A snapshot of Special Education in Ridgewood.

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.

Detailed referendum projects update (with photos!).

At last night's Board of Education meeting, representatives of our architect (LAN Associates) and construction management company (EPIC Construction) presented a detailed update of the referendum projects which have been completed, are in-progress right now, or are still to come.

A tremendous amount of work has ben done. (But then you may know that, if you've been trying to navigate the trucks, dumpsters, construction barriers, etc., all summer.

Click on the link below to download and view PDFs of the presentation and photos.

Some of my favorite photos you'll see:
-- Overhead drawing of the RHS roof showing just how much has been replaced;
-- Glen School window wall: before & after
-- Massive concrete slab at Hawes new addition
-- Mess of wires which was discovered inside the Ridge ceiling (and which then required the entire school to be completely rewired)
-- Willard School 2nd floor addition drawings

Referendum Update presented by Epic Management and LAN Associates at the 09-13-10 Board meeting.

Status Report - Athletic Field Projects presented by M. Disko at the 09-13-10 Board meeting.

FAQ #4: Why don't we just re-open Glen School?

Occasionally someone will ask, "We already have an entire school just sitting across Route 17...why don't we re-open Glen School and solve our overcrowding problem?" Here's why that doesn't work:

Glen School has 15 classrooms. Five are used by our RED special-needs preschool program (which we are required to offer), and the remainder are rented out to a childcare program. The current set-up is ideal, because our RED students are able to interact with the daycare students, thus meeting our obligation and desire to educate the RED students in the most inclusive environment possible. If Glen were converted to a regular elementary school, we would lose the income from the childcare rental, and we would still need a place to house our RED students.

Glen School does not have a cafeteria, nor a library. Nor is it up to current code. If we wanted to re-open it as an elementary school, we would need to do costly construction to fix those deficiencies.

Glen School also does not have a staff. If we were to open it, even if there were some way to re-deploy teachers throughout the district, we would still need to hire a principal, secretary, nurse -- and these would become recurring additional costs in our budget.

On top of all this, re-opening Glen would not address the space needs at GW, nor the very real renovations needed at RHS, nor the roofs at Travell & Hawes, nor the asbestos at Willard, nor the electrical issues at Ridge and GW...and not the athletic/wellness facilities, either. So all those expenses would still exist, on top of the cost to renovate Glen and then staff it.

So as attractive as it might seem, re-opening Glen would not be cost-free and would actually impact our budget year after year going forward.

Our growing school district: 2009-10 enrollment

As Dr. Fishbein reported at last night's meeting, here's a snapshot of enrollment school by school in Ridgewood, as of 9/9/09 and compared to one year ago (9/15/08):

2009 # (2008 #) Change +/-

Glen 36 (28) +8

Hawes 408 (406) +2

Orchard 323 (329) -6

Ridge 478 (474) +4

Somerville 533 (507) +26 (wow!)

Travell 410 (416) -6

Willard 456 (466) -10

Total Elementary: 2,644 (2,626) +18

BFMS 687 (690) -3

GWMS 675 (666) +9

Total Middle School: 1,362 (1,356) +6

RHS 1,666 (1,664) +2