District To Apply For Dual Use, ‘Substandard Instructional Space'

The Fort Lee Board of Education Monday approved a resolution to apply to the Bergen County Superintendent of Schools for dual use of educational space and “substandard instructional space” at all four elementary schools and the Church of the Good Shepherd, which houses the school district’s Early Childhood Center. Included among the list of space for which the district is applying for dual use approval are a storage room and the library at School No. 1, converting both into classroom space for small group instruction.

Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow explained that at this time of year, the school district often submits such requests.

“What that typically means is that we may have a classroom, for example for kindergarten students, that by code should have a restroom in it, and yet, we may not have classrooms with restrooms, so those would be listed as part of these that we would seek exemptions for,” Bandlow said. “In addition to that, we’re going to have to add another kindergarten class at School No. 1.”

Bandlow said preliminary enrollment numbers are higher than anticipated at the kindergarten level for the upcoming school year, and that with more than a month to go before school starts, school officials expect enrollment to go even higher. That, he said, will require moving some of the smaller, special classes like ESL and gifted and talented classes.

A storage room at School No. 1 will therefore have to be converted into classroom space for one smaller class after putting in air-conditioning, carpeting and partitioning it, Bandlow said. Another class will be forced to meet in the library during regular school days.

“Which means, of course, that the library—or part of it—is not available for children, much as we already do at School No. 4,” Bandlow said. “It is just a continuation each year as we have more and more classes of students that we have to use rooms that weren’t intended for that use. We are very fast running out of [other] options.”

Board member Carmelo Luppino agreed with Bandlow’s assessment of an already bad situation becoming that much worse.

“It’s very disheartening to me that we educate our kids in closet space, and we keep on moving things around to make it work,” Luppino said. “We need to come up with a permanent solution to all of these issues that we have with space. I know it’s something we’ve been looking at for five years since I’ve been on the board, and I know that boards before us have looked at lack of space. We’re looking at a lot of different options, and we’re coming up with squeezing libraries that are supposed to be used for libraries, closets that are supposed to be used for closets, and I can’t take anymore.”

Luppino added that he wants “to make sure that everybody understands what our options are.”

“We spoke about trailers, and that’s very, very disheartening,” he said. “I just want to make sure that everybody understands the severity of the situation. We really, really need to put our heads together and come up with something because this is not good. It’s going to get to the point where there’s going to be no return.”

Professional Development

Also on the agenda Monday were two professional development resolutions—both involving the high school—which Bandlow called, “very, very important.”

In one of the resolutions, the board approved a $43,280 proposal from Innovative Designs for Education (IDE) “for educational consulting services designing a Freshman Academy for 2011-2012 and professional development for high school staff.”

Bandlow said IDE would provide training for teachers in motivating students, teaching and assessment strategies and “21st century skills.”

“We will be using a keynote address at the Superintendent’s convocation so this message will reach all of our faculty,” Bandlow said. “It will also focus very intensively on the teachers who will be teaching the Freshman Academy—those teachers that are really focusing on ninth grade students.”

The program will involve eight days of intensive training for teachers during the school year and 12 days of coaching teachers on-site. The teachers will also have access to trainers throughout the year, according to Bandlow. It also includes five half-day, professional development days for all teachers at the high school.

Bandlow added that “at least half” of the nearly $43,000 price tag will be covered by grants. The school district will foot the rest of the bill.

“This is a very, very important piece as we move forward with the high school,” Bandlow said.

The other high school-based professional development resolution the board voted on Monday focused on four departments: Math, Science, Social Studies and English.

The proposal from educational trainer, consultant and coach Dr. Aili Pogust to provide workshops at a cost of $800 per day for six professional development days, or a total of $4,800, was also met with board approval Monday.

“[Pogust] will give professional development in the new common course standards that are now out,” Bandlow explained. “They will also include writing across the curriculum in Math, Science and Social Studies, co-teaching in Special Ed. classes or inclusion classes and a writers’ workshop for English teachers.”

Bandlow called both initiatives “important” and said he’s “very pleased to see that we’re going to be doing some very intensive work with the high school staff.”

Other Business Monday

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Steven Engravalle addressed ongoing concerns about curriculum at Fort Lee’s elementary schools, saying, “We were aware of those.”

“We’re in the process right now of finishing up our K-12 Language Arts curriculum,” Engravalle said. “We’re working on that this summer so that we can pilot it next year. We have to formally adopt it with integration … by Sept. 1, 2012.”

He also said the district is working on a K-2 Mathematics curriculum, which could be a little “confusing” to some teachers at first.

“Because it actually does move around some of the typically taught subject areas or typically taught subject matter at certain grade levels,” Engravalle said. “So at the present time, we’re looking into other resources for our teachers. We will have that for approval in September, which is in line with the common core requirement, and then we’ll be developing the 3 to 5, as well as the 6 to 12, as that’s phased in over the next two years.”

He warned that that too “won’t be perfect.”

“But that will help us align all of our elementary schools, which is something we wanted to make sure we’re certainly doing,” Engravalle said.

Extra State Aid

The school district also officially accepted the $565,959 in additional state aid recently announced by the Christie administration.

Bandlow reiterated school board president Arthur Levine’s and board vice president Linda McCue’s previous statements to Patch that the school district would save the money for anticipated leaner times ahead and therefore use it during the 2012-2013 school year as opposed to the coming one.

“This came very late, as you know, and we already have our budget in place for this year,” Bandlow said. “We will not utilize those funds in the [2011-2012] school year, but rather reserve them as surplus for the [2012-2013] school year.”

He described the reason for saving the money for now as “twofold.”

“First of all, we are using about $1 million in surplus and reserve funds in the current year to make this budget work,” he said. “Next year we won’t have that money so that would put us in a substantial hole right off the bat. Having this $565,000 put in reserve goes a long way toward helping to make that budget next year work when once again we anticipate being under a very restrictive cap of 2 percent. So it would be fiscally prudent.”

Bandlow added that while some have asked why the district doesn’t simply hire more staff or re-hire personnel whose positions were eliminated under the 2011-2012 budget, “it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire people now and then have to lay them off next year when those moneys aren’t there.”

A complete list of resolutions on Monday's agenda approved by the Fort Lee Board of Education can be viewed or downloaded in its entire 120-page, PDF format here.