Beginning March 2, 2015 children in grades 3 -11 will take a standardized online test called the PARCC.
It is extremely important that all families understand the enormous change that is coming about in the lives of our children. Your children will be anxious and will need your love and understanding more than ever before. The information in this post is intended to provide you with the information currently available about the experiment that is the PARCC online standardized test.
Save and read these documents thoroughly.
This is the latest OFFICIAL update on the PARCC from the NJ Department of Education. It contains comparisons between the PARCC TEST and the ones your children took in the past. (NJASK, HSPA) A letter from David Hespe, Commissioner of Education State of New Jersey.
If you are not refusing the Test, you must still actively participate in order to help your child do well. Please share this email with your friends and neighbors.
Your children will need more rest and support during this crucial time. Help them reduce this inevitable stress. You know what makes your child feel happy and secure.
Experts agree that teenagers and young children need 8-10 hours of sleep in order to be well rested and ready to perform.
If you transport your children to school, make sure that they are on time.They should get up earlier.
They should eat a good breakfast with as little sugar as possible.
If your child eats breakfast at school and takes the bus, pay close attention to the bus schedule. Make sure that the bus gets your child to school early enough to eat a breakfast low in sugar. A hungry child will not do well on the test.
Understand that the young children may not know how to communicate their feelings of stress and anxiety. (Grades 3-11 will be tested online.)
Look for signs of stress and allow your children time to decompress when they come home from school. A good cup of hot chocolate or whatever makes your child feel loved and nurtured will go a long way in helping them feel more confident.
Random hugs and kisses will definitely ease the anxiety.
Mr. Haughton. Please move their seats!.... They are like 2 children in a classroom who crave
attention. The behavior is annoying and impairs one's ability to concentrate on the content of the meeting. It is also insulting since they appear to sleep through public comments.
"New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act, known as “The Sunshine
Law,” is designed to ensure that decision-making government bodies in the
state conduct their businesses in public except in specific circumstances
where exclusion of the public is needed to protect the privacy of
individuals, the safety of the public or the effectiveness of government in
such areas as negotiations or investigations."
In other words, all of that whispering during School Board Meetings is inappropriate
bordering on illegal.
Betty Griffin is sworn in by the Business Administrator, as is the custom in EPSD Reorganization Meetings. She is supported by her family? Whatever happened to the Press staying out of the photo? This was a photo opp for the man with the long gray hair? He was annoying.
Full Definition of AUTONOMY
1: the quality or state of being self-governing; especially : the right of self-government
Mayor Huttle swears in Stephen Brown
2: self-directing freedom and especially moral independence
3: a self-governing state See autonomy defined for English-language learners » See autonomy defined for kids » Examples of AUTONOMY
a teacher who encourages individual autonomy
The territory has been granted autonomy.
The Catalans take the matter of their language
very seriously; it is an outward indication of their
autonomy, of their distinction from the rest of Spain. —Polly Evans, It's Not About the Tapas, 2006
Autonomy in Englewood: The most obvious sign of autonomy in Englewood is the fact that the Budget of the School Board is separate from the budget of the Municipality. The City collects our tax dollars and most of it (over 60%) goes to the School District. Even though the money comes from the same pot (taxpayers). It is separate from the money used by the Municipality to pay for other services. The School Board is supposed to function independently from the City of Englewood. The New Jersey School Boards Association trains, or is supposed to train our school board members.
Mayor Frank Huttle III assured me that the City has absolutely nothing to do with the School Board. Too my knowledge, he never publicly addressed the situation. He told me on several occasions that the School Board and the City function separately. I became really tired of hearing the word Autonomous, because that is not what I saw and it is not what I see now.
In City Council Meetings, the 3rd Ward Councilman seizes every available moment to praise ourSchool Board as the best on the planet. No one is even allowed to complain about the school board. We have witnessed this same Councilman tell reporters what their next headlines will be where the school district is concerned. Meanwhile, our high school has been designated a Focus School (low achieving) and our test scores in Math and Literacy have been consistently falling since at least 2006. As long as northjersey.com publishes articles that show the district in a good light, these elected officials and others are totally satisfied. IMAGE is the thing.
January 7, 2015 - The Englewood School Board is Re-Organized
Those of you who did not attend the Reorganization of the Englewood Public School Board missed a rare show of unity and might from City Officials. The Bully Factor was alive and well and in the House. The Meeting was partially turned over to Frank Huttle III, who swore in the candidates that he supported. He invited the Board of Education to dinner so he could "Pay To Play." Very interesting. Howard Haughton explained at the end of the meeting that the Candidates had been given a choice as to whom they wanted to swear them in. Why were they given a choice? He explained that it was not illegal for the Mayor to swear in Board Members. It is not illegal, but is it appropriate? Are we beginning a new tradition with no pretense of separation of City and School Board? Did Stephen and Glenn decline the services of the Business Administrator in training
in order to help the Mayor kick off his campaign for re-election? So who is the boss? Who is on First? I am confused. The Superintendent did not speak. The Business Administrator's resignation becomes effective June 30, 2015.
Eugene Skurnick continued to make sure that we Peons understood whom he supports. The Press were so annoying in blocking shots of the action from the audience that I started taking photos of Mr. Skurnick taking photos.
The Third Ward Kitchen Cabinet/SEEK was in attendance. The Former Mayor Sondra Greenberg, The Gadfly, Suze Gamrin, the Liberals of old have dropped in number, but not in arrogance. The Mayor offered the Board of Education dinner and promised that they will not speak of school business. As if. At the same time he suggested that he is the one who will save the EPSD by finding a Superintendent. Keep in mind that hiring a Superintendent is the most important job of a School Board.
Eugene Skurnick once suggested that we old ones talk too much about what we want and that the young ones should make more of the decisions.
Okay, so why must we listen to him ramble on in a soliloquy about how Education used to be when his children attended school in Englewood? Change has come over the years. No manner of wishing will take things back to the way they used to be. These are the good old days and we must make the best of them for all of the children, not just the ones they want to teach.
The school District has changed. Our grandchildren will not be able to meet the challenges of a global society because key elected officials keep their fingers in the mix instead of allowing the professionals that we pay to do their jobs. SEEK Board Members STILL prevent 2 of their fellow Board Members from fulfilling their oath. For over a year we have been watching these Board Members sit out of Closed Session. The problems facing the Englewood Public School District will not be solved by the interference of Assemblymen or Mayors. The situation will not improve because the local publications sanitize the news. Our children are not being prepared as well as children from other school districts and that is a fact. At some point neglect becomes sabotage. Failure did not begin in 2013. Education and Children have not been a priority in this School District for many years. As a matter of fact, scores have been continually dropping since the referendum. No amount of wishing, turning a blind eye or head sticking in sand will change that. We are waiting with Baited Breath for Glenn Garrison, Stephen Brown and Henry Pruitt to do something really creative and positive that will increase the test scores of our children. They have all been in control for over a decade. We the People want all of our elected Board Members to Participate fully. We will not be hushed. Looking for Real Autonomy.
Student Participation in the Statewide Assessment Program
The most disturbing thing about this year's School Board Election is not that Stephen Brown and Glenn Garrison want more chances to rob the children of Englewood of their chances to compete in a global economy.
On May 25, 1961, renowned documentary photographer Bruce Davidson joined a group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Alabama to Mississippi
The most disturbing thing is the fact that Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson continues to allow his office to be used by the KITCHEN CABINET. They are not the only ones who voted for him. Some of us also voted for him.
Mr. Johnson, was that a COLD READING on that ROBO CALL? Did you even READ that pack of lies before you put it out there for all of us to hear. You are disgracing the office for which you were elected. You should cease at this very moment to allow your office to be used to spread such lies.
You are willing to sacrifice the SEEK colleagues who remain on the School Board and who have been making all of the decisions of which you speak. Smells like desperation to me.
I post at lot, yes, and some say I expose dirty laundry. Well, dirty laundry needs washing and hanging out to dry in the cold winter wind. Where is your documentation? Mine is included in the posts.
I am fighting to expose the lies that hold the children of Englewood hostage and while Academic Achievement drops through the floor.
I am fighting to redirect the taxpayer dollar towards the Academic Achievement of ALL Englewood Children.
This statement was written by a 7th grade child who attended the League of Women Voters
Candidate's Night with his parents on Thursday, October 30, 2014. When I learned that this young man was in attendance, I sent him a message and asked him to write his impressions of the Candidate's Forum. It is entitled, The Kid's Perspective.
"At
the debate Mr. Glenn Garrison made me very mad and made me feel to shout out
that his statements were false. Coming from a twelve year old kid means you can
infer about the lies he was telling. During his statements he was talking about
the buildings but mentioned nothing about the kids. That made me mad because
isn’t the board of EDUCATION supposed to be about the kids? Never talking about
the kids shows that he does not care for anything that is happening with the
school system. Making false statements that even kids can tell are lies? That
is just cold. He is trying to bring down the school systems and get all the
kids in our schools to go nowhere. And Mr. Stephen Brown agreeing with that? This
shows that neither of them care about our school system and are not trying to help
the families within the community. Helping the kids would open people up to new
opportunities but, with no help the kid have no connections and gets “stuck in
the mud” and is able not to escape. So, with that please do not vote for Glenn
Garrison and Stephen Brown who do not care about the kids, but want to gain
power and mess even more things up."
The land from the rear of McCloud School down to the railroad tracks as well as the land on which Grieco School stands was given to the Englewood Board of Education for one dollar by Malcolm S. Mackay and his wife Helen Raynor Mackay. This Deed is dated March 18th 1922. Below is an excerpt from this deed. This deed was on file at the County and has been part of the public record for nearly 100 years.
"...This conveyance is made upon the express conditions that the property hereby conveyed shall be used for such public purposes as the said Board of Education shall deem advisable. In the event however, that the Board of Education deems it inadvisable to use said property for school, park or athletic purposes then the title to this property shall revert to the City of Englewood to be used for the purposes of a public park and in no case shall the said property or any part thereof be used for commercial or business purposes..."
The excerpt above is what is called a DEED RESTRICTION.
Note that on the application below someone checked no to the question asking if there were DEED RESTRICTIONS on the property.
"The Board of Education saves money by performing all of its own maintenance and not outsourcing the work to contractors. As a consequence, the Board needs additional space to store its maintenance equipment. The City's Department of Public Works also makes use of the Board's equipment. Thus, the construction of a maintenance shed would benefit both the school and the community."
Glenn Garrison was sworn in and gave what appears to be false testimony to the Board of Adjustment on August 19, 2010. Below are minutes from a regular meeting of Englewood's Board of Adjustment.
"...Sworn in and giving testimony was Glenn Garrison, member of the Englewood Board of Education. Mr. Garrison gave testimony regarding the structure of the board of education. Mr. Garrison stated that all school land is considered parkland. The BOA is responsible for snow removal, shoveling, equipment and all school buses..."
The child's words ring true in so many ways. The money spent on the million dollar shed could be used to build more classrooms at Quarles School where they have trailers. It could also be used to build a place for the Eagle Program students who have been kept in substandard temporary buildings for nearly 10 years. In statements at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Stephen Brown chastised the present Board Members for keeping children in temporary school buildings. Stephen and Glenn blame 3 new Board Members for this situation, but I have watched their remaining SEEK Colleagues control the vote for the last year.
Their SEEK Colleagues are the ones who created the need for the trailers, when they failed to consider recommendations made by the Principal of Quarles School. It suits their purposes to anger the residents surrounding the Quarles school so that they may collect their votes later.
Meanwhile, this shed/office building is supposed to be a prefabricated building seated on a concrete slab. Take a walk over and judge for yourself. Is that what you see? It is planned to have 3 bathrooms, an office, a break room and a 2nd floor mezzanine. Since when does a shed used for storage need a mezzanine. It also seems they have decided to add a basement. Go look for yourself.
The 2 bathrooms with outside access are said to be used by the Little League Field. This is supposed to give the building Recreation Status. Supposedly, this recreation status is what got them the variance approval. Good try, but no cigar. Little League is not Recreation. It is a Private entity. Are they renting the field? That constitutes a business deal. The rental of parking spaces to the hospital also constitutes a business deal. I see that as a Violation of a DEED RESTRICTION, just like selling those 2 houses were also part of the DEED RESTRICTION.
The plans say that the building is to be used by 16 grounds and maintenance personnel. The grounds and maintenance personnel are employed by Pritchard. We have only 1 employee engaged in that type of work and that is Michael Hunken. I do believe that even Mr. Hunken's Secretary is employed by Pritchard. I mean, she must be, since the Englewood Public School District abolished the position of Secretary in August of 2012 along with the position of Paraprofessional. These positions were outsourced like the positions of custodian, grounds and maintenance people.
I already had these documents in my possession when I asked the Board of Education who was responsible for grounds work and maintenance. I already knew that Pritchard handles all grounds and maintenance work. Before Pritchard, there was a company named Control.I know custodians, maintenance and grounds workers who loss their jobs when these services were outsourcedover 20 years ago. Yet, page 5 of the variance application above states specifically that "the Board saves money by performing all of its own maintenance and not outsourcing the work to contractors."
Watch the video and learn who is really
responsible for grounds work since
the outsourcing of that personnel.
This is our rain forest in 2011. Isn't it green and beautiful?
Only Mike Hunken seems to know how this green space got suddenly blacktopped. One day there was green grass and the next there was this. It was as if there was an IM Mission and everyone went mute.
Take a look at the excavation below . Is that a basement they are building?
What will be stored in that basement?
The answer to that question is WATER!
When this ditch was dug we thought they were just planning a ditch for plumbing. Even that is against the rules of encroaching upon the shoulder of a stream in the Wetlands.
When will the legacy of lies end?
When will we have had enough of these lies? The child said it well. We do not want Glenn Garrison and Stephen Brown back on the School Board where the attention will be focused, once again on buildings and not on children.
Is this a concrete slab?
Is this a concrete slab or a foundation for a regular building?
The most important word in the description of this expired permit is "existing". Why is it that the schematics from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection show that the construction is being done of the West Side of the wetlands protected stream and NOT on the East Side where there is less space?
Oh, what a vicious and tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Wash the dirty laundry, Engleworld. Alice is falling down the rabbit hole and will be arriving soon.
See autonomy defined for English-language learners »
