$48 million dollar Referendum: Just because the edict comes from board office, you should not accept this without question.

my family, too, came to Ridgewood in the 90's with the feeling that the schools were excellent and it was a great place to raise a young family. We soon found that in many cases, it was fools gold. The teachers already believed their own hype about how excellent they were and often ignored regular kids for more "enlightened" ones. It was like if you were not G&T, they you didn't get the teacher's attention. Before the dot-com bubble and 9/11, the budgets were passes without blinking, figuring the extra money would always come from somewhere else. In my memory, only one budget and one bond ref were defeated. The HSA mommies are well organized and echo the Board of Ed's requests. Our rankings, which used to be in the top 1% of the country started to fall. We went through 6 superintendents/interims in the span of 9 years. (John Porter, who was here for 4 years, loved consultants, had little to show for his time left to return to CA) Except for one "tense" REA contract, the board bends over backwards to the union. The staff at the board offices rival, in employees, of companies 10x their size. The number of unnecessary positions (ie: each elementary school has its own child study team, the IT staff is large enough to run MySpace) is rampant. The special ed population is 14% - or about 800 kids its way out of NJ norms. Get the pic?

Am I trying to bum you out? No, in fact, just the opposite. You and your family are on the leading edge of change. You could blindly vote yes and things could mosey on or you could educate yourself and help make Ridgewood the town of your dreams. Just because the edict comes from board office, you should not accept this without question. You are the future. You came here for excellence - demand it from your elected officials and employees who work for the village. Mediocre just won't do.