unaffiliated strangers is worthless. They don't know you, they're not interested in what you have to offer and you can discover that their rejection actually means nothing. It will empower you to even bigger things in the future...

When you focus on delighting an audience you care about, you strip the masses of their power.

Fields Committee farewell.

2011-05-04T10:52:00.000-04:00

Went to my last 7:00 AM meeting of the Fields Committee this morning. Not going to miss the hour, but will definitely regret not being around in the future to witness this monthly example of collaboration and problem-solving. The challenges of scheduling and managing the athletic fields in the Village take a lot of effort to resolve and address efficiently. They are all definitely addressed – not always efficiently, but always with the best intentions.

Today’s meeting had two highlights for me. First, two 4th grade Girl Scouts and their moms/troop leaders came to speak to the Committee about the problem of litter in the Village, particularly on the sports fields. They are asking the sports groups to spread some ideas to coaches and to pass along to kids and other athletes the need to pick-up litter, improve trash can locations, designate team litter monitors, etc. They’ll be posting some handmade, laminated signs on sports field trashcans, too.

The other notable portion of today’s Fields meeting was a conversation with representatives of the Church League softball league. The Church League was started in approx. 1987 and is made up of 250 players on 10 teams (representing 9 churches). Approx. 85% of the players are Ridgewood residents (aka taxpayers) and they are frustrated at the year-after-year reduction in their access to softball diamonds (made considerably worse by the loss of diamonds at BF). They just want to make sure consideration is being given to their program when fields are scheduled. It was helpful for the committee to be reminded of the adult users of our sports fields – too often we think in terms of children only. The number of kids playing all sports has increased over the decades, but let’s not forget that Dads and Moms have a right to use our fields, as well. (In addition to the Church League, there are also Men’s, Mom’s and Adult Leagues playing on Ridgewood fields. These are just softball – there are also adult soccer, flag football and other programs.)

The reps from the Church League did say that they would be communicating their message to the Village Council, as well, since the Council will be determining the use to come at the Schedler property and the Habernickel Horse Farm, etc.

There were plenty of other topics discussed at today’s meeting, including: the upcoming lighting tests at RHS Stadium and Stevens Fields (tentatively scheduled, pending weather, for tomorrow night), the draft Fields Policy being voted-on by the Village Council on May 11, a potential auto-call program to alert parents about field closures, new parking regulations adjacent to Stevens Field on North Irving Street, and the structure and function of the Committee itself (vis-à-vis input by athletic field neighbors). I’m not sure who will be the BOE liaison to the Committee going forward – it will be decided after the Board’s reorganization meeting, which takes place next Monday.

Ridgewood election results.

2011-04-28T00:20:00.004-04:00

Unofficial results for today's Ridgewood school election (official results will include yet-to-be-counted absentee ballots):

BUDGET
YES 1788
NO 1406

BOARD
Clark 496
Krauss 1697
Goodman 1472
Brogan 1607

Thank you, Ridgewood, for allowing me to work for our children and schools for these past three years. It has been my pleasure every single day.

Thank you for passing the 2011-12 budget and for supporting our schools.

I'm sort of speechless (sort of haha) and a little heartbroken at this moment. I loved this job more than anything I've ever done. But I'm a glass-half-full person, so I'm looking forward to having some time for my family. I'll still be blogging about schools and education....I doubt I'll sit quietly on the sidelines for long. We shall see what happens next...

Ridgewood mentioned in NY Times story about school budgets.

2011-04-27T17:31:00.004-04:00

The Times yesterday featured a story about school budgets and the election in New Jersey this year, as compared to last year.

An excerpt from the story...

Little drama. Limited tax increases. Fewer draconian cuts.

Despite the imposition of a cap this year that limits the increase in property tax collections to 2 percent, school districts in New Jersey are heading into budget elections on Wednesday largely free of the anger and turmoil of last year’s budget season.

and...

Even a well-to-do district like Ridgewood is sticking to a modest 2 percent increase in tax revenue, which will maintain existing programs but not pay for additional teachers to meet growing enrollment.

Statewide, nearly 87 percent of the 538 districts with budgets on the ballot will propose raising their taxes by no more than 2 percent, adhering to the annual limit set by the tax cap pushed through by Governor Christie. About 71 districts will go over 2 percent to cover large increases for health insurance, pensions and higher enrollment — spending that is allowed under the cap.

Eleven districts are also seeking voter approval on separate ballot questions to raise additional tax revenue for specific proposals, which include restoring sports programs and having full-day kindergarten.

Click here to read the full story.

A snapshot of Special Education in Ridgewood.

2011-04-27T16:59:00.005-04:00

Supervisor of Special Services Kerry Huntington gave a presentation to the Board of Ed on Monday night, updating our current special ed program. Here are some highlights, for those who may wonder "just what is our special ed program in Ridgewood?"

Students:
Total number of Special Education Students = 888 (15%, below the state average))
-- Special Ed -- 809
-- Speech/Language only – 79

ESL (English as a Second Language) Students – 102

Basic Skills Students – 397 (elementary)

Programs:
Special Education:
RED Program Classes – 5
RISe Classes – 4
LLD Classes – 5 elementary, 2 middle school, 1 high school
Resource Program – in every school
Supplemental Support – Elementary & High School
Out-of-District Placements – 83 students

Glen School:
ITDC (private enterprise of district)
Ridgewood Nursery School (renter)
RED Program (District special ed program)

General Education:
I&RS – in every school (Intervention & __, will find out what the R stands for)
Basic Skills Instruction (BSI) – elementary schools
Title 1 Services
ESL – in every school

Special Ed Support Services:
Related Services (therapies, counseling, busing, etc.)
Special Education Aides
Assistive Technology
BCSSD
Private Vendors
Region 1
CST Secretaries

Current Staff
Central Office (2 administrators, 1 behaviorist, 2 support staff)
Child Study Team members: 20
Special Ed Teachers: 59
Transition Coordinator: 1
RED Program Coordinator: 1
Therapists: 16
Education Specialists: 15
ESL Teachers: 9
Title 1 Teacher: 1
Child Study Team Secretaries: 10

Total Special Programs staff: 137

We are doing a great job of keeping as many students in town as possible, which helps keep costs down. The majority of our current out-of-district placements are in high school. This fact led recent state monitors who visited the district to remark that we should consider developing an alternative high school concept, which could keep more students in District and thus reduce our costs. I imagine this something the administration will be looking into.

More NJ districts are charging activity fees.

2011-04-27T16:33:00.003-04:00

A recent survey by the New Jersey School Boards Association showed that approximately 40% of districts charge activity fees for students involved in extracurricular activities. Of those districts that charge activity fees, half charge a flat fee, and 34.6 percent charge a per-activity fee. (Ridgewood charges a flat fee for students in the middle schools and high school.)

Click here to see more detailed results on the survey.

A few selected comments from the survey results:

Our district has charged for activities for the past 10 years or so. We instituted them after several budget defeats and thought it would have a positive effect on parent/voter turnout … but so far, it hasn't seemed to work out. We have had surprisingly little reaction to the fees.

We discussed this for last year but decided that, although we could have used the money, we had to make sure that we had a policy in place and we were not going down the path of poor implementation like so many districts have.

I don't understand why everyone thinks when they get to high school, sports and other activities should be free. If they want the extras and the district does not have the money, they must be willing to pay. It's better than cutting the program!

I am not in favor of charging for activities/sports that are run through the schools. It is important that we encourage participation in activities/sports for many reasons. It's proven that kids who participate are better students.

It is an unfortunate necessity. Co-curriculars are a critical part of a student's education, but the state's failure to make good on its constitutional obligation to fund schools according to its own formula leads us down the slippery slope of having parents pay for "extras" that aren't really extra at all. Sad times for education in New Jersey

With 2 percent cap, activity fees may be the only way to protect extra curricular & co-curricular programs.

It is an unfortunate requirement in today's economic climate.

We have looked at this in the past, and will probably look at it in the future. At the moment we prefer not to impose this type of fee.

Extracurricular activities should be considered part of the essential educational experience and should be fully funded through the existing revenue streams.

We have raised the required number of participating students for clubs and activities, which has reduced the number of clubs and activities, and hence reduced some of our costs. Also, we have secured grants from the freeholder board to fund our after-school tutoring/homework club and our girls' and boys' running clubs.

We are introducing activity fees starting in the 2011-2012 school year. We felt it was time to take a small step into this area, especially when presenting a balanced budget is increasingly difficult.

Willard School on CBS News

2011-04-27T16:09:00.002-04:00

Great story on CBS News about Willard School's environmental efforts. Congrats to our students and teachers!

Watch RHS Girls’ Lacrosse beat Yorktown on Cablevision.

2011-04-25T17:05:00.002-04:00

The RHS girls’ lacrosse team had a great game vs. Yorktown on Saturday, winning 19-13 at RHS Stadium. It was/is the only girls’ lax game to be broadcast live in the tri-state area on Cablevision, and they will be replaying it on CableVision IO TV Channels 14 and 614: tomorrow, Wednesday 4/27, at 3:00 p.m.

Apparently the half time presentation includes some overview of RHS, an interview with Principal Jack Lorenz, and more.

If I had Cablevision, I’d love to watch!

Residents sought for advocacy committee.

2011-04-25T10:04:00.002-04:00

The Superintendent of Schools and Board of Education are launching an initiative to gather together residents interested in advocating for Ridgewood’s public education at the state level. The newly formed Legislative Advocacy Committee will officially kick off at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, on Tuesday, May 3, with an event featuring Lynne Strickland, Executive Director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools (of which Ridgewood is a member). Ms. Strickland will speak on the "state of the state" concerning legislation; will address school funding; and will provide practical tips for contacting legislators. BOE members on the committee are Michele Lenhard and Sheila Brogan. All interested residents are welcome to attend the meeting, which will be held on the 3rd floor from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

For more information, call Dr. Fishbein's office at 201-670-2700, ext. 10530, or e-mail dfishbein@ridgewood.k12.nj.us. (You do not need to contact anyone in order to attend the meeting -- just show up if you're interested.)

On the agenda for Monday’s BOE meeting.

2011-04-24T01:33:00.002-04:00

The Board of Education meets Monday night at 7:30, on the 3rd floor of the Ed Center. A few highlights from the agenda (full agenda available here):

The Board will hear an update on Special Ed services and staffing, with an explanation of needs for the 11-12 school year.

The 2010-11 Teacher Recognition nominees will be approved by the Board, in advanced of the annual Teacher Recognition award reception to be held on May 10. The teachers being honored are:
Special Programs…Patricia McVeigh
Hawes…Shirley Kolkebeck
Orchard…Christine Thielke
Ridge…Tracee Fazio
Somerville…Meredith McLaughlin
Travell…Carol Goulian
Willard…Dawn-Lyn Dolfi
Benjamin Franklin…David Tashian
George Washington…Evelyn McKinnon
RHS…Patricia Johnson
Congratulations!

The Board will gratefully accept donations, including from the Ridge HAS, the Ridgewood Ice Hockey Foundation, the RHS HSA and others.

Dr. Fishbein will present a few change orders for work at RHS, Ridge and GW. The referendum projects continue to be well under budget, as work begins on the two remaining large projects at Willard and GW.

We’ll also have regular business such as retirements, movements of staff, approval of some summer stipends, public comment, etc.

As always, the meeting will be televised on Cablevision Channel 77, webcast live on the District website, and archived for later viewing.

Rainy day pre-election thoughts.

2011-04-23T13:37:00.004-04:00

Election day is coming -- Wednesday April 27 -- and the rhetoric and all the stuff I hate about the process is in full swing. Signs on lawns. PR pieces in the newspaper. Blog posts with their anonymous comments and unique "spin" on facts. I've always been up front about my lack of political savvy. I don't play the games and I just try to call it like it is. There's really not a lot I can do to change some people's minds, once they've got certain ideas stuck there.

It's frustrating (and sort of funny, if it weren't so serious) to see myself portrayed as "the establishment." I have spent the past three years feeling like the outsider on the BOE. Many of the things that frustrated me before I was elected still cause me to bang my head on my desk -- even more -- today. The answers or solutions were not as easy as they looked from the outside. And they're not always easy to explain to others.

I am still the first to agree that the Board needs more openness and transparency. I've been working on it for three years. Not everyone on the BOE or in the administration agrees with me. We have improved, but not enough. It is like turning an aircraft carrier, the culture is so ingrained and the bureaucracy is so entrenched, that one board member can only impact so much. I will keep working on it -- I know it can get better. In the meantime, I've tried to fill some of the gaps with my own personal communication via this blog, even though it's a bit of a minefield to navigate the boundaries of free speech, confidentiality and "appropriate" Board member behavior.

As for the budget (tax levy) you're being asked to approve on Wednesday -- we have kept spending flat in all areas except health care, and that is contractual so there is nothing we can do about it with this budget. (In fact, if it weren't for the health premium increase, the budget would be going down $75,000.) We are working on the next contract now and the entire Board is well aware that salaries/benefits -- especially health insurance -- cannot remain as is. We simply cannot afford it. The system cannot support it.

I'm still hoping my serious commitment to these issues -- and others, as I've described before -- will convince enough voters to return me for three more years on the Board. I'm still the "new" member. I'm still the one on the Board who has not been part of the establishment for years and years. There is a lot more I can do and I'm willing to keep working.

I chose not to raise a bunch of money and pay for expensive signs (the ones you see now are all those that I saved from three years ago), postcard mailings, etc., because I felt I couldn't ask people to spend money on that stuff in this economy. I'm still silly enough to believe that elections should not be about who has more signs, who had more coffees or whose name is in what ballot position. I know what I've done, I know what can be done, and I know I can make a positive difference...if you'll re-elect me on Wednesday.

“The Fabric of Ridgewood.”

2011-04-20T01:23:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wondered about the full-wall mural on the 3rd floor of the Ed Center? I have…to my mind, it’s always been there, but I also know that some of the portraits were done my the children of friends, so it can’t be that old (because I’m not that old!).

So I asked around and got this story:

The mural’s theme is The Fabric of Ridgewood. It was created during the 1997-98 school year and was coordinated by Somerville Art Teacher Samantha Stankiewicz (nee Bennett). The mural was created by artist Michael Smyth and funded by a grant from the Ridgewood Education Foundation. The concept was that the mural should reflect the children's idea of Ridgewood. As research, he gathered sketches from students at every elementary school and created the mural design based on their ideas. All the art submitted by the students was collected and placed in a bound scrapbook, which I saw the other day in the smaller 3rd floor conference room. (It was neat to see art from kids’ who I remember from long ago, who are now college graduates!) The self-portraits that surround the mural were done by Ridgewood students in their art classes. The handprints are of children in the Village. On a set day, all children who wanted were invited to come to the Ed Center, dip their hands in paint and make a print on the wall.

I discovered that there is a large plaque on the wall in the 3rd floor Board Room which describes the process and lists the names of each student who contributed to it. Nest time you’re on the 3rd floor, check it out: if you are facing the mural, the plaque is in the right-hand corner of the room (behind a large plant).

One of the Ed Center staff told me that the artist’s small son would sometimes accompany his father when he painted, and amused himself by hammering with the Board President’s gavel. So cute!

The next time you’re at the Ed Center, take a closer look at the mural…it’s really something and a Ridgewood treasure. (I should have taken a photo to include here...I'll try to grab one next time and post.)

Khan Academy

2011-04-19T12:31:00.004-04:00

Last September I blogged about the Khan Academy, an amazing web resource for students, consisting of hundreds of teaching videos for subjects including algebra, geometry, physics, basic math, biology, chemistry, finance, etc. They were featured on 60 Minutes and other media because of the remarkable quality of the teaching and the consistently excellent results experienced by students who use them -- and the fact that the site's founder, Salman Khan -- did all this for free. Khan Academy started out as Sal making a few algebra videos for his cousins and has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments. It's remarkable.

Once again, I strongly urge you and your middle school and high school students to check out Khan Academy and try one of the short videos. I found myself fascinated by one of the lessons on geometry -- a course I never took in high school.

I'm told that some RHS teachers are suggesting that kids explore the Khan Academy offerings as additional homework help or to delve deeper into concepts. High school kids seem to like the short lessons, and there's just something "right" about the way the teacher presents and explains the material. The district website now has a link to Khan Academy on the Curriculum & Instruction page, under "Internet Resources for Parents, Teachers & Students.". Click here.

The myth of the “budget vote.”

2011-04-19T01:44:00.005-04:00

Yes, it’s an intentionally provocative title, but I wanted to share a perspective that I’ve commented on before, especially when I hear Ridgewood residents arguing about the upcoming election and whether they plan to vote for or against "the budget."

In addition to electing members of the Board of Education*, on April 27 the ballot question will read:

Resolved, that there should be raised for the General Fund $81,323,178 for the ensuing school year (2011-2012).

Voters (whether they are taxpayers or not, by the way) are asked to approve the total amount of taxes, for the schools, to be levied via property taxes. That’s it. We are not voting for or against the budget – not voting on how that tax levy is spent, and not voting on how much is allocated to the various lines and cost centers.

Based on that understanding of the fact of the vote process, and with New Jersey’s government-mandated 2% cap on how much the tax levy is allowed to grow, I can understand the occasional argument from Trenton that the annual “budget vote” is unnecessary if a district’s budget is under the legal cap. Sure, the vote is a rare democratic access point between residents and the delivery of their money to the “public good,” and people do like to feel like they have a say in what happens with their hard-earned taxes. (Imagine if we could vote on the Federal budget…or the state budget…the mind reels at the prospect of TV ads bought by PACs and political parties.) But how much of a say is that vote in April?

If you think the school district should spend more money on this program or that program, your vote really doesn’t affect that. If you want the school district to hire this teacher or fire that administrator, your vote doesn’t affect that. If you think your vote will send a message to the teacher’s union, I’m not so sure how your vote would affect that. The only thing our vote does is decide how much money will be collected from all the taxpayers in Ridgewood and delivered to the school district. How the money is divvied up is proposed by the administrators and approved by the BOE…whom you elect to do so.

I understand how some can feel powerless…that the vote is sort of futile, because it’s already a done deal by the time it’s on the ballot. I happen to think that we can do a better job of ascertaining what residents think about the budget – before the annual school election. I’ve talked about creating opportunities for more citizen involvement, earlier in the process. Practically speaking, I’m not entirely sure how. Fact is, the budget is big and complicated and not really something that can be reduced to “sound bites” – despite the public’s penchant for framing issues that way. Typical political polarization doesn’t really work on something this complex, with direct results on 5800+ individual students with individual needs, individual preferences and individual issues.

So, I just wanted to add a little education as to what you’re truly voting for or against on April 27. It's not "the budget." It's the proposed tax levy as indicated above. This tax levy reflects the lowest tax increase since the mid-1980s. It represents 0% total growth in the total budget, except health insurance, which we are estimating to rise 12%. (In fact, if it weren’t for the increase in health benefits, the budget would be going down $75,000.) And it keeps the education our children are currently receiving intact. A “yes” vote sets the tax rate. A “no” vote charges the Village Council with setting the tax rate. They don’t get to recommend cuts. They don’t order changes in spending on this vs. that. They just set the tax rate, presumably lower than what the Board asked for on the ballot.

However you feel about the tax levy, I hope you will get out and vote.

*Should probably mention again that I hope you will re-elect me to the Board. Our schools are facing the toughest time in their history. Rising costs, dwindling resources and increased regulations from the state have contributed to an environment where providing the quality education Ridgewood expects and deserves is more difficult than ever. I have worked hard for the past three years, and I believe I have so much more to give to our schools and our community.

Christie proposes education reform bills that would eliminate current tenure system for teachers.

2011-04-14T21:22:00.003-04:00

This entire post is reprinted from NJ.com:

Gov. Chris Christie sent a package of education reform bills to the Legislature Wednesday that would eliminate tenure as teachers know it and offer job protection only to those who consistently show a high level of performance based on new statewide evaluation system.

Under the tenure proposal, teachers would be given one of four ratings — highly effective, effective, partially effective or ineffective — based equally on student performance and classroom observations. Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf first unveiled the evaluation system during an address at Princeton University in February.
Teachers who receive the two highest ratings three years in a row would be eligible for tenure and merit pay, at their district’s discretion. Educators rated partially effective for two consecutive years or ineffective for one year — even if they have previously been highly rated — would lose tenure and could be fired.

"We want tenure to become something good teachers earn," said Christie, who has been advocating education reform for months. "It will not protect bad teachers who stay in front of the classroom.

"What we want is the most effective teachers at the front of every classroom regardless of seniority. Teachers who are effective are not worried about losing their jobs."

Under the current system, most teachers receive tenure after three years and one day on the job. The state has revoked tenure from just 17 teachers over the past 10 years. The process can drag out for years and be very costly to districts.

The tenure proposal is one of seven education reform bills Christie said he hopes will move through the Democrat-controlled Legislature quickly and be implemented by the 2012-13 school year.

Other proposals include:

• Ending the practice known as "last in, first out," which requires districts to lay off less experienced teachers first.

• Promoting what’s known as "mutual consent," which requires principals and teachers to agree on teachers’ assignments to schools.

• Offering bonuses to teachers who work in high needs districts and difficult to staff subject areas like math or science.

• Placing a 30-day deadline on tenure revocation decisions.

• Allowing school districts to opt out of the civil service system.

None of the bills has a sponsor, leaving some legislators questioning the likelihood they will move forward at all.
Tom Hester Jr., a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, said the caucus would review the bills and may introduce competing legislation.

Assembly Education Committee Chairman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) said he does not support any of the measures, as proposed, and would likely vote against them if they came before his committee.

"Everyone in education agrees that there are no reliable evaluation tools to accomplish what the governor continues to say should be the standard for hiring and retaining teachers," Diegnan said. "Test scores have been tried across the country and consistently produce unreliable results."

Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said an evaluation system might drive performance in the corporate world, but won’t in the state’s public schools.

"You should not use standardized test scores to make high stakes personnel decisions," said Wollmer, whose union has consistently battled the governor over education reform. "There are too many factors that affect student test scores that teachers cannot control."

Adam Bauer, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans, said it is "highly likely" the bills will garner support — and sponsors — from the Republican caucus, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union), who supports the governor’s education reform agenda.

"(Sen. Kean) looks forward to continuing to work with the administration on their shared commitment to saving kids from failing schools and measuring educational success based on outcomes," Bauer said.

Kean could not be reached for comment.

Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools, a group of about 100 suburban districts, said Christie’s proposals will prompt "a real dialogue and conversation" about education reform in New Jersey.

She said a number of "stumbling blocks" from teachers’ perspectives, including the proposed changes to teacher compensation and the evaluation process based on assessment.

"The details in the legislation are going to be dramatically important," Strickland said. "That’s why it’s clear this is going to be hashed out. It should be, because this is significant change."

Click here to read original story and accompanying video and reader comments (always one of my favorite parts of any story!).

How a school budget is built.

2011-04-13T17:58:00.003-04:00

Here's a video of the Bernards Township Superintendent of Schools (from the VoteApril27.com website) explaining what goes into their school budget -- which is remarkably similar to Ridgewood's. It's all stuff that our Dr. Fishbein or BOE members have stated at various times, but it's interesting to hear it from another perspective. I did notice her emphasis on a couple of points that I don't know if our community is always aware of. For example, when looking at Special Education costs, it's important to remember that the state law requires that our District (all districts) must provide special education to all youth from age 3 through 21. That's five years longer (or almost 40% longer) than we provide services to our regular education students, and it helps explain the size of the Special Education share of our budget. I wonder how many Ridgewood residents are aware of that.

Helpful website all about April 27 school election.

2011-04-13T01:32:00.004-04:00

The New Jersey School Boards Association has created a website focused on the April 27 statewide school election, at www.VoteApril27.com. According to the site, its mission is:

We want as many New Jersey citizens as possible to participate in the April 27, 2011 school election.

Some text from the intro on the homepage:

As a citizen of the State of New Jersey, voting in your local school election is a civic duty. Statewide, on April 27, voters like you will act on a combined total of more than $13 billion in proposed locally funded school expenditures. They will also select more than 1,500 local school board positions. But as impressive as these statewide numbers are, the true significance of the Annual School Election takes place at the local level—in your community. You will be able to vote on your school district’s individual budget proposal, an opportunity available to citizens in only a handful of states. You will also choose the men and women who will represent you on your school district’s board of education.

When you were young, you went to school in your hometown. Your parents likely chose that town because they believed that it offered the best possible education for you. Your education played an important role in making you the person you are today. It may have enabled you to attend the college of your choice, to get the job you want and much more.

Your participation on April 27 goes beyond personal impact, however. Your school property taxes can be viewed two ways: first, as a levy that funds a government service and, second, as an investment that has a far-reaching impact on the children and the residents of your community. A community’s property values, its quality of life and its social fabric are all related to the strength of its schools.

It's an interesting site, and includes things like a video explaining how school budgets are developed (disclaimer: I haven't watched it yet), and special sections for parents, senior citizens, students and voters. Click here to check it out.

Answering questions about the District calendar and holiday decisions..

2011-04-08T11:40:00.002-04:00

In the comments for another post, a reader questioned the District's calendar policy and how breaks and holidays are determined. I thought I'd share my most recent response here, in case others have wondered.

First, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Passover is “overlooked”. I'm told that Passover has been considered by the Calendar Committee every year. The creation of the District calendar is more complicated than most people realize.

Generally speaking, each year’s school calendar has to account for statutory holidays first, and then account for recess periods that the community has come to expect (e.g., in Ridgewood we are used to a full week in December, a full week in February and a full week in April)…all while ensuring the calendar starts out with 182 school days scheduled for students and 187 work days scheduled for teachers.

The challenge with Passover is that its dates typically vary from late March to mid- to late April. The Calendar Committee tries to avoid scheduling the “Spring Recess” week too close to, or too far away from, the “Winter Recess” week in February. Generally it looks to schedule the Spring Recess as close to eight weeks after the Winter Recess as possible to provide the best balance of rest and instructional continuity for the students. The challenges they face doing that are: 1) not closing school on dates around this time when state tests are typically administered (normally sometime in April) and not closing school the weeks before testing so that students have the best opportunities to be prepared; and 2) trying to make sure that schools are open on the annual school election date so that Village residents who can only take vacations during the school recess week are not forced to miss the election or vote with absentee ballots.

Days off for Passover might also be scheduled outside of Spring Recess, but that would add additional length to the overall school year. Depending on who you talk to, the important Passover celebration days may be the first day, the first two days, or the first two and last two days. Using this year as an example, that could have pushed the students’ last day of school to Friday, 6/24 (which creates conflicts for many families of graduating seniors who want to leave for vacations), to Monday, 6/27 or to Tuesday, 6/28. The later in June schools must be open: 1) the more “hot summer days” we may have to deal with in classrooms; 2) the more we will interfere with families’ vacation plans and students’ summer job and/or summer school plans; and 3) the smaller our “cushion” will be in the event we have a large number of inclement weather closures during the year and we need to stay open longer at the end of the year.

Some people feel that scheduling Good Friday off and not scheduling Passover off is unfair. Whether it’s “right” or “wrong”, Good Friday is a statutory holiday in New Jersey.

If we had fewer educational challenges, and more flexibility, to schedule our Spring Recess where we wanted to, I believe Passover would be a priority for scheduling Spring Recess in Ridgewood. The district has a history of scheduling school closures for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when they fall on school days, even when it results in single days off in the middle of the week.

Finally, Regulation No. 8810 (Religious Holidays) in the Board Policy Manual (on the District website) specifically addresses the rules for homework and tests/quizzes around religious holidays. If a parent feels that teachers are not following the Regulation, they should bring it to the Principals’ attention.

Resident Gerry Clark has withdrawn from BOE race.

2011-04-05T16:08:00.002-04:00

It has been reported by Patch.com that Gerry Clark, one of the challenges in the Board of Education election to be held on April 27, has withdrawn from the race. Click here for the full story.

In the meantime, the remaining candidates will be at the RHS Home & School meeting tonight to introduce ourselves and answer questions. Dr. Fishbein will also be there to present the 2011-12 budget which is up for vote.

The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. and takes place in the RHS Library (Media Center) on the 2nd floor.

Must be a late April Fool's joke?

2011-04-04T22:48:00.001-04:00

He's got to be kidding, right? Yesterday Governor Christie announced his big idea to have a task force review all the mandates placed on schools and "return more of the power back to school districts and less from the central office in Trenton." Does he not read his own press? He hasn't cared about local control when it comes to the leadership of school boards, effectively taking away a community's right to hire and pay whom they want as their superintendent, the educational leader for their schools.

Let's just review quickly...do I have this right?

1. Cap superintendent pay so that more experienced superintendents who cannot afford to take significant pay cuts move to close-by districts like Nyack.
2. When districts complain that there are not enough qualified superintendents willing to work for lower salaries, relax the qualifications necessary to be a superintendent
3. Remove Executive County Superintendents who could have added some support to untried superintendents.
4. Give control over educational decisions back to the local level, to those inexperienced, unqualified superintendents.

Got it.

Yesterday's full story in the Bergen Record is here.

Referendum projects under budget...what does it mean?

2011-04-04T21:41:00.007-04:00

At tonight's Board of Ed meeting, Dr. Fishbein updated us on the status of the referendum projects. As of last week, the final bids have been opened. We are currently still running at approx. $2 million under budget. (So-called "soft costs" still need to be calculated.) This leads me to share some info that I sent to a resident earlier today, in response to a question: what will the Board do with the leftover funds?

Once all the referendum projects are complete and closed out (ETA April 2013), the Board will basically have two options:

1. Spending unused referendum monies on projects "not specified in the referendum." If the projects are "within the scope" of the referendum, the BOE can decide to go ahead and do them. If they are not "within the scope," then the BOE would need voter approval first. For example, the BOE could repair an additional roof at BF, because the referendum included roofs at BF. But the BOE could not use the money to upgrade the library at RHS (without asking the voters), because the scope of the referendum did not include renovating the library at RHS.

2. Return the unused referendum monies to the taxpayer. This would most likely be done by applying the funds to the annual debt service portion of the taxes we collect, and would only provide tax relief in that given year. For example: every year, the tax revenue we receive includes a portion that is used to pay our debt service for all the outstanding bonds -- not just the most recent referendum -- on which we make payments. In the 2011-12 budget, that amount of debt service taxes is $3,173,000. In 2013 when any unused referendum money becomes available, the BOE will not be allowed to apply the funds to the outstanding principal, nor can the bonds be called (not until at least 2020).

Another bit of (helpful) information -- I believe the decision as to what do with unused referendum funds must be "all or nothing." For example, the Board would not be allowed to apply some to projects and some to debt service.

All this info was in response to a resident's question, which was as a candidate for re-election, which of the two options will I favor. My answer to that question was: I cannot in good conscience predict what I would favor in April 2013. It will depend on what is happening with the District's overall budget, education needs, and facilities needs at that time. A lot can happen in two years. There can also be different people on the BOE. I can say that if I'm there, I would be open to any option and I would want to have a robust public discussion, all of us in the community together. I'm sorry my answer wasn't one of the two choices, but it is my honest and sincere belief. I think it would be irresponsible for me to make a more pointed prediction now.

One last note: Dr. Fishbein noted that work on the GW Middle School addition will officially begin tomorrow, and work at Willard begins next week! The Ridge and Hawes additions are coming along great. Many other projects are completed or in-process. It has been so great to see these projects through, and to see the differences in our facilities. This work truly will benefit the children of Ridgewood and the community for generations.

Let's all watch our behavior as our new fields get busy.

2011-04-02T23:55:00.003-04:00

Our fields at Stevens and RHS Stadium were busy today on a chilly Spring day. It's so great to see the kids out there -- and their parents, friends, neighbors and others watching from the sidelines, chatting, hanging out. Great day! (Unfortunately, my family was watching my son play soccer on a muddy, uneven, ankle-breaker grass field in Union, NJ.)

While I'm thrilled to see our fields being used, I gotta say I heard a couple negative reports, mostly of trash left on the fields. (Really, people, did you grow up in a barnyard? Pick-up after yourselves!) Also there was at least one (leashed, well-behaved) dog at Stevens. No one understands more than me the lack of places to walk your dog in this town, but they cannot can NOT be on the turf fields! Please, it's been hard enough to get these fields open and used, we really don't need our players and families to be our own worst enemies!

If you're on any athletic field or park in Ridgewood tomorrow -- any field, whether it's BOE-owned, Village-owned, grass, turf -- look around and pick-up any trash or water bottles that you see.

The pitfalls and promises of Facebook, social media, and kids.

2011-04-02T10:49:00.004-04:00

Great article on social media and kids and schools at the Mindshift website*. Click here for the full article.

A couple of key excerpts:

“Parents have to give kids the opportunities to figure out what it means to be digital citizens.”

“We can’t fault kids for doing something wrong on Facebook or Twitter because we’re not teaching them.”

Ridgewood's Tony Orsini (BF Middle School Principal) and New Milford's Eric Sheninger (New Milford High School Principal) are both quoted in the story.

I found this to be a refreshing and thoughtful essay on digital citizenship and tech literacy -- without the fear-mongering and sensationalism we usually see in the mainstream media.

*I love the Mindshift site. It's presented by KQED, which is the NPR affiliate in San Francisco. According to the site, Mindshift is for anyone interested in the ways that "technology is revolutionizing the world of education – replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more."

Mindshift devotes an entire section of its website to children and social media, with lots more intriguing articles.

Some thoughts on merit pay for teachers, tied to test scores.

2011-03-31T00:00:00.003-04:00

Teacher quality is vital, but I’m concerned about increases in high-stakes standardized testing (and imperfect tests) to evaluate teachers, influence compensation, etc. Testing and data mining is going to cost a lot of money. Who will pay? What will be the effect on students?

How will the state develop standardized tests for Art? History? Theater? Health? You know there are no state tests for those right now. How long is that going to take? How much more learning will students lose in order to participate in testing? These are just a few of my concerns.

Then I read Dana Goldstein's story in the Daily Beast about high-stakes testing and something called "Campbell’s Law" — the social-science maxim that holds that the reliability of a decision-making tool is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision being made. That is, the more a test score is worth, the more it’s worth cheating on the test. (The story was about allegations of high erasure rates -- cheating -- on supposedly-improved standardized tests in Washington, D.C.)

So that gives me even more worry about placing all this emphasis on state-developed tests.

Did I mention how pretty much every 9th grader in New Jersey failed the state's first Biology test? So now they're back at the drawing board trying to come up with a better test.

And, finally, Diane Ravitch tweeted today, "Imagine putting fate of students and teachers in hands of the testing agencies" like those described in the book, Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry by Todd Farley, an eye-opening (and frightening) book that I read last year. Another good point, Diane!

What does this mean for Ridgewood? The political pressure in Trenton is forcing a rush to policies for evaluating teacher quality, based on extremely flawed state tests. Eventually, the requirements will hit Ridgewood, we'll be forced to comply (rather than rely on our own education leaders to evaluate our teachers), it will cost a lot of money, it will suck even more time away from our administrators and teachers...like I said, I'm worried.

What is a BOE member's job description?

2011-03-30T23:11:00.008-04:00

A resident emailed to ask me what is the job description of a Board of Education member. I advised her to click here on the District website, where you will see descriptions of The Role of the Board, the Role of the Superintendent, some other FAQs, and also the Board Member Code of Ethics, which contains language about what Board members are and are not responsible for.

For a more formal description, you can read the BOE Policy Manual, Bylaws Section 0120. (I'm not going to put a link here because I'm not sure you want to download the 1,633-page document.)

When I sense that someone may have a misconception about what the BOE does, I try to get across two main (helpful) facts:

1) The Board of Education does not run the schools. The Board's job is to make sure the schools are well run.

2) Any single BOE member has absolutely no power or authority, except when acting, by vote, as a member of the five-member Board.

Both of those facts come from the New Jersey statute 18A, which also states that every Board member must all make decisions "based on the educational welfare of children."

Last year I ran across this quote regarding micromanaging by Boards of Ed. It's a helpful perspective:

Democracy does not mean that the people’s representatives — the school board—take over and operate the schools any more than it means that the board members of a symphony play the violins.
-- American School Board Journal, November 2010

An interesting way to put it, but makes sense.

Teen brains are changing...is the way schools teach changing, too?

2011-03-30T20:37:00.003-04:00

Really interesting report on the actual physical changes happening in kids brains thanks to digital inputs and multi-tasking. The way we teach should be changing, too. The second video below has more relevant info regarding learning, as the reporter involves his teen children in the discussion.

Fundraising vs. Funding.

2011-03-30T16:28:00.003-04:00

I have to say, while I applaud the energetic and well-meaning parents of the RHS Home & School Association, I do wish their Phone-a-thon fundraiser had been scheduled for a time that didn't coincide with the school budget presentations, discussions and upcoming vote. It's potentially confusing for parents, and I think it dilutes both of our messages and efforts. The fact is, our school budget is limited by the state's 2% cap on taxes. Once we factored in the expected increase in our health insurance premiums, that didn't leave much room for anything but the basics. Priorities are developed by the principals and the administration, and only essential items are budgeted. Yes, the District replaces equipment such as microscopes and computers as much as it can, but we have to be very choosy from year to year in order to allocate funds for maximum impact. At all our schools, we are extremely lucky and appreciative of the parent efforts to fund items which are not able to be included in the budget.

Just to be crystal clear: the fundraising drive was conceived, planned and carried out by the HSA -- the parents of Ridgewood High School. I appreciate their hard work, I appreciate those who choose to donate and I respect those who choose not to donate.

Budget and ballot question approved by BOE.

2011-03-28T22:17:00.003-04:00

At tonight's Board of Ed meeting, we approved the 2011-12 budget and ballot question for the upcoming vote by residents. The budget spreadsheet and powerpoint with notes & explanatory information will be on the District website shortly.

Following are the comments I made (or intended to make*) after the budget was reviewed:

What a difference a year makes.

This time last year, we were struggling to make millions of dollars in cuts (following a prior year of even more cuts). It was painful – and the District is still coping with the fallout. But we’re coping relatively well. Thankfully, a last-minute promise of some funding from the state, combined with good planning and efficiencies from school principals and Ed Center administration, headed off additional cuts for 2011-12.

I agree with Charlie – this is a bare minimum budget…

As a parent, I appreciate this budget that keeps our educational programs and staff intact – and includes a minimum amount for capital projects.

As a taxpayer, I thank the administrators for this budget that contains the smallest tax increase in decades.

And as a Board member, taxpayer and parent, I encourage anyone with questions as to what this budget means for their schools and classrooms, to speak to us tonight during public comment, email your questions to budget12@ridgewood.k12.nj.us, or please attend one of the three informational sessions that are scheduled. Everyone is invited to attend – not just parents – and the first one is this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at GW Middle School.

Don’t just vote blindly on the budget…Get the information, the real information, from Dr. Fishbein, from the Board, or from your school’s principal.

It’s impossible to know what the future holds, but we can make a pretty good educated guess. Budgeting is going to get more difficult, not less. And the pressures to find creative ways to deliver education excellence will increase, not decrease. I believe this budget puts the District in a good position to face whatever comes at us next year and beyond.

I support this budget for 2011-12, and I hope Ridgewood residents will vote “yes” to approve it on April 27.

(*These are the notes I intended to read, but I think I paraphrased a bit during the meeting.)

Somerville students make 1,000 paper cranes on behalf of Japan victims

2011-03-28T17:13:00.002-04:00

The following is reprinted from Voice of America.com. Click here to read and also to watch a cool video:

Among the worldwide efforts to help the people of Japan following the recent earthquake and tsunami are school children who are reaching out in various ways. One New Jersey school is taking a unique approach to help, and teach its children empathy for the victims in Japan at the same time.

There are nearly 40 Japanese-American students at the Somerville Elementary School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. But all of the school's 525 students have heard about the disasters that hit Japan. They have decorated their school with a veritable flock of paper origami cranes. In Japan, it is said folding 1,000 paper cranes confers the right to make a wish, and the Somerville students are engaged in an effort to translate their empathy for victims of Japan's earthquake and tsunami into a wish for a speedy recovery.

Art teacher Samantha Stankiewicz says it gives students a way to express empathy for victims.

"For children, the folding of the cranes has been a really positive way for them to feel like they're actively engaged, even though the cranes are symbolic," said Stankiewicz.

These students thought out loud as they folded cranes in the school library.

BOY: "The crane is a symbol of hope, so we try to have a lot of hope for those people in Japan."
GIRL 1: "It makes me feel really happy that everyone's caring for another country."
GIRL 2: "I feel sad for them; like really sad for them. But I also feel happy for us, because we are really trying to help out."

That help consists of contributions from students to disaster relief agencies. Principal Lorna Oates-Santos says children at the school have donated nearly $2,000.

"We will be donating that money to the American Red Cross and Save the Children," said Oates-Santos. "They are two groups that are ready, on the ground in Japan to help the people of Japan."

Joining the assistance effort is the school's television club, which produces weekly programs on a variety of topics. Fourth grade teacher Gabrielle King runs the club.

"When the earthquake happened, the children wanted to know what they could do to inform other students and raise awareness for the people in Japan," said King. "So, we decided to do a show on the earthquake, and to also making the cranes; the origami cranes."

Somerville Elementary made 1,000 cranes and a wish for the people of Japan to have a prompt recovery.

Support our parent groups: Go shopping!

2011-03-28T09:53:00.004-04:00

Lord & Taylor is holding its annual charity shopping event on April 7, and all Ridgewood residents are invited to participate. How does it work? You purchase a ticket for $5 and then you receive 15% off or 20% off all day long on April 7. The group you're supporting receives a donation from Lord & Taylor. It's a win-win! The Ridgewood LSHSA (Learning Services Home & School Association) and RHS Project Graduation are two of the local groups your shopping can support. The LSHSA raises funds to help provide Special Services teachers and therapists with items on their "wish lists” that aren't in their budgets, along with funding "Teacher of the Year" awards and two Special RHS scholarships for graduating seniors. Project Graduation funds the event that keeps our young people safe on graduation night. To purchase tickets online, click here: Use the drop down box and click on "Learning Services Home and School " or "Ridgewood HS Project Graduation" as your charity. Order before April 3 to receive your tickets on time.

(Honestly, there are dozens of charities you can choose to fund with your shopping purchases...scroll down the long list and choose your favorites. Just wanted to let you know we have a couple of school groups on the list.)

More information: www/lordandtaylor.com/dogoodridgewood

Public hearing & community forums on 2011-12 budget.

2011-03-28T09:20:00.004-04:00

Ridgewood residents are invited to learn more details about the 2011-12 school budget, which will be up for public vote on April 27. The following budget events are open to the community, and questions or comments are encouraged:

Official Public Hearing on Budget @ BOE Meeting
Tonight, 7:30 p.m. Ed Center, 3rd Floor
Watch on Cablevision Channel 77 or live webcast (click here to link live).

Community Presentation
Thursday, March 31, 7:30 p.m.
GW Middle School Auditorium

Coffee with the Superintendent
Tuesday, April 12, 9:00 AM
Ed Center, 3rd Floor

Community Presentation
Wednesday, April 20, 7:30 p.m.
BF Middle School Auditorium

Don't feel like attending a meeting, but have questions? Email budget12@ridgewood.k12.nj.us

Most recent budget activity:
At the Board meeting on March 21, the BOE had a Joint Meeting with the Ridgewood Village Council, to present an overview of the proposed 2011-2012 budget and to engage in a discussion. Assistant Superintendent for Business Angelo DeSimone presented to the Village Council an updated budget spreadsheet. Revenues are flat, with the exception of the proposed tax increase of 2%. Basically, the budget is a 0% increase from this year to next year, with no personnel cuts or cuts in programs. Utility costs are projected to increase 5%. The largest increase on the line items is the 12% projected increase for Employee Benefits, which includes medical insurance. The proposed 2011-2012 General Fund Tax increase of $1,594,572 is at the 2% cap. The total projected General Fund budget is $86,775,809, representing an increase from this year of $363,441.33. The tax impact of this budget would be $23.94 per $100,000 valuation, or $190.90 on the average assessed Ridgewood home of $797,422.

Opinions, authority, and who's in charge?

2011-03-27T22:23:00.005-04:00

I wanted to share a little bit about a couple of aspects of "Boardsmanship" that are interesting, possibly eye-opening, and at the very least illustrate a little sliver of life as a member of the Board of Education.

For me, being a member of a Board is challenging in a lot of ways. One of them is in the balance of “me” vs. “board.” By design, and by law, no individual Board member has any authority or power or influence over any part of the school district. In state-mandated training by the New Jersey School Boards Association, and in books I’ve read, like The Five Habits of High-Impact School Boards, The Essential School Board Book and The Secrets of School Board Success (yes, I’m the kind of person who researched and read things like this…early on in my tenure), Board members are cautioned against the dangers of “micro managing.” For someone who, as a parent, had no problem emailing a principal or superintendent with my opinion of how something could be done better, it puts me in a strange, seemingly less-empowered place as a Board member.

Within the Board, obviously we all have our own approaches to our responsibilities and we all have opinions about various issues. But the actual authority of the Board only exists as that group of five people.

Early on, I got some advice from a previous long-time BOE member and a veteran of many corporate and philanthropic boards. He said, once the Board makes a decision, that’s it. Individual opinions must be put aside, and members must support the Board’s decision and advance the Board’s efforts accordingly. Infighting and public Tuesday-morning quarterbacking are dysfunctional. I believe that. I also know that we all still have plenty of ways to communicate our alternate views, if we have them, with each other.

But…back to the Board’s authority. What does it mean? It may be news to some residents that the Board of Education does not run the Ridgewood Public Schools. It’s true and it’s the law. I know I’ve written about this in the past, but it bears repeating. The BOE is not responsible for running the schools, but the BOE is responsible for ensuring that the schools are well run. (That’s the way they present it at the NJSBA.) How are we supposed to do this? By setting policy and goals that guide those who actually run the schools, namely the superintendent and district staff. All day-to-day decisions are the superintendent’s decisions to make. The superintendent, in turn, is the only staff person that the BOE supervises. We evaluate his performance in a formal way every year, with detailed feedback, action plans, goal-setting, etc.

At this time of year, when citizens pay more attention to what Board members think and how Board members perform, I think it’s important to keep these facts of boardsmanship and Board responsibilities in mind.

When students rule the school?

2011-03-25T20:36:00.003-04:00

Really interesting short film (15 minutes) about some students who created a school-within-a-school at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Called The Independent Project, the students designed their own curriculum and determined -- together -- how various subjects would be learned. In the end, a group of students who had been marginalized, unengaged and unenthused became engaged, active students interested in taking more responsibility for their own learning. And they learned the material, too!

A journalist who followed them wrote an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times. She said:

The students in the Independent Project are remarkable but not because they are exceptionally motivated or unusually talented. They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together. In such a setting, school capitalizes on rather than thwarts the intensity and engagement that teenagers usually reserve for sports, protest or friendship.

Check it out.

What have I done?

2011-03-24T22:56:00.007-04:00

Someone asked me today to "bullet point" some of what I've been up to during my time on the Board of Education Here's a quick snapshot:

I have been a member of the Communications and Facilities Committees all three years, as well as the BOE liaison to the Fields Committee. I am also a member of the Board’s Negotiating Committee in our current negotiations with the REA.

In terms of communications, I’ve worked on implementing the District’s new website and Skyward systems, helped with communications on the budget and referendum, where we instituted more public meetings and public input than ever before…I also worked with the committee on the parent survey which we started last year and will repeat this spring…I’m proud of that survey experience, as that was one of the goals I talked about during my campaign three years ago.

I have worked hard on my personal communications as a Board member, writing this blog for three years, and incorporating social media like Facebook and Twitter to dialogue with residents.

On Facilities, I -– and the committee -- worked hard on first prioritizing facilities needs and designing the referendum projects, then explaining the needs and the referendum to the community and now reviewing and monitoring the projects on a regular basis.

On the Fields Committee, I have represented the BOE (and our constituents, including students, parents, staff or neighbors) to the committee in discussions and work, and I’ve reported in detail back to the full Board to ensure all BOE members are educated and informed regarding fields issues.

As a member of the Board’s Negotiation Team, currently in negotiations with the REA, I’m excited by the potential and opportunity that contract negotiations represent – for both “sides.” Obviously I can’t speak to any specifics regarding negotiations (they are confidential), but I can say that my (and the Board’s) goal is a productive negotiation process that results in an agreement that is mutually satisfactory to the BOE, the membership of the REA, and the community, and that meets the needs of our students. I will work tirelessly to fulfill my responsibility to our students and taxpayers.

Other than those committee highlights, I have not missed a Board meeting and I've only missed committee meetings when there was a rare conflict with my "real" job. I thoroughly prepare for every meeting, I receive and respond to questions from the community, I attend several HSA meetings and the Federated HSA meeting each month, and I love more than anything attending school events throughout the District, such as International Day at Hawes, Celebration of Learning at Orchard, the Ridge Restaurant, the BF Turkey Trot and more. My very favorite thing is watching our students and teachers at work...it still gives me chills any time I can spend some time in a classroom. That is what it's all about.

Ridgewood students & parents take note: relax on the college angst!

2011-03-23T09:22:00.003-04:00

Love, loved this column from Mitch Albom, which ran in today's Bergen Record.

Favorite part: "[Today] Gandhi would be put on a waiting list."

Most scary part: "A New York City woman who [is] suing a private preschool academy for putting her 4-year-old daughter with younger kids and therefore affecting her chances at an Ivy League education. Never mind that all 4-year-olds should be covered in orange paint. This mom is already thinking about the day you seniors are about to face. And she's terrified."

Please read and take heart. As the mother of an RHS junior, I appreciate the reminder:

Dear High School Seniors,

I know you weren't expecting a commencement address. It's still March, and you haven't even gotten to throw up at the prom yet.

But you are at a crossroads. In a matter of days, you will get letters from colleges you applied to. Some will be thick. You will like those. Some will be thin. You won't like those so much.

I am here to say: Don't fret if that letter is thin. You will survive. You may even prosper.

It seems incredibly hard to get into colleges these days. You wouldn't think so, given what they charge. You can run an airport on their room and board bills.

Yet last year, places like Princeton and Brown had nearly 20% increases in applicants from the year before. The University of Chicago jumped 42%. You'd think they were giving away diplomas, instead of asking for your house, your keys and your firstborn.

But even worse than the financial burden on your parents is the implied standards they are setting for you kids. Today, excellence isn't enough. Gandhi would be put on a waiting list.

When we were applying to college, you needed good grades, a decent test score and one teacher willing to forget the time you pulled the fire alarm and write you a recommendation.

Today, you need to cure cancer.

Preferably before your junior year.

The mythical cream of the crop?

As an uncle to 15 nieces and nephews, I have been seeing my share of these applications. I have to say, I don't know how you do it.

First of all, when do you have the time? Your nightly homework is as much as we got the entire ninth grade.

And the application itself? Some universities use the "common app," which permits millions of kids to stuff their credentials into the same essay question.

But let's talk about those questions. They ask you to write about an experience that changed or influenced you. And instead of writing what really comes to mind (a first kiss after soccer practice), you feel compelled to write about saving manatees from extinction off the gulf coast. Even if you never did save manatees. Because you heard about some kid who actually did save manatees, and he also carried 100 pairs of pajamas to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and he also plays jazz bass (upright) and in his spare time finished a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye."

Oh, and he scored 36 on his ACT.

I'm not sure such Ã¼ber-students really exist. But people talk about them. You hear about them getting in to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford. So much so, that good, intelligent, ambitious kids don't even want to apply to those places, because they don't feel "special" enough. It's as if schools today put out a vibe: "What, you don't know how to reconstruct a hydraulics system? You should have studied harder - in grade school."

Never too young for the fast track?

So it was no surprise this past week to read of a New York City woman who is suing a private preschool academy for putting her 4-year-old daughter with younger kids and therefore affecting her chances at an Ivy League education. Never mind that all 4-year-olds should be covered in orange paint. This mom is already thinking about the day you seniors are about to face. And she's terrified.

Well, relax. Because here's the thing: When you get older, you realize college doesn't make you, you make college. Many an Ivy Leaguer is now lying on a couch, and many a community college grad is running a profitable company.

Ironically, just as elite universities have become so precious in their selection, they are being debunked as the only way to success. The Internet has changed everything about information flow.

Remember Matt Damon's character in "Good Will Hunting" who taunts a Harvard student by saying in 50 years he'll realize he "dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a (bleeping) education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library"?

Of course, you don't remember. You were 4 years old. But there was truth in those words, more today than ever.

So believe in yourself. You can springboard from any decent school. Open those mailboxes. And if choice No.1 doesn't come through, just remember, even Michael Jordan watched two players picked ahead of him in the NBA draft.

What's that? ... Who's Michael Jordan?

Thank you, and good day.

Why am I running again?

2011-03-23T00:35:00.002-04:00

I'm supposed to speak with the reporter from the Ridgewood News tomorrow, to talk about my candidacy for re-election to the Board of Education. I was working on some notes tonight...I figure one of the inevitable questions will be, "Why are you running for re-election?" So, thought I'd share my reasons here:

Why am I running again?

I still feel that the BOE is one of the most important ways anyone can serve the community. It’s THE elected office with the most potential to do good.

Every community needs committed, thoughtful, passionate, curious citizens to serve on the Board of Education. I believe I still have all those qualities. It’s been a steep learning curve, and I'm still learning. But I believe in public education and I am fascinated by all aspects:
-- teaching & learning
-- administration
-- finances
-- And what I call the “parallel universe” of the school-world culture. It looks like the regular world, but it doesn’t quite operate the same way. It’s often a puzzle and I still wake up every morning determined to understand this bureaucracy a little bit more and to have a positive impact on its evolution.

What have I learned as a member of the BOE?

Last August I wrote a blog post titled “28 lessons in 28 months,” which listed the things I’ve learned. A couple of my favorites were:
#16. There’s more than one way to teach pretty much everything.
#17. Education “experts” don’t agree on almost anything.
#13. For every parent/staff/taxpayer with an opinion, there is another parent/staff/taxpayer with the exact opposite opinion
#2 There are not enough hours in the day

I’ve also learned – or confirmed – that I’m not a politician. I don’t strategize my speaking. I say what I think…not necessarily what others want to hear. I sometimes say things that get me into trouble. You don’t hear me speak a lot at our meetings because I don’t speak unless I have something useful to say. I communicate plenty with our administrators and other board members…I’m the queen of emails and I never run out of questions or suggestions.

But this leads to one of the biggest challenges I’ve had and I still have on the Board – I’m a natural worker. I’m a problem solver. I have ideas for how to do things. And the truth is, that’s not really my role on the BOE. By law, it is NOT the Board of Ed's job to run the schools. It’s the administration’s job to DO, to DECIDE, to SOLVE. It’s my job to make sure the administration has the policy framework and the mission/vision that allows them to work and do and solve. I have to step back and let them do it. THEN, it’s my job, or the Board’s job, to evaluate the performance of ONE person – the superintendent.

It’s been a difficult adjustment…to be less active and more passive…to let the decisions be made and then give feedback. I’m still working through it. Getting better. But still making suggestions, which is not the same as micro-managing, by the way!

Governor Christie's inconsistent policy on salary caps lets charters use public funds to pay high salaries.

2011-03-20T22:59:00.002-04:00

How is it fair that charter schools are exempt from Governor Christie's cap on superintendent salaries? If he truly wants to walk the walk and really believes that no one who runs a school district should make more than the governor, then how does he justify the exemption for charter schools? If he truly believes that what he calls high salaries are a misuse of public funds, how are charter schools -- also funded by public money -- allowed to pay their leaders more than the governor?

According to the story in today's Bergen Record:

The director of a Teaneck charter school with about 300 students was paid more than $200,000 last year. In Englewood, the head of an even smaller charter school, with 200 students, earned $152,000 in public money for working part time.

Governor Christie has moved to cap the salaries of superintendents at much larger traditional public school districts, but has proposed no such ceiling on tax-supported charters.

To some, the exemption shows how charters — publicly funded but independently operated — are given a pass when it comes to state regulations meant to ensure fiscal accountability.

"It's patently inequitable," said Bruce Baker, a Rutgers professor who has studied charter school financing.

Read the rest of the article here.

Only in New Jersey...

BOE Candidates' Night on April 7

2011-03-20T22:52:00.003-04:00

The League of Women Voters will hold a Candidates' Night for Board of Education candidates on April 7 at 7:30 p.m., on the 3rd floor of the Ed Center. This event is commonly called the "debate," but it's really more like four people making statements on pre-arranged themes/questions. Last time it was held was in 2008, and that time, I believe there was time for a few questions from the audience at the end. I don't know exactly what the format will be this time.

I also am not sure if the event is broadcast on Cablevision Channel 77. I'll post more details when I get them.

Back in town.

2011-03-18T00:07:00.002-04:00

Just got back from six days effectively cut-off from civilization. OK, that's a bit dramatic. My daughter, who is a senior in college, took me on a short cruise for her Spring Break. How could I resist -- when your 21 year old wants to spend time with you instead of at some crazy spring break destination, and she's paying, I think you have to say "yes!" So while I was certainly in a civilized and oh-so-relaxing environment, I was completely cut-off from email, blogs, text messages, twitter, Facebook...everything! It was unnerving...and kinda great.

But now I'm back and trying to get back into gear. Hope to post some notes this weekend...about fields and floods, elections and budgets...there's a lot going on!

Budget 2011: What a difference a year makes.

2011-03-11T02:10:00.004-05:00

The administrators reviewed the proposed 2011-12 budget for Ridgewood Public Schools at our Board of Ed meeting last Monday, and what a different experience that was, compared to this time last year. You can click here to download the budget spreadsheet, but the bottom line is this: With no cuts to staff or programs, the proposed budget features the lowest tax increase in at least 17 years, and is likely the lowest increase since 1986 (when the Glen School was closed).*

According to the budget presented, the tax levy would increase 2%, the maximum allowed by law. This translates into $23.94 per $100,000 assessed value, or $191 for the average assessed Ridgewood home.**

This time last year, we were struggling to make cuts totaling $6 million (following a prior year of cuts). We did it. It wasn’t easy. It was painful. And the District is still coping with the fallout. But we’re coping relatively well. Thankfully, a last-minute promise of some funding from the state, combined with austerity budgets from school principals and Ed Center administration, headed off additional cuts this year.

Residents will go to the polls to vote on the budget on April 27. I encourage all voters to review the budget and watch for the official District Newsline which will arrive in mailboxes. You should also keep an eye out for a postcard announcing community open forum sessions, where everyone will be invited to find out where the budget numbers come from and what it all means in terms of programs and the day-to-day classroom experience.

Any questions, you can post here. Or you can email me directly lauriegood@mac.com. Or email budget12@ridgewood.k12.nj.us and Dr. Fishbein will answer.

*I have tax information going back to 1994 and can confirm that the lowest tax increase over the past 17 years was $206 in 1995. I’m waiting to compile tax data back to 1986. I’ll update this post when I get it.

**According to the Village of Ridgewood, the average assessed Ridgewood home value is $797,422.

Youth art all around us.

2011-03-09T12:00:00.004-05:00

Every year, I love the Board meeting that takes place on the Monday before the Youth Art Reception at the Ed Center. Since there is so much art to be displayed, they start setting up in the days before the event. Monday night, as we discussed the budget, staffing, and other (dry, somewhat unexciting) business, we could look around and see just a ton of beautiful and amazing pieces all around us. There are paintings and drawings, of course, and ceramic pieces and other sculptures. And there are always a few unusual things. This year my favorite (so far) is the Totem Pole made by some of the students in the SAIL program at RHS. It's made from painted and decorated student backpacks, which have been stacked on top of each other to create a totem pole in the style of poles found in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. It's about seven feet tall and it's awesome!

Then, yesterday, at the BF HSA meeting, Ms. Hyer, an art teacher, gave a presentation to the parents about some of the different types of art being created in her classes. It was fascinating to see the students' skills changing and developing as they grow from 6th grade to 8th grade.

I hope you'll consider attending the Youth Arts Reception at the Ed Center tomorrow night. It begins at 6:30 p.m. on the 3rd floor. The room will be filled with children leading their parents around, showing off what they made, mingling with their art teachers...one of my favorite events at the Ed Center.

Also, March is National Youth Art Month. Click here to find out more about Youth Art Month and the Council for Art Education.

Candidates are set for BOE election April 27.

2011-03-09T00:48:00.003-05:00

So, now we know that there will be four candidates for the two open seats on the Ridgewood Board of Education. Sheila Brogan and myself are incumbents running for re-election. The challengers are Gerald Clark and Christine Krauss. Click here to read the story on Ridgewood Patch.

Looks like we'll have a "campaign season" after all...HSA meetings, coffees, debate, emails, phone calls, letters. It should be interesting. I don't really understand the phenomenon that results in uncontested elections some years and contested elections other years...just another "Ridgewood Tradition," I guess.

I'll start posting the dates for various events. If you're interested, you can "like" my page on Facebook to receive additional updates. Or just come back here. I'll start posting more on the issues -- although anybody who wants to know how I feel can just read the past posts on this blog. Any questions? Post them here, on my Facebook page, email me, call me, Tweet me (@lauriegood1)...there are so many ways to get info from and about candidates these days.

Revised Fields Policy is online; will be presented/voted-on Monday night.

2011-03-06T20:28:00.003-05:00

An updated proposed revision to the Fields Use Policy will be presented to the Board of Ed tomorrow night at our regular public meeting. The draft policy is available as part of our agenda -- click here to download and read. Members of the Fields Committee will attend the meeting to respond to questions and concerns raised by BOE members and residents. I'd say it's likely that the BOE will vote on the proposed revision tomorrow night.

Also at tomorrow's meeting, the Board will receive a budget update from Dr. Fishbein and Mr. DeSimone. Last Monday we were presented with a budget that contained no cuts to staff or programs -- and yet, many lines on the budget were lower than last year. My hope is that tomorrow, we'll receive the details that can explain how those lines have been reduced, without loss of staff or programs. Of course, the recent $850,000 "gift" from Trenton has allowed us to eliminate the deficit which was reflected in our original budget. It's allowed us to not raid our capital reserve this year, which is a good thing. But, of course, with a 12% increase in healthcare costs, and increases in some other areas, we're not out of the woods. Hence, the proposed 2% increase in the tax levy.

In addition to tomorrow's BOE meeting, Dr. Fishbein is scheduling a number of open community meetings to review the budget and answer any questions from residents. I'll post those dates here as soon as they are confirmed.

Those are the main events on tomorrow's agenda. Please come to the meeting if you'd like to share your opinions during public comment, or if you'd just like to watch. You can also watch on CableVision Channel 77 or watch live on the web (click here).

Taxes and education quality.

2011-03-06T16:14:00.002-05:00

Following is an email response I just sent, to a community member who wrote about concern for both taxes and maintaining quality education:

I appreciate your taking the time to contact me and share your thoughts...I can assure you I am well acquainted with the challenges faced by families struggling with severely diminished incomes.

You are absolutely correct that throwing money at schools does not make them better. Fortunately, Ridgewood continues to have excellent schools, while spending far below the state average on a per pupil basis. In fact, last year our total budget actually went down, somewhat paradoxically, even though taxes went up. (This is due to the loss of aid from the state of New Jersey -- we cut close to $3 million from our budget, but still required a 4% increase in taxes to make up for that lost aid.)

The recently-released New Jersey Schools Report Card showed how Ridgewood schools are much more efficient, by many measures, than most other similar-sized districts in the state.

I agree with the intangibles you name for maintaining quality schools, and I am happy to report that we are fortunate to have them here in Ridgewood: involved parents, motivated teachers and administrators that foster quality continue to be important elements of Ridgewood's schools.

We also have administrators and a BOE that have made tough decisions for the past few years, by:
-- cutting 20% of our administration
-- cutting over $4 million from the budget over past two years
-- reducing programs strategically, with minimal impact on students

For the upcoming 2011-12 school year, our proposed budget would require a tax increase of 2% -- in spite of rising costs, such as a projected 12% increase in health care. The reason we are able to balance our budget with a 2% tax increase is because our administrators and the Board continue to make the tough decisions necessary to remain fiscally responsible.

As a taxpayer, I understand your frustration with property tax rates and our need to rely heavily on those taxes to fund our schools, even as the state reneges on its long-term commitments to funding education, including special education. I promise you I will continue to look for ways to be fiscally responsible while I keep the quality of our education as my primary focus.

Ridgewood Public Schools' Facebook page is live.

2011-03-04T22:54:00.004-05:00

If you're on Facebook, check out the District's new Facebook page (click here). If you "like" it, you'll get updates in your Facebook news feed. And you can share interesting posts with your own Facebook friends.

Don't expect to see a ton activity on the page at first. Mostly it will be links to news on the District website. But eventually you should find photos, links to interesting articles and news, posts from parents or community members...as I've mentioned before, it's an organic process and we'll see where it goes together.

Any comments? Let me know what you think here, or add a comment to the District's Facebook wall.

History of the Fields Committee.

2011-03-03T23:13:00.003-05:00

There's been a lot of talk -- and a lot of misconception -- about the Joint Village-BOE Fields Committee in recent months. I thought it would be helpful to take a look back at how the committee came to be.

According to BOE member Charlie Reilly, who was the first chair, the Fields Committee was formed around 1994-95 and arose out of two problems: poor maintenance of the fields and conflicts over scheduling.

The committee worked to convince the youth sports groups to donate funds for sprinkler systems for the fields in order to provide better maintenance. Marriott, which was responsible for maintenance of fields and buildings after 1993 or so, did a great job for many years, according to Reilly, but the fields were beaten up with overuse. Since the fields were owned by the BOE and the Village, Reilly worked with Councilman Pat Mancuso to have Village representation in the form of Village Parks & Rec Director Tim Cronin and the Village Fields Manager. The plan was to meet monthly with the RHS athletic director and any sports group representatives who wished to attend. The Committee worked out which fields would get sprinkler systems as
funds became available, mainly donated by the sports groups. The committee also discussed and prioritized improvements that could help make fields more playable.

Reilly recalls one early Fields Committee project, which was to encourage the Village to dig up tons of heavy debris, such as cinder blocks, that had been deposited at Brookside Field from the time it was a dumping area for construction debris. After digging up the debris, field was leveled off to make it more playable. The Committee tried to do improvements to at least one field every year.

At the request of the BOE and Council, the Committee also worked on the scheduling of fields. Tim Cronin handled all field scheduling for several years until resident Ed Seavers took over that responsibility within the Committee. Before scheduling was taken over by the Fields Committee, sports groups would come to BOE meetings and fight during public comment over what sport should be on what field. Needless to say, it was not an efficient way to manage schedules.

Currently, the Fields Committee is chaired by the RHS Athletic Director Nick Scerbo and Tim Cronin, the Village Parks & Rec Director. The Committee continues to manage the scheduling and allocation of fields, with input from the school programs and youth programs. Each outdoor youth sport has a representative on the committee. I'm there as the BOE liaison, and Bernie Walsh is there from the Village Council. A representative from the District's field maintenance company attends. There are also two "at large" members who are members of the community, not affiliated with any sport. They are there to represent the interests of neighbors of the fields.

As a final note, Charlie Reilly has owned up to being responsible for the 7:00 AM meeting time. His rationale was to ensure that the Village fields manager and Marriott people could come to the meetings before going off to work. This way, the sports groups had the direct ear of the people actually responsible for the work being done. Charlie (and other volunteers, I presume) also wanted to get to work at a decent hour.

What I find most interesting about the Fields Committee is that it is one of the few, if not the only, truly joint groups in town, taking a collaborative approach to managing a complicated set-up of fields, owners and users.

Representatives of the Fields Committee will attend our BOE meeting on Monday night to give feedback, provide information and present a revised draft of the Fields Use Policy. The expectation is that the Board will also hear public comment, and will probably vote on Monday night. If the policy is approved, it will go to the Village Council (tentative date March 23) for discussion during a work session and then for approval at a subsequent meeting. Public comment will also be available at Village Council meetings.

Meanwhile, the snow is melting and the spring sports season -- guided by the existing Fields Use Policy -- opens this weekend. Go Maroons!

What am I doing?

2011-03-03T13:36:00.004-05:00

Today I submitted my paperwork to be on the ballot for re-election to the Ridgewood Board of Education. I didn't wait this long because I was actually conflicted about deciding to run. I always knew I wanted to continue. But I did not want to spend three or more months campaigning and talking about running. There is plenty of work to do on the Board without adding that into the mix. As of now, there are no challengers for my position. The deadline to submit paperwork to be on the ballot is Tuesday Match 8 at 4:00 p.m., so I'll know for sure at that time.

In the meantime, know that I want to continue working to ensure that our schools and our community work together to provide an excellent education for every single child, and fiscal health for our District. I am honored that you have trusted me with this responsibility, and I hope to continue working to fulfill that trust.

Over the past three years, I have worked hard every day for our schools and our students. The learning curve was (and still is) steep. While the experience has been challenging, fascinating, rewarding, interesting and complicated, I continue to start each day with enthusiasm to perform my duties to the absolute best of my abilities.

There is still so much to do. The times ahead will be challenging in ways never before seen in Ridgewood schools. I believe I have skills, energy and experience to continue serving the students of Ridgewood.

The election is April 27. Be sure to vote.

And, of course, keep in touch:

Email: lauriegood@mac.com

Call: 201-493-9193

Follow me on Twitter: @lauriegood1

“Like” my page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/goodman4boe

Understanding the school budget process. Tune in Friday.

2011-03-03T13:20:00.004-05:00

This looks like a great program...from the New Jersey School Board's Association:

Local school officials often receive many questions from citizens, such as: How are priorities set? What are a school district’s fixed costs? How does state aid affect property taxes?

Tomorrow (Friday) morning, NJSBA’s online radio program, Conversations on New Jersey Education, will feature the topic: “Education Issues for the Non-Educator – Understanding School Budgets and School Funding in 2011.”

Host Ray Pinney will be joined by a panel of experts who will address these questions and other submitted by parents. The panel includes Michael Kaelber, director of NJSBA’s Legal & Policy Services Department; Dr. Valerie Goger, superintendent of the Bernards Township School District; and James Edwards, business administrator of the Brick Township School District.

The program will air at 11 a.m. Friday, March 4. Listeners who would like to ask a question during the show should use the call-in number, (347) 989-8904.

About the Program Conversations on New Jersey Education, on BlogTalkRadio.com, is similar to a live radio talk show, except it is broadcast through the Internet. The 45-minute shows air live, but will also be available to download to iPods or MP3 devices, or to listen to online “on demand.” Listeners only need a computer with high speed Internet access. To hear the live show or past recorded broadcasts, visit www.blogtalkradio.com/njsba.

Let the sun shine?

2011-03-03T09:09:00.002-05:00

At last Monday's Board of Ed meeting, a Ridgewood resident presented a proposal for installing solar panels on several school buildings. The resident owns a solar company, Verterra. Basically, the plan would be for the company to install panels on seven schools -- those that have ideal building locations, roof conditions, etc. The schools with feasible set-ups are: Travell, Orchard, Hawes, RHS, BF Middle School, Somerville and GW Middle School. You'll notice that these are basically the schools with the most flat roof area. Other buildings are not on the list because their roofs are too sloped (Willard, Ed Center) or their roofs are older and are slated for replacement in the next 3-5 years (Ridge, Glen).

The basic proposal is that Verterra installs the panels on the roofs. Verterra owns the panels and is responsible for all installation, upkeep, repair, cleaning, etc. Verterra then sells the power generated by the panels to the school district, at a rate that is lower than we pay to PSE&G.

Why don't we just install panels ourselves and generate our own power? The cost to install solar panels is expensive. Recent estimates have shown that it would take 15 years or so for the panels to pay for themselves -- and then they could need to be replaced or at least updated, at additional cost. It's true that the government --both state and federal -- have incentive plans for solar, but those plans' benefits are in tax credits. If you're a school district -- we don't pay federal or state tax -- then the subsidies and tax credits wouldn't do us any good. Instead, a company like Verterra gets the tax credits, is able to sell us power at a more attractive rate, and still makes their own profit.

How much money could the school district save? Not that much. Approx. $25,000 to $50,000 per year. That's not nothing, but it's not a tremendous savings. You don't undertake a project like this solely for the financial savings. But there are other benefits -- doing the right thing for the planet, being good "green" citizens, modeling eco-smart behavior for our students, as well as creating learning opportunities for kids. Through a web-based "dashboard" or kiosks in the schools, Verterra is able to provide functionality that would let students monitor the panels in real-time, to see how much power is being generated, and use real data from our system to learn about energy. That's a neat benefit as well.

The proposal is being evaluated by the administration and Board. More info to come.

Dad's Night is here again, do you remember when...

2011-03-01T20:18:00.004-05:00

One of the best traditions in town...Somerville-Hawes Dad's Night is March 10-11 at BF Middle School

Friday, March 11 at 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 12 at 4 p.m.
Benjamin Franklin Middle School
Free Admission

Wow – 67 years strong! This timeless tradition boasts 230+ dads who will don costumes, build sets, and deliver ridiculous and creative scripts to rowdy and appreciate audiences of neighbors, kids and friends. Sponsors in the Dad’s Night Ad Journal and money collected during intermission will solely benefit Hawes and Somerville Elementary Schools, and the kids! Last year, approximately $30,000 was raised and the funds paid for Smartboards, an interactive Science Day, Robotics Club and new playground equipment additions. This year’s donations will fund special programming and much needed infrastructure at the two schools.

My husband loved his time in Dad's Night. Over the years he was one of Robin Hood's Merry Men, a Desperate Medieval Housewife, Dory the fish from Finding Nemo, a random coconut-bra-and-grass-skirt-wearing islander...and he loved every single minute!

Come out and see Dad's Night. You won't forget it!

Solar power on the agenda tonight.

2011-02-28T09:11:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention in my previous post regarding tonight's agenda, that the Board will be hearing a presentation about a solar power program for our schools. We've been discussing the plan in the Facilities Committee for several months, so I'm looking forward to a conversation with the full Board and with the public. Stay tuned...

BOE meeting Monday night.

2011-02-27T22:29:00.002-05:00

There’s a lot going on at tomorrow’s Board of Ed meeting. We haven’t met for three weeks, so the agenda’s a little more full than typical. Full agenda here. A few highlights:

The Ridgewood Education Foundation will be presenting its Spring 2011 grant awards. The grants total $12,905 and the recipients are programs at RHS, Willard, Travell, Hawes, Ridge and Somerville.

Dr. Fishbein will update the Board on the 2009-10 Audit Report and Corrective Action Plan. Presumably we’ll hear how the software corrections are coming to correct the reporting glitches.

We’ll get a report on the Community Planning event that was held last month. That was such an interesting experience, I’m looking forward to seeing the ideas and suggestions put together into a report, and using the findings to inform our priorities for the coming few years.

The 2011-12 budget will be updated. Hopefully you saw Dr. Fishbein’s column in last Friday’s Ridgewood News, where he outlined the upcoming budget process, including opportunities for public input. (The online story (see link) includes a chart showing Ridgewood's financial efficiency compared to other districts.) Tomorrow night, the Board will be asked to approve the Preliminary Budget, which we must do in order to make the deadline for submitting to the Executive County Superintendent. The Preliminary budget is just that – not set in stone. I’m sure you heard about the approx. $850,000 in state aid coming to Ridgewood for next year. Before you start dreaming about where to spend this “windfall,” keep in mind that our initial budget showed a $650,000 deficit, so we’ll have to fill that hole first. Not sure what the administration is going to recommend with the rest. We’ll see tomorrow night.

We’ll have some more discussion on the updated Fields Use Policy, talking about questions and feedback we have and which we’ve received from the public.

Those are the meeting highlights. (You can watch live online by clicking here.) In terms of my personal BOE activity this week, I’ll be at Monday’s meeting, an Executive Session to discuss negotiations, Fields Committee meeting Wednesday morning, a webinar on social media in schools, and Federated HSA meeting on Thursday.

Governor Christie and Education Commissioner Cerf unveil NJ tenure reform proposal.

2011-02-16T22:46:00.005-05:00

I don't have time right now to write a full reporting of the Governor's proposals announced today, but I wanted you to know about them ASAP. Thus, the following is reprinted from the blog New Jersey Left Behind. I'll share my own thoughts shortly:

This afternoon Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf gave a briefing on the Christie Administration’s five-part tenure reform proposal. Legislative language will be released in two weeks. Here’s the skinny; I’ll fill in the details tomorrow.

1) Teacher Evaluations: currently teacher evaluations are subject to collective bargaining in local districts. According to the proposal, the Department of Education will craft a state-wide evaluation form that bases 50% of a teacher’s rating on student growth (measured by standardized tests) and 50% on best practices. This new instrument will not be subject to negotiations between local unions and school districts. Other tenured employees – principals, child study team members, custodians, secretaries – will be unaffected by this legislation.

2) Tenure: teachers will be judged to be highly effective, effective, partially effective, or ineffective. These measurements will be wholly based on student learning. A teacher will be awarded tenure after three consecutive years of effective teaching. If a previously-tenured teacher amasses two consecutive years of ineffective ratings, he or she will revert to non-tenure status.

3) Mutual Consent: currently teachers can be placed in a school regardless of whether the building principal considers that teacher to be effective. The proposed legislation eliminates that practice. If a school within a district closes or is replaced, both the teacher and principals must mutually agree on a teacher’s placement within that school. If either party rejects the placement, then the teacher retains employment rights within the district for a full year and the district must assist the teacher in placement. If, however, the teacher is still not placed within a year then he or she will go on unpaid leave.

4) “Last In, First Out” (LIFO): under current law, when a district lays off teachers due to shrinking enrollment or funds then seniority dictates the order of job loss and it is illegal to consider teacher effectiveness. This proposal mandates that districts take into account teacher effectiveness when deciding on lay-offs.

5) Compensation: all districts base teacher compensation on years served and degrees earned. This new proposal dictates that the primary factor in salary is student growth. Teachers would also receive higher salaries by teaching in high-needs districts, teaching in hard-to-staff disciplines (math, science, special education), and by graduating from a teaching college with proven methods that advance student learning.

I know I said I'd share my opinions soon, and I'd like to give a more thoughtful response, but off the bat I can report that while I'm all for demanding quality from our teachers, I'm troubled by the emphasis on standardized tests and "student growth" as such a primary way to measure teacher effectiveness. More on the pitfalls of that to come...

District considers a Facebook page.

2011-02-16T20:10:00.003-05:00

At the last Board of Ed meeting on February 7, we spoke a bit about the District creating a Facebook page. It's something we've been discussing in the Communications Committee and I've personally been advocating for it for over a year. We brought it up at the BOE meeting to just let the community know we're thinking about it. So far, the response has been very positive. I've heard from several people who think it's a great idea to get information out to the community -- as well as offering the potential for comments and/or questions from community members.

The Ridgewood News featured an op-ed piece supporting the idea of a Facebook page for Ridgewood Public Schools.

Many, many Ridgewood residents are on Facebook, with a large percentage of them interacting with Facebook in some way, several times each day. Having a page for the District just gives us one more way to communicate with people where they are...in a way that they may choose to communicate. The viral nature of Facebook allows us to spread information in an organic and easy fashion -- friend to friend to friend.

The intention would be for the Facebook page to augment our other communications channels, including the District website, eNews, the press and the occasional District "Newsline." The page could feature announcements of upcoming school events, reminders, snow day announcements, photos from construction projects, links to interesting stories about education or teaching, and links to news about legislation impacting schools.

The main concern expressed at the meeting last week was in establishing responsibility for the page. Our administrative staff is already stretched thin...does updating and monitoring a Facebook page add too much? Personally, I know from my own Facebook use that it shouldn't take but a few minutes each day. But we don't know for sure, and it is smart to think it through before we start down some path we can't sustain.

The idea of adding the Facebook page is somewhat of a big deal...and yet not really a big deal. It's just one more communication tool. But it does represent the District working to engage with the community on the community's terms. It also helps us model good digital citizenship for our students and their parents.

We'll continue discussing the Facebook page in the coming weeks and I'll post an update here (and on Facebook!) when there's news to report.

Race to Nowhere to be shown again Feb. 28; Producer will lead post-screening discussion

2011-02-16T11:14:00.002-05:00

Nearly 600 Ridgewood parents turned out in December to view and discuss the educational documentary film, RACE TO NOWHERE. Additionally, the film was shown to the entire faculty at Ridgewood High School. The film’s producer, Vicki Abeles, followed the strong response from our community and has planned a visit to Ridgewood to continue the dialog. On February 28th at 7:00 PM at the Benjamin Franklin Auditorium, Vicki Abeles will host a screening of RACE TO NOWHERE and lead a discussion. All members of the community are invited, but according to a recent email from the RHS HSA, Ms. Abeles is most interested in hearing from RHS students. Parents are asked to encourage their teen children to attend.

Personally, I think the parents who most need to attend the screening are parents of elementary school children. The attitudes and practices that are criticized or questioned by the film are attitudes and practices that begin when children are in elementary school. By the time our kids are in high school, frankly, the damage has been done. (That's not to say certain aspects can't be "undone." It's never too late to chill out!)

Following is additional background on the film, from promotional materials:

Vicki Abeles, a concerned mother turned filmmaker, in RACE TO NOWHERE, aims her camera at the high-stakes, high-pressure culture that has invaded schools and the lives of children, creating unhealthy, disengaged and stressed-out youth. Featuring the stories of young people in all types of communities who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, RACE TO NOWHERE is a call to action to challenge current assumptions on how best to prepare the youth of America to become healthy, bright, and contributing citizens.

RACE TO NOWHERE examines what is happening to students as a result of current policies and practices that focus on testing, performance and competition rather than meaningful teaching and learning. The film gives voice to those who are most affected by education policies – the students and teachers themselves. The film empowers everyone to get involved and take ownership of what’s happening in our schools and communities.

Admission is free of charge.

RHS student scientists.

2011-02-14T00:35:00.002-05:00

I’m back! Actually, I wasn’t really gone, at least not physically. But I was seriously underwater on way too many projects for my clients. As a long-time freelancer, I learned long ago that there is really no such thing as saying “no” to one’s clients. In this competitive marketplace and slow economy, I can’t afford to lose any work, so…when it rains it pours and all I can do is hang on and focus. This week, I'm done with a couple of projects, soI can breathe a bit more. I’ve got some catching up to do on blog posts.

First up: science! At last week’s Board of Ed meeting, we heard about an amazing program happening at the high school. Last year, students working in partnership with Stevens Institute of Technology under a grant from the National Science Foundation created solar cells using the juice from blueberries and the powder from powdered donuts. They showed the working solar cells at Super Science Saturday last March. This year, approximately 50 students in several teams are creating a water splitter. The naturally-created solar cells will power the water splitter, which will create hydrogen gas (the cleanest form of energy in existence).

This is real science, people. I love that this project is so popular at RHS, with all 50 students participating after school and during lunch – on their own time. What a great project and a testament to the RHS teachers who are inspiring them. Can’t wait to see this new project (creating hydrogen energy, really) on display at this year’s Super Science Saturday on March 12. (More info click here.)

Thank you, Ridgewood! Thank you, Jamboree!

2011-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

Once again, I had a great time with our annual Board of Ed cameos in Jamboree. Last night was the last night of the four-night run of “That's Life.” As you can see, they did another great job of dressing us up in embarrassing costumes! (That's me and Michele Lenhard...Sheila Brogan and Bob Hutton were similarly decked out...Charlie Reilly was unable to join us.) That's OK, it's a great show, positive energy, remarkable talent (among the others, haha)…and a generous $65,000 raised for scholarship money for Ridgewood High School graduating seniors! Great job, everyone! As this remarkable tradition's last song goes, "Thank you, Ridgewood..."

What’s going on with the Board of Education this week?

2011-02-06T22:53:00.002-05:00

Here's a snapshot of some of the things going on with the BOE this week.

Regular Public Meeting Monday at 7:30. Some highlights from the agenda (click here for full agenda):

• Discussion of RHS partnership with Stevens Institute through the National Science Foundations GK12 program.

• Reps from the Joint Village-BOE Fields Committee will present the draft revision of the Fields Use Policy. This policy will specify hours of use and conduct of users, among other things, at athletic fields throughout the Village. (You can read the draft policy as part of the agenda -- click here.)

• Discussion of the Board's new Legislative Committee, which will involve BOE members and interested residents to follow legislative activities and inform and advise the Board and public about opportunities for advocacy on issues that affect Ridgewood students.

• Discussion of a possible page for Ridgewood Public Schools on Facebook.

I'll visit a couple of HSA meetings on Tuesday.

The Board's Negotiating Team will begin meeting with the REA regarding the teachers' and secretaries' contract.

Board members will make our annual cameo appearance in Jamboree, Wednesday-Saturday nights.

In other words, another busy week. Any questions or comments, please let me know.