Board Marks Ridley O'Sullivan's 1,000-Point Milestone as It Revises 2025-26 School Calendar

The board found a Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying investigation, Report #273001 at Glen Ridge High School, not substantiated. Board members also accepted the resignations of Laura Flynn, a permanent substitute at Ridgewood Avenue School, effective January 31, and district substitute Henry Gehman, effective January 20; one personnel item was tabled for further discussion, and Ray DeLorenzi abstained on that portion of the personnel vote.

Superintendent Kyle Arlington opened his report with a run of student and staff achievements. Senior Ridley O'Sullivan, an MIT basketball commit, scored her 1,000th career point for the girls varsity basketball team Sunday at Passaic Valley High School, a milestone Arlington said only a short list of Glen Ridge players have reached. The high school's seventh- and eighth-grade History Club academic teams competed at the state history championships at Ridgewood High School, with the seventh-grade team qualifying for the National Championship in Orlando this spring. Glen Ridge High School also earned an AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award for expanding girls' participation in AP Computer Science Principles, with Arlington crediting teacher Kevin George's work on the effort. Junior Chloe Navoa won the school's first Poetry Out Loud competition and advances to the state finals at the South Orange Performing Arts Center, and several Ridgewood Avenue School students advanced to the next round of the National Geographic Bee, to be held in Florida.

The board accepted a $3,674.28 donation from the Glen Ridge Girls Lacrosse Booster Club, approved bills and claims of $802,585.17 and payroll and related expenses of $1,845,092.87, and approved the district's revised 2025-2026 school calendar and building hours of operation.

Arlington gave a midyear update on the district's four goals for the year: revising the PreK-12 English language arts curriculum, building a districtwide social-emotional learning framework, helping teachers and students navigate artificial intelligence, and streamlining human resources practices, including new recruitment materials and plans for exit and "stay" interviews with staff.

On cell phones, Arlington said the district's current rules — phones away all day in grades K-8 and off and away during instructional time in grades 9-12 — remain in place while officials continue gathering information, including from a recent community session on "Navigating the Digital Landscape" focused on social media and home limits, and from a survey of neighboring counties' superintendents. The policy committee is reviewing possible new policy language. Student representative Maggie de la Fuente reported that a student advisory group has met twice with Arlington to discuss workload, curriculum, school culture, AI, mental health resources and the effectiveness of the cell phone policy.

Ginsburg cautioned that budget planning is complicated this year by a large and confusing amount of information from the new federal administration regarding pauses in various types of federal funding, with the district's state aid figures still not due until after the governor's February 25 budget address.

Action items

• Found HIB Report #273001 (GRHS) not substantiated.
• Accepted resignations of substitutes Laura Flynn (Ridgewood Avenue School) and Henry Gehman (district).
• Accepted a $3,674.28 donation from the Glen Ridge Girls Lacrosse Booster Club.
• Approved bills and claims of $802,585.17 and payroll of $1,845,092.87.
• Approved the revised 2025-2026 school calendar and building hours.

Watch key moments

• 6:07 — Superintendent Arlington announces senior Ridley O'Sullivan's 1,000th career basketball point, a milestone reached by only a short list of Glen Ridge players.
• 6:37 — The seventh-grade History Club academic team qualifies for the National Championship in Orlando.
• 32:51 — A board member notes that Glen Ridge has no fencing team, only a single student, Jonathan, who nonetheless qualified for the state sectional tournament.