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

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.

Budget and contract "news" is premature...and incorrect.

The other blog in town is erroneously reporting “BOE announces no raises for teachers and secretaries…” following the misleading report in Friday’s Ridgewood News that stated, “District administration has slated no raises for staff…” Let me just clarify something right now – the Board’s negotiations with the REA (teachers’ union) have not even started yet! The budget has not been created yet! This is an example of bad reporting that spreads through electronic media and takes on a life of its own.

Here are some facts:

The BOE’s negotiations with the Ridgewood Education Association will begin this month. The Board has been meeting in closed session to prepare, as has been announced in our public meeting notifications. There will be a process, obviously, and there will be proposals. But that negotiation, and the content of those proposals, will be confidential. They must be. Those are ground rules that the Board and the REA agree to. I know it can be hard for Ridgewood residents to not know, and to wonder what’s happening behind those closed doors, especially since the outcome of the negotiations will have such a direct impact on our community. But the negotiation process has to be confidential so that the parties can have direct and frank conversation with each other. “Negotiating in public” is not productive.

Believe me, when there is something to announce about the contract, we will announce it. But as of now, we haven’t even had our first meeting! Don’t you think it’s a little premature to “announce” contract terms? Please resist the urge to get riled up…my best advice would be to attend BOE meetings in-person or watch online so you can hear exactly what is said yourself. Any questions, feel free to email me or post them here.

A little bit later today I will clarify the budget discussion from last Monday night, which is where the phantom “freeze” reports originated.

A little clarity in reporting of administrators’ contract.

Friday’s Ridgewood News contained a letter to the editor that was a response to some one-sided reporting in the previous week’s edition: a classic example of two wrongs making something even more wrong (or something like that!).

The topic of both was the school district’s contract with the Ridgewood Administrators Association (RAA), which the BOE voted to approve at our meeting on October 18. Friday’s letter complained about the salary increases that were included in the contract. I would like to add a few facts that were left out of the original article, so that residents can form opinions that are more reflective of reality.

1. The Nov. 5 article focused only on increases – it did not list any of the concessions made by the RAA. All together, if you add up any increases and subtract any decreases in compensation, the net increase in the cost of the total contract is approx. 2.1%.

2. The salary increases included in the contract range from 2.5% to 4.0%.

3. The contract also includes concessions on the part of the RAA, the most significant of which being that all members will now pay 1.5% of their salaries toward healthcare premiums.

4. The RAA contract was negotiated before the district learned of cuts in state aid last spring. The Memorandum of Agreement with the RAA was signed on March 10. We learned about our 100% aid cut of approx. $3 million on March 17. I’m not sure why it takes until October to actually have a signed and approved contract, but that’s what happened. What we approved on October 18 was something that was negotiated and to which we agreed in another era – the era back when we used to receive aid from the state. Despite the seemingly short timeframe, today's world is a very different world.

I believe that negotiating these terms with the RAA has no negative bearing on our strength in negotiating the REA’s (teachers’) contract this year. Speaking for myself (because I'm not allowed, by law, to speak for the BOE), I promise that I will be, in the words of Friday's letter-writer, “strong, will pay attention to the costly details and will keep the contract fair and affordable.”

Count on this: no easy solutions in the effort to evaluate teachers.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

This quote is usually attributed to Albert Einstein (although I couldn’t find any proof of his writing or saying it). It’s an interesting and valid thought. And it’s often mentioned in the nationwide conversation about teacher performance and test scores.

Last Wednesday’s New York Times contained the story, “When Does Holding Teachers Accountable Go Too Far?” I found it to be a good review of some of the challenges faced by educators who, with budget-driven urgency, are trying anew to determine the best way to evaluate teachers (and, it follows, to better connect performance with compensation). The story’s main focus was the concept of measuring “value-added data” for teachers. This is a statistical technique where student test scores are analyzed, measuring improvement from when a teacher started teaching the student to when he/she completed the year. According to the theory, the change in test scores is a measure of the “value” added by the teacher: more increase = more value added and, it follows, better teaching.

The Los Angeles Times recently analyzed seven years of elementary school test scores and created a ranking of 6,000 teachers. “The newspaper named a few teachers — both stars and laggards — and announced that it would release the approximate rankings for all teachers, along with their names.”

The Los Angeles Times articles got teachers riled up, the union called for a boycott of the paper, but...the union also said, more calmly, that they’re willing to discuss making such scores at least a part of teachers’ evaluations. That’s encouraging.

The critics of value-added data point to some real limitations. According to the NY Times, “scores can bounce around from year to year for any one teacher...so a single year of scores — which some states may use for evaluation — can be misleading. In addition, students are not randomly assigned to teachers; indeed, principals may deliberately assign slow learners to certain teachers, unfairly lowering their scores. As for the tests themselves, most do not even try to measure the social skills that are crucial to early learning.” And, thinking about Ridgewood, what about teachers who are already very successful or whose students begin at fairly high-achieving levels? If your students already score very high, and there’s not much higher for them to go, is it fair to judge that teacher as not “adding value?” This is exactly what happened to Ridgewood in last year’s state QSAC evaluation – the District received a lower score in student achievement because our test scores didn’t improve enough. But it was physically impossible for our scores to improve that much – they would have had to have been higher than 100% perfect.

Some educators feel that value-added data can probably help identify the best and the worst teachers, but probably won’t help much in truly evaluating teachers in the middle. Other educators have suggested using the value-added data on the school level, without tying the scores to individual teachers' names. I agree with the NY Times’ writer’s feeling that an important first step would be for us all to agree that no system will ever be perfect. No system can do it all. And, personally, I will never feel good about placing too much emphasis on standardized tests, especially when the tests we have are so imperfect.

The New Jersey Department of Education recently announced a special committee that will be working on teacher evaluation. The big deal, according to them, is that the committee contains teachers, administrators, school board members, legislators, "experts," etc. An apparently inclusive group that will calmly and rationally research and develop some solutions. When I heard they wanted school board members, I immediately tried to volunteer. Turns out, their idea of school board representation was that a staffer from the New Jersey School Board Association will participate. Darn.

Clearly, parents and communities want their schools to be accountable. I believe teachers want to be accountable. It’s in our human nature to rank things, to create order, to understand the value (relative or intrinsic) in everything we do. Test scores are such a seemingly easy solution – what could be more cut and dried than numbers? “The scores don’t lie,” sounds so simple. But aren’t there more things that “count?” Can’t we find a way to wrap our human brains around the concept of things that can’t be counted?

Something to think about as we begin the new school year – a school year in which a new contract will be negotiated with our Ridgewood teachers.

Have a great first day of school tomorrow!

Law & Order: Special Teachers Unit.

What a coincidence. Tonight I’m in a hotel room prior to a meeting with a client tomorrow, so I sat down to do another read through of the District’s contract with the Ridgewood Education Association (REA = teachers). Just a little light reading. I also had to watch the series finale of Law & Order – the last episode ever of one of my favorite shows. I love the “ripped from the headlines” stories. As I’m watching the episode develop, I realize just which headlines this episode was ripped from. The bad guys in tonight’s Law & Order? The teachers’ union! Wow, they really went for it, too. In a nutshell, the plot involved an impending school bombing (which the detectives discovered by reading a blog, btw), and they figure out it’s a teacher making the threats. But the teacher’s union reps will not help the police find the identity of the bomber. They plead with various union leaders, lawyers and teachers, to no avail. The union head actually uses lines like, “Sorry, I’ve got to enforce the terms of the association’s agreement.” And then DA Jack McCoy yells at the union lawyer “We’re trying to save lives here…get out of my way!” Wow. Symbolism much? In the end, one brave teacher gave up the bad guy’s name, the frustrated teacher/bomber (who was upset about being wrongfully accused of assaulting a belligerent student) was captured, the police saved the day, and all ended well. It was a great episode and just reinforces how issues of teacher contracts, compensation, benefits, performance, evaluation, tenure, etc., are such hot topics of conversation. I mean, once you play a major role in a Law & Order storyline, you’ve become fully ensconced in the zeitgeist. And I thought it was pretty crazy that I happened to be reading our teachers’ contract at the same time.

By the way, there always seems to be a feeling of mystery surrounding the teachers’ contract. While negotiations are usually confidential, and while Board conversations regarding negotiations happen in closed-door Executive Sessions, the actual contract itself is a public document. You can read our current REA contract (as well as the RAA contract, RAES contract and Dr. Fishbein’s Superintendent’s contract) on the District website (click here).

If you’re interested in learning more about teachers’ contracts in general, I can recommend two very interesting websites:

TR3: Teacher Rules, Roles and Rights
In 2007, the National Council on Teacher Quality launched the database "TR3" which catalogs teachers contracts in the nation's largest school districts and allows users to analyze contracts from 100 districts in 50 states along major dimensions. The database has been hailed as a landmark step forward in understanding the role of contracts in the development and reform of human resources policies in education.

Explainer: Understanding Teacher Contracts
This interactive "explainer" puts two teacher contracts side by side so that readers can see what these often mysterious documents look like, and compares the differences and similarities in layman's terms in 10 key areas such as teacher pay, evaluation, the rights of teachers' unions, etc. It also includes a brief history of teachers' collective bargaining.

I found both of these sites to be really interesting and helpful, especially in providing perspective and a look at alternative approaches to common issues.

As conversations about teacher contracts unfold and become more significant across the country, in New Jersey, and here in Ridgewood, understanding what contracts actually contain and how they differ from one another will help everyone -- from BOE members to administrators, staff, parents and taxpayers -- to make sense of competing claims and to evaluate various policies and terms.

Glen Rock teachers agree to pay freeze.

Reprinted from Bergen Record, www.northjersey.com, 4/12/10

In a bold move going against the grain of the state’s teacher’s union, the Glen Rock Education Association (GREA) agreed Monday to take a pay freeze for the 2010/2011 school year.

In exchange, the BOE agreed not to outsource any custodial positions for at least one year.

"I cannot tell you how grateful we are, and the entire town of Glen Rock should be, that our teachers have proven once again that they do put the welfare of our children and this district paramount in their thinking," said BOE Vice President Barbara Steuert, a member of the negotiation committee.

Meanwhile, the Glen Rock Administrators Association will also agree to a wage freeze – meaning that all employees in the district will be working at the current salaries in the next school year.

On March 31, the BOE voted 5-3-1 against ratifying a tentative agreement it reached with the GREA in February after more than two years of negotiations. The agreement was reached before school officials learned the district would receive no state financial aid for 2010-11. At the March 31 meeting, Superintendent of Schools Dr. David Verducci and Business Administrator Michael Rinderknecht agreed to take pay freezes, and some BOE members asked the district’s teachers to make similar concessions.

On Monday night, the BOE voted 8-0-1 in favor of the revised agreement. Trustee Carlo Cella III, whose wife is a teacher in the district, abstained. The mood at the meeting was jovial, with rounds of applause coming from the audience of mostly parents and teachers after the announcement.

GREA President Sue McBride said the teachers voted "in a significant majority" to support the revised contract at its meeting on Monday afternoon, and called her membership’s decision "magnanimous."

"They acted with grace under pressure, keeping in mind the students, programs and schools of Glen Rock, and also with hopes of saving the jobs of colleagues," she said.

McBride said that although the state teacher’s union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), had advised the GREA to "stand up to the bullying of the governor," Glen Rock had been in a unique position.

"There were a lot of things in play here: protracted bargaining, significant cuts in the budget and an upcoming [public] vote," McBride said. "At the end of the day, it’s the [local] membership’s vote. The NJEA respects that."

A spokesperson for NJEA could not be reached for comment at press time.

Rinderknecht said the pay freezes from the GREA will save the district about $800,000, and the freeze from the administrators association should save approximately $35,000. Further, in exchange for pay freezes, Governor Chris Christie offered last month to give districts the money the state would save on Medicare and Social Security tax contributions — an amount that would provide 7.65 percent in extra aid for every dollar gained in savings.

Steuert emphasized that the BOE will "do our best to focus the reinstatement on classrooms."

Verducci underlined that even with the concessions, there was still an $857,000 budget shortfall in Glen Rock, and the district’s list of cuts will still be applied.

"But based on the concessions of all employees, that list would get dramatically shrunk," Verducci said.

Rinderknecht said such a jostling of the budget leading into a school election was unprecedented.

"I’ve been in the business 30 years and I’ve never seen this before," he said. "We’re freeing up money where we can bring back lost positions, but post-election, so the cart’s in front of the horse. We’re going to try to spare as many positions as possible with the monies that were freed up."

The district’s agreement with the GREA includes pay increases already negotiated for most employees for each school year from June 2008, when the union’s previous contract expired, to this year. The district anticipated those pay increases in its 2008-09 and 2009-10 budgets, and the raises will be applied retroactively.

Steuert added that the new agreement includes some pay adjustments for the top tier of teachers, so that no employee would be paid less after healthcare premium adjustments were made.

Frustration 101.2

I wanted to follow up a tiny bit on my expression of frustration at the REA’s non-ratifying of a concession to help with the 2010-11 budget. Based on some comments I’ve heard, I want to make something very clear:

I appreciate our teachers.

I respect our teachers.

I think our teachers are, on the whole, excellent.

I appreciate all the work our teachers do, every day.

I also appreciate their stated willingness to work together.

After that, my appreciation gets a little wobbly.

But I can’t say this enough...my frustration has nothing to do with the quality of our teachers or their teaching. Some people, in other venues, confuse the issues, and somehow the idea of contract concessions becomes intertwined with tenure and good teachers vs. bad or tired teachers. That’s not correct, and that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m frustrated, as a taxpayer, with the lack of “working together.” The lack of shared sacrifice. I’m frustrated that (fill in the blank) program is being cut so that full raises can be paid. I just don’t think that’s right.

What I do think is right is paying teachers well...as well as we can afford to pay them.

And the political volleys continue.

It's really sick how our children's educations are being tossed around like a political football by both Governor Christie and the leadership of the NJEA. Yesterday Christie dangled a little, tiny carrot to teachers -- if you agree to a salary freeze then your district might get some of its state aid money back. Wow, sounds exciting, right? Don't be fooled. Based on the information given by the state, Ridgewood would potentially receive about $75,000 back in state aid. What's that, a single teacher? Not much of a carrot.

More noise from Trenton that truly has no relevance to Ridgewood.

See you at tonight's BOE meeting/Budget Hearing.

Frustration 101.

Here’s a little local Jeopardy question for the day...

Answer:
Bridgewater-Raritan
West Windsor-Plainsboro
West Essex
Montclair
Boonton
Metuchen
But not Ridgewood.

Question:
Which districts’ teachers agreed to give up a portion of their contractual pay increases in order to stave off devastating budget cuts that would eliminate long-standing programs and force the layoff of dozens of teachers?

I’m so disappointed. Defeated. Depressed. Disgusted. Frustrated. And insulted.

In my opinion, which I remind you again is not the official opinion of the Board of Education, we will now be cutting programs in order to finance contractual raises for 2010-2011.

At the moment, we are not a community.

We faced an attack on our schools, on our values and on our traditions. And we were not able to join together in strength to withstand the assault. We did not come together as a community, with shared sacrifices and strengthened bonds. Nope.

This is not about the NJEA, Christie, Trenton, politics or the teaching profession in general. This is about Ridgewood. Things definitely need to change, but I submit that those changes need to start on the local level, beginning with how we view our relationships within the district. We need to work together...no one outside of Ridgewood is more vested in the outcome than those of us inside Ridgewood.

Those are just my emotional, immediate, politically incorrect thoughts on this dark, rainy morning. My next steps are to look forward, let this go (for now) and focus on the final budget to be voted upon by the BOE tomorrow night. I may be frustrated and sad, but I still believe in the power of this district -- the students, the parents, the administration and still the staff -- to cope with the changes to our programs and to continue to deliver an excellent education. What other choice to we have but to go forward and make it happen?

* Update 3/31/10 @ 9:00 AM: Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association did reach a Memorandum of Agreement, but as of this morning their official vote results have not been released. Should know more today.

Update 3/31/10 @ 1:22 PM: Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association voted yes and ratified the concessions for their budget.

Out of town but not out of mind.

I was hoping that an out-of-state soccer tournament this weekend would give me a break from the relentless budget process. And while it was helpful to have some different vistas and some (very cold) fresh air on the sidelines, my super-connectedness made it hard to leave Ridgewood’s school budget troubles behind. With my cell phone receiving emails, tweets, texts, Facebook messages and local news headlines, the communication and comments from the public just kept (and keep) pouring in.

The main messages I’m receiving from community members are (in random order):

Fifth Grade Instrumental Music – please don’t cut it.

Librarians – please don’t cut them.

Taxes – please don’t raise them (I can’t afford to pay any more).

Taxes – please raise them (I’m willing to pay more to keep programs/teachers).

Reading Recovery – please don’t eliminate it.

Art – please don’t cut it.

Public Information Officer – please don’t cut it. We need communications now more than ever.

Administration – please cut more.

LDTCs and Supplemental Teachers – please don’t cut them.

Teachers – please renegotiate their contract and freeze or otherwise reduce their salary increase and/or benefits.

Thank you for your hard work and good luck making the tough budget decisions. There was actually one email like this today – and I really, truly appreciated it.

As for the individual cuts and the decisions to prioritize them, all of us on the Board have opinions and thoughts on what will be best for the district, given the unavoidable requirement to cut the budget. The superintendent and other administrators also have opinions and recommendations. This Wednesday, we’ll have to finalize the budget, after we know 1) what our new insurance premium will be (a somewhat lower-than-expected premium increase looks promising!), and 2) whether or not the members of our largest bargaining unit – the REA – agree to any concessions. At the 3/31 public meeting, we’ll discuss the budget cuts, prioritize them if necessary, and make any decisions required to meet the budget number.

As for the REA, I admit that I do not understand union psychology. It baffles me that our teachers – whom I generally love and respect – could possibly expect us to solve our most imminent financial crisis without their participation in the solution. As a Board member, it’s frustrating to not have “all hands on deck” and even more frustrating to make such deep cuts on some lines, while other lines (salaries and benefits) are untouched.

As a taxpayer, it’s insulting to think that while my husband was laid off for four months, and I was involuntarily cut to part time, and many of my friends and neighbors are in similarly dire straits, when we ask part of the community for help to solve our shared school budget problem, the answer is “no.”

I’m not understanding the value of the local union. Shouldn’t the community solve the community’s problems? Why should the state organization have influence over decisions made by the local union for the good of the local schools? We should circle the wagons and defend our district, our tradition of excellence, from outside pressures. If the NJEA leadership wants to do battle with Governor Christie, go ahead, but don’t use my children’s education as your weapon.

Anyway, the Board will hold our Regular Public Meeting and official Public Hearing on the Budget this Wednesday 3/31 at 7:30 p.m. in the RHS Campus Center. The 2010-11 budget, along with the current list of proposed cuts, can be found on the District website (click here).

Shortest meeting on record?

If you attended tonight’s Board of Ed meeting, or if you watched online or on Channel 77, you may have been surprised at how, well, uneventful the meeting was. First of all, the meeting was scheduled for 5:00 p.m. but didn’t start until around 5:45. Then, after the Pledge of Allegiance and comments from four members of the community, Dr. Fishbein made a brief statement, and then the meeting was adjourned. What was that all about?

Well, as Dr. Fishbein stated, we have a couple of things developing in terms of the budget. First, the District received some promising information from a new health insurance vendor and it looks like we will be able to cut some from the benefits line of the new budget. We are waiting to have the exact quote in writing, any day now. Second, we are in conversations with the REA (hence our late arrival at the Board table). In light of those two developments, we will be reprioritizing the list of cuts and preparing the final budget for next Wednesday’s official Public Hearing and the Board’s approval. It did not make sense to discuss the cuts any further -- nor to discuss the tax increase or potential for a waiver -- while things are in possible flux.

I do apologize to those who were waiting for us at 5:00. Our Executive Session meeting lasted longer than expected. Thank you for your patience.

The next meeting will be Wednesday, March 31, at 7:30 p.m. in the RHS Campus Center.

Higher taxes OK to save programs?

Quick note from a rest stop on the Mass Pike, heading back to Ridgewood...

One of the things the BOE is wrestling with is -- should we go with a waiver to raise taxes above the 4% cap, in order to reduce so e of the cuts in the school budget? I'm getting emails all day on both sides.

Many parents say "do it" -- they're willing to pay another 1% or 2% to "keep our schools great."

some other parents are saying "no way!" we can't afford any more taxes!

Others worry about seniors and others on a fixed income.

Others say grow the budget as much as possible now, so that when Trenton imposes the 2.5% "hard" cap next year, we'll have a larger base budget from which to start.

Still others say raise taxes more ONLY if there is some concession from teachers.

Thoughts anyone?

Fiscal responsibility.

A friend contacted me Friday night in response to an email I sent, encouraging residents to contact our legislators to complain about the state aid cut. Among other specific suggestions regarding healthcare and salaries, she mainly asked for fiscal responsibility. This was my response:

I can assure you we are doing or have already done many things in the name of fiscal responsibility. We have been searching for a new healthcare company and so far the companies are either declining to bid or the bids are coming in around the same place, which is an increase of 29.5% over last year's premium. Historically we have enjoyed very low increases -- last year was 2%. Over the past 10+ years increases have ranged from 2% to 14%. We occasionally compare to the state plan, but our numbers have always come out better. This year's huge increase is due to an extremely bad year for claims -- claims are running at 98% of premiums. When that happens, you can imagine the healthcare company needs to make a profit so they raise the rates next year. We are looking at a variety of alternatives. As you know, our healthcare plan is contractual, and we have one more year on the REA contract. The contract is binding: we can't do anything about it for 2010-11. I believe you're correct that the entire negotiation process is going to look very different next year.

Other things we have done to be fiscally responsible -- we privatized our custodial and transportation long ago. We dropped the extremely expensive Village as our landscaping provider last year. We have shared services agreements on office supplies and energy purchasing. We have reduced our energy costs dramatically over the past 10 years, even as we have added classrooms. We have created programs to keep special ed kids in the district, at great savings. To give credit where it's due, many of our teachers DO contribute to their healthcare, and we are one of the very few districts in the state where that is true. We also have some of the lowest administrative costs in the county and we are below the state average. That being said, we are going to be cutting administrators with this budget.

The elephant in the room is the REA (and our other bargaining units) and you are correct, we cannot continue like this. We have asked repeatedly, last year and this year, if they will open their contracts and help save the district (those are my words, not official ha). Last year we got a memorandum of agreement (unheard of in the state last year, and the unions' leadership deserves credit for this) but the members voted no. This year...well, now it is "come to jesus" time and they have a few days to step up, if they so desire. Sheila Brogan specifically asked at tonight's meeting if Dr. Fishbein would ask them once again. We will see what happens.

You are also correct that the quality of our education is at stake. We do have amazing staff and great students and a wonderful community and we will figure this out. It will be painful and there will be disagreements but I am an eternal optimist and I know we will go through the fire and come out the other side.

Sending emails to the legislators is probably futile but it's also something that can't hurt.

Ridgewood’s schools will be changed forever.

Sorry to be so dramatic, but I think that’s a fair statement. Ridgewood’s schools will be changed forever by yesterday’s announcement that our “categorical” state aid is being cut 100%, or $2.9 million, on top of the $3.34 million in cuts already required, to keep the budget “at cap.” Over $6 million in cuts at one time will undo much of what this community has worked very hard over many years to create. Will it also identify opportunities for efficiency or thinking outside the box? Sure. Will we recover and thrive again? Probably. Hopefully. But make no mistake, those efficiencies and outside-the-box ideas will come -- at least for a time -- at an actual price in terms of quality of education. Right now, the Ridgewood Tradition of Excellence is under attack.

As a taxpayer, I can feel some excitement at Sheriff (oops, Governor) Christie’s slash and burn attack on the status quo. Sure, I hate how high my property taxes are. New Jersey is broken and somebody needs to fix it. When left to their own devices over the years, our lawmakers were unable or unwilling to fix it themselves. But I have a question: why do we have to try and fix it all at once? Why do decades of state-level mismanagement have to be corrected on the backs of our children? How on earth do Governor Christie and Education Commissioner Schundler expect our school district to simply “cut” $6 million without severely impacting what happens in our classrooms every day? He wants to battle the NJEA – great idea, but unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, it will be our children who are collateral damage.

There are so many questions about what the Governor can and can’t realistically do. Yesterday’s speech was his proposed budget. It still needs to be approved by the legislature, by sometime in June. I’m fairly certain the lawsuits are already being prepared by urban districts scheduled to lose even more aid. But regardless of the questions and challenges, our local school district, like all the other districts, must adhere to our schedule, which culminates in a budget vote on April 20. The next step on that road is that somehow or other, the superintendent will present the Board and the public with a new budget this Monday night, reflecting the new cuts. Next week, we’ll hold three public meetings to discuss the budget, describe the cuts and answer questions. Please try to attend one of these sessions:

Tuesday March 23 @ 7:30 PM BF Middle School Auditorium
Wednesday March 24 @ 9:00 AM at GW Middle School Auditorium
Thursday March 25 @ 7:30 PM at Ridgewood High School Library

We are required to deliver the balanced budget to the County Superintendent on March 26.

Then, Wednesday March 31 @ 7:30 PM we’ll hold the official Public Hearing and the BOE will have to approve the budget at our regular meeting, at the Ed Center.

In the meantime, the blog New Jersey Left Behind put together an interesting survey of response to Christie’s speech from around the state. Click here to read.

I'm sorry for the delay in writing something about yesterday's news. I was quite honestly dumbfounded. And then I had a deadline for work. And then it was College Night at RHS with my son. It was eerie to walk around the gym, talking to college reps, and wonder what kind of students we'll be delivering to them in a few years.

I'm also sorry for the gloomy tone. I want to optimistic, as I usually am. I know this is a great community with a lot of smart people and good intentions. Of course, we'll survive. But it's going to take a long, hard effort from all of us.

Budget update

I went to the Somerville HSA meeting yesterday, and some of the (25-30) people there commented that the “budget presentation” on Monday night was not as detailed as what they had been expecting. We’ve been hearing for so long about the financial trouble that’s a-coming with this 09-10 budget and I really think people are getting fatigued by the stress of waiting for the bad news. I understand that. I know the district’s administrators have been working hard with principals and other administrators to come up with solutions for the anticipated budget gap. They’re looking at everything – with a total gap of about $2,400,000, we have to look at everything. They’re trying to keep the cuts away from the classroom as much as possible, but the changes will be noticed by all.

FYI, the Board did meet with our three unions – the REA (teachers), RAES (secretaries) and the RAA (administrators) -- and we asked them if they would open up their contracts and consider the possibility of concessions to help us meet the budget. To their credit, and in a move that was almost unprecedented in New Jersey, the associations' leaders were willing to talk, even though I would bet the NJEA strongly advised the REA against it. We even progressed to memoranda of agreement with all three groups, that would have saved the district a fair amount of money. The RAA ratified their new contract but, unfortunately, the REA and RAES members did not ratify the agreements for changes to their existing contracts. They said “no.” According to REA leaders Monday night, their members could not ratify because the district had not answered their questions. Unfortunately, their questions were things like (I'm paraphrasing), “If we agree to the concessions, can you guarantee that no more cuts will be made?” Or, “Will the district receive enough state aid (or Obama stimulus money) to make the concessions unnecessary?” Those questions simply cannot be answered. The state won't tell us about aid until at least 3/14. And the stimulus money...I'm not holding my breath on much of that coming to Ridgewood.

So Monday night, there was the budget in a sort of interim form, showing the expense categories and, for each, the budget for 08-09 and the proposed amount for 09-10. Down at the bottom was a line called “budget cuts” ($1.7 million). And at the very bottom was the remaining “shortfall,” which was about $500,000.

What’s next? The administration will keep looking for savings. They'll find them. And on March 9, the Board will be presented with the detailed budget, including an explanation of all proposed cuts. There will certainly be positions eliminated, and Dr. Fishbein explained that he wants to have conversations with the affected staff before the cuts are made public.

Tune in on March 9, after which we'll hear from the state around 3/16, we must submit the budget to the county superintendent around 3/19, we'll have the official public hearing around 3/30, and then in April there will be presentations at HSAs. Throughout there will undoubtedly be newspaper articles, etc. Finally, the election is April 21. This is going to be a tough time. It’s not going to be over April 21 nor soon after that. But what can we do but go forward?