District Facing Higher School Enrollment Than Expected

The Ridgewood Board of Education reported at its Monday meeting that enrollment in the district is up, and it's even higher than expected.

Superintendent Dr. Daniel Fishbein said that enrollment went up by 145 students from the last schoool year, certainly the highest figure in at least a decade.

"It's a lot. It's more than in the past years," he said.

The actual enrollment is now 5,817 students throughout the village district. Typically, the school receives 60 new students per year, the superintendent reported.

The hardest hit buildings will be in the elementary schools, where 94 of the 145 new students are enrolled, longtime board member Sheila Brogan reported. While Orchard School will see an increase of 17 new faces, and the other elementary schools will see a handful, Willard School will see a whopping additional 45 students in 2010-2011.

"We'd seen a gradual decrease at Willard over the last few years. Then suddenly we're seeing a spike," Sheila Brogan said, recalling that enrollment at Willard was often at 515 students before dropping in recent years.

"It shoudn't be a student number issue, necessarily," Fishbein said of the potential classroom crowding at Willard. Rather, he said, due to the small physical size of the rooms, "it's a space issue." With a Willard School addition on the horizon, Fishbein said it's a problem that shouldn't exist much longer in the district.

The final number may go down, however, as people who moved out of the district have their children taken off the rolls, but Fishbein said he doesn't expect it to go down much.

"It's significant," Fishbein said.

Other news of note from Monday's meeting:

• There are 33 new teachers in the district to replace those who retired, Fishbein said. They include staff development, resource room teachers, project teachers, education specialists as well as regular classroom teachers.
• The Hawes Elementary Special Education Language Arts program may not meet the required state of New Jersey Annual Yearly Progress figures, the district is reporting. The state has yet to officially release their report, though Regina Botsford, director of curriculum for the district, said it's likely many other high-performing districts' special education programs will fail to meet the standard as well. Such districts would fall into the "Early Warning" list if they are unable to reach the standard, which aims to have 100 percent profiency by 2014.
• Construction projects, particuarly those on the athletic fields, are ahead of schedule, contractors reported at the meeting.
• Jane Blakely, now-retired and recipient of the 2010 Ashby Award, had an emotional speech on her time in Ridgewood, where she's been a supervisor and teacher for 26 years. "I'll never forget my days at Ridgewood," she said.
• Assistant Superintendent for Business Angelo DeSimone reported that there have been some problems with the district's transition from the old technology system to Skyward, the new system for the district. In particular, one "glitch" in importing old, out-of-date addresses to Skyward led to around 300 letters being sent out that were undeliverable. DeSimone said the district is working on correcting the issue.
• The list of donations to the Ridgewood Public Schools totalled almost $550,000 for the 2009-2010 school year. Michelle Lenhard thanked the donors and Fishbein remarked that "our children would not have the same enjoyable experience they do without such contributions."