And Now, Some Good News...

Attention Englewood Residents:

There is only one more School Board Meeting before the November School Board Elections.

October 15 is the last regularly scheduled School Board Meeting before the November 3 elections. You have 38 days to decide how you are going to vote.

Do you even know who is running to fill the 3 member's terms that are up?

Are you planning to vote?

Do you have any idea what is at stake?

Have you seen any mention of this extremely important event in the newspapers? 

Have you gotten any Literature in the mail or attached to your doorknob drawing your attention to this very important election?

The following School Board Member's terms have expired and all 3 are running for re-election.

Howard Haughton, current President
He has served 1 term, 3 years

Henry Pruitt III, 9 + years, 3
terms

Molly Craig-Berry
1 term, 3 years

The 3 incumbents ran together in 2012,
the year that outsourcing
changed the face of the School District.

George Garrison III is competing against his former Board Members in hopes of returning to the School Board. Mr. Garrison has previously served 2 terms and was School Board President for 2 of those years.

George Garrison III

A little backstory.........

George Garrison III ran on the 2014 ticket with current School Board Member Betty Griffin and Kevin Lake in 2014. Only Betty Griffin was elected that year.

In 2014, voters returned SEEK Outsource champions Glenn Garrison and Stephen Brown to the Board. It was the first School Board Election held in November. It was not a shining hour for voters in Englewood. It is hoped that more Englewood Residents will exercise the privilege of voting this year. A 70 million dollar budget is controlled by these elected officials. Since the School Board Elections moved to November, the public is no longer able to vote on the School Budget as in the past.

This Taxpayer is wondering if moving the elections to November, where it is swallowed up by the partisan machine, is obscuring the importance of the event. Please remember that School Board Elections are non-partisan and have nothing (on the surface) to do with political Party Affiliations.  There are no Republicans and Democrats when voting for School Board Candidates.

Is serving on the Englewood School Board becoming less attractive? 

Where are the Candidates?

Look for announcements of Candidate Forums. Debates are more important than ever before since all Candidates are basically incumbents.

During the year that Glenn Garrison and Stephen Brown were

not on the School Board, members actually embraced the training offered to them by the New Jersey School Boards Association. We, the Taxpayers pay the NJSBA $26,000 per year to train, advise and generally protect our School Board Members from frivolous lawsuits by training them to serve according to the laws of the state of New Jersey. 

In the last 2 years, the Board has been functioning more as policy makers and less as micro managers. Mr. Haughton has become a President who understands his role of presiding over meetings. He worked better with Dr. Carlisle and supported the cause of preparing students in summer PARCC Camp for the online standardized PARCC test that was introduced in 2014. We are waiting for the results of this test now. It is still not clear whether terribly low test scores in the high school will force our Focus School into the designation of Priority School instead of raising us up to become the desired Reward School.

Stephen Brown has demonstrated that he is uncomfortable not being in charge. It appears he does not play well with others unless he is in charge. His presidency in 2012 represented one of the most contentious and turbulent periods in Englewood School Board history. Over 100 employees were outsourced and their jobs eliminated in order to save money and to break the union. Did we save money? What happened to the services that were degraded by outsourcing? Harley Ungar, the then VP 

June 7, 2012
It was very important to some Englewood Residents that the
Paraprofessionals understand that they did not rate a Union.
One Englewood Resident actually suggested to me that
these single women with children should not have a union
because they were single. I told him that I was once
a single woman with a child and in a union.

of the Board said that they expected a degradation in services. 

In class Instructional Support was destroyed when Instructional Paraprofessionals trained, as per the law, were fired and the position was abolished. Did we save money?

We certainly did not hire better, more Highly Qualified personnel. We are concerned, not only with the Academic Success of our children, but also with their Health and Safety.

How has outsourcing impacted the Academic Success of Englewood children?  It is a question that needs answering. Since their return to the School board, both Stephen and Glenn have participated in voting that seems contrary to the objective of improving the Academic Success of the children in the District. One wonders how long this behavior will continue. 

Interim Superintendent Michael Roth 

made the first and only Educational Proposal based on Data Driven Evidence and research that has been presented to the public in many years October of last year. It chronicled the downward spiral in the test scores of Englewood students since 2006 when the schools were reorganized. He speaks to the fact that students practically "fall off a cliff" at the end of 3rd grade. That proposal is collecting dust. During Roth's year in District, we saw the flickering of a school board that functioned with the needs of the students coming first. The problems in Elementary Education connected to Math and Reading Comprehension must be addressed. 

We witnessed a different and much more healthy relationship between the School Board and the Professional Educational Leader, that we pay, beginning to develop. We wish M. Roth well in retirement. We would like to see this new and different direction of the School Board continue with the new Superintendent. 

Some good news.......We have a New Superintendent......An Educator is coming............

September 17, a new Superintendent was hired.

Mr. Kravitz was introduced to the public on Sept. 17. 2015

Robert Kravitz, who currently serves as Superintendent in Englewood Cliffs was hired on September 17, 2015 with a unanimous vote of approval. Dr. Michelle James is currently serving as Acting Superintendent.

• Read his bio at Huffingpost

• His opinions on involving parents

• Huffington post describes our new Superintendent as an Educator, Entrepreneur, and Author. Read his philosophy on what we are doing in education as published June 16, 2014

• Read  his book
  

Read Out Englewood!

Have you Pre-Registered your child for this event? 

There is still time. Use this  link and Pre-Register online. 

http://www.myebc.org/read_out_englewood_registration

Or Pre-Register at Ebenezer Baptist Church

Mon - Fri. 10 am - 4 pm

Register at the event to participate in our Junior Classroom Style Spelling Bee.

                                        Help us "fill a bus" with School Supplies.

"...And how are the children?"

Summer Packets

My grandson's newest little saying is "don't judge me"

This is his answer for everything.

Today, the 4th grader and 1st grader were trying very hard not to work on their summer packets for school. I asked my grandson, the 1st grader what his new Teacher would think of him if he did not hand in his summer packet completed.

He cocked his head to one side, raised his left eyebrow, touched his finger to his lips and asked a serious question.

"Are you trying to say that she is going to judge me, grandma?"

When I said yes, that is exactly what she is going to do, he started to work until he had only one page left. Whatever it takes.....because we all know that is exactly what the teachers are going to do.

To all teachers:
Make sure you collect those packets. That is the very first homework from your new young students. You are the one who ultimately makes homework meaningful. If you never acknowledge, collect, correct or just use check marks, they know that you place no value on the work that you are giving them to complete at home.

He sends this to his new teacher.

Will STEM Education Help Achieve Reward School STATUS?

#FullSTEAMahead - http://www.ed.gov/stem

Grants like this one from the NJSBA are totally ignored by EPSD. We pay a healthy salary to an Administrator supposedly to write Grants for the District. When is the last time we actually got a Grant that benefited all of Englewood's children?

Why do we continue to allow EPSD to avoid STEM Education? Last year, the idea was proposed by the DMHS Principal and a backlash ensued that created such an uproar, from out of town parents, that we had to re-focus our attention on preventing the Superintendent and the BOE from transferring this Principal to the Elementary School. All he did was make a proposal that benefits all Englewood children. That my friends is called "intimidation" in the real world.

Is EPSD a failure Factory? The entire Educational World is embracing STEM/STEAM Education, yet Englewood plods along using the same old failing strategies as for the last 15 years educating only about 15% of the children. Are your children in that 15%? Google STEM Education and you will see that I am not exaggerating.
Where does that leave our children?

It is time to demand STEM Education for children pre k - 12 for ALL Englewood children.

Everyone fights for a raise. Who fights for our children?

Answer: There is no invisible force out there fighting for our children. Parents cannot depend on EPSD employees to fight for our children. When one stands up one is put in a room with no windows (with the objective that one will quit and go away) and told to shut up and use some tact. Do we need tact or Academic success for all children? If we don't fight for our own children, no one will.

• Failure is inevitable. It is already upon us. Our high school is still a FOCUS SCHOOL. 
• Next step on the failure trail is to become a PRIORITY School. 

Becoming a PRIORITY School moves away from the positive, which is to become a Reward School. 

PRIORITY SCHOOL DESIGNATION means the state may come in and break up our high school like Weequahic in Newark. Last I heard, Weequahic is now 4 Charters. Students living across the Street from (Weequahic) their former high school must now apply to the charters. If refused, they must find another school someplace else to attend. Charters may refuse students. That is the main reason that it is unfair to compare Charters to Public Schools. Public Schools cannot refuse students who satisfy resident requirements. How many Charters do you think Dwight Morrow High School can accommodate?  Does anyone within yelling distance want DMHS to be taken over and divided into Charters?

Next Englewood Public School District

Board of Education Meeting
Thursday, August 13, 2015
8:00 pm
Grieco Elementary School

STEM Education for all. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math

Demand that our BOE support Success and NOT Failure.
https://www.magnetmail.net/Actions/email_web_version.cfm?publish=newsletter&user_id=NJSBA&message_id=10720501

Work At Home Must Supplement, NOT Supplant Work At School

READING IS STILL FUNDAMENTAL...

A Series of Books is NOT a Reading Program.
A series of books is simply part of the materials list used in the Reading Program's Curriculum.

In each Curriculum, Projected Resources must be listed. The Reading Series are Resources.

A Reading Program is Curriculum inclusive of this Series of "Readers" that are vertically aligned to match the Literacy Curriculum.

This Literacy Curriculum includes units, week to week and day to day lessons with individual and classroom hands on activities. This Curriculum includes activities that address all learning styles of all children. This is called Differentiated Teaching or Instruction and Learning. It insures that your child will not be LEFT BEHIND, BECAUSE HE OR SHE LEARNS DIFFERENTLY. It reaches out to each student's individual ability and builds from there. Development of this program must be left to and demanded of the Professionals, not School Board Members. School Board Members have not been trained and do not have the information or the expertise to make the decisions. The School Board Member's job is to create policy based on the LAW and Legislation that mandates the creation of programs that address the Academic needs of ALL students. They are further tasked with the responsibility to make certain that the Professionals adhere to such policy.

It is a vertical Program that goes from Pre K - 8th grade or whatever the creators decide. Parents should be able to tell very

quickly whether or not the child has met or exceeded grade level without a diagnostic test. A quality Reading Program provides Teachers with a road map. Back in the day, when Professionals were allowed to do their jobs and the hard work of good teachers was rewarded with great students, teachers were trusted to create this Curriculum.

It will encourage ALL children to become better readers and better students. Even

the children who have parents who think their children have gotten the best are missing out on a world of information and practice when a School District does not have a VERTICALLY ALIGNED AND ARTICULATED Pre k - 8 Reading Program. (Check the language in your QSAC mandates from the state.)

We, as Parents, Grandparents, Guardians, Clergy, Politicians, Everybody has a responsibility to fight for the children's right to quality Reading Instruction. It is what will make our Society strong and keep the jail cells empty.

If it feels like your school district is forcing you to teach your children to read, they probably are. Work with your children at

home is supposed to supplement what happens at school, not supplant (replace) it. Remember that. Supplement, not supplant.
Avid Readers make better Cops, Teachers, Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists, Foreign Policy Makers, Congressman, Legislators, Senators, Firemen, Plumbers, Electricians, Farmers School Board Members and Presidents. I am sure you get the picture. If not, get a clue.

Reading is more fundamental than ever before. Do not allow your school district to down play the teaching of reading. There is no getting away from the fact that there will be standardized tests. If

not PARCC, then some other. The test will not only assess reading skill, it will assess mastery of English Grammar. Question whether or not this is being taught. 

Do this for your children. 

Do this for your country that is lagging behind other countries where English is not even the first language.

Math is a Language that cannot be championed without adequate reading skills. The TEST that will determine the rest of your child's life is given in ENGLISH. Students must Read to Write to Communicate to Survive.

Ask questions. Make sure that the Diagnostic used in your School District is not assessing something that has NOT been taught. That is unfair to your child and his/her Teachers. It is unfair to all of the Professionals that we pay. Make sure that your child's Teacher knows him/her and is not just making flowery comments to satisfy the job of creating a Report Card. 

Demand Accountability from everyone, including yourselves.

Join the Crusade to create better Readers.

http://www.ed.gov/early-learning