Ginsburg Elected Board President as Glen Ridge Schools Reorganize for 2023

The Glen Ridge Board of Education opened its new year with its annual reorganization meeting on January 4, 2023, electing Elisabeth Ginsburg as Board President. Ginsburg was nominated by Duval Graham and seconded by Tracey St. Auburn and won on a unanimous voice vote. St. Auburn was then elected 1st Vice President unanimously after David Campbell, also nominated, declined the nomination. For 2nd Vice President, Campbell and Jocelyn Gottlieb were both nominated; a roll-call vote gave Campbell the seat with a majority of the board's votes, prompting a brief point-of-order exchange over how members should record their yes-no-or-abstain votes.

The meeting also seated three newly elected board members. In balloting reported by the district, Tricia Akinwande (1,854 votes), Elisabeth Ginsburg (2,115 votes) and Heather Yaros-Ramos (2,090 votes) won three-year terms, defeating Darius K. Dehnad (1,148 votes) and Steven Lord (728 votes). Board Secretary Barbara Murphy swore in all three before the reorganization business began.

Superintendent Phillips reported that the 2023-2024 budget process is underway, with department and building-level budgets already submitted for review; a tentative budget will be presented in March, and the district's 2021-2022 audit will be presented at the January 24 board meeting. He said all district staff positions are currently filled, though a lead position will open in February. Phillips also noted that Governor Murphy has signed a new law mandating a statewide information-literacy standard for grades pre-K through 12, and that the Governor's State of the State address is set for January 10, with the state budget presentation to follow in February.

Phillips walked the board through revisions to the district's health curriculum required by updated state standards, using a slide presentation comparing the 2014 standards to the new ones grade by grade. Changes include new content on boundaries and consent, gender stereotypes, and less clinical instruction on body parts and reproduction, delivered in an age-appropriate way; the puberty video, previously shown in sixth grade, has been moved down to fifth grade. Parents will be notified before sensitive topics are introduced and may opt their children out of Family Life Education and sex education.

Forest Avenue School Principal Matthew Murphy, joined by Guidance Counselor Laura Fitzpatrick and SEL Counselor Michael Mazzeo, presented a new school-wide behavior incentive program called the Fantastic Fireflies, built around the acronym SOAR — spread kindness, own our actions, and respect yourself and others. The team said a staff survey of roughly 16 respondents found only 18.8% felt school-wide student rewards currently exist, versus 50% who called them "partially in place" and 31.3% who said they don't exist at all, even though 81.3% of staff said rewards should be a medium or high priority. Under the pilot, teachers will nominate students for a weekly loudspeaker shout-out and photo, drawn from a lit-up "firefly jar," and the school's "Firefly Fridays" will expand from once a month to every week. Murphy also mentioned that a foundation grant for Central School had recently been approved and would be discussed further at the next board meeting.

During public comment, Glen Ridge resident Raymond Donnelly raised concerns about "Ghost Boys," a novel his daughter had read and presented on at Ridgewood Avenue School. Donnelly said the book, about a Black child fatally shot by a police officer whose ghost later speaks with the officer's daughter, unfairly "paints police officers as racists and murderers," and said it had been banned in some school districts. Noting his own family's decades in law enforcement, he said he told his daughter to disregard what she'd read because it was fiction, and asked how the district selects books for such assignments. Superintendent Phillips said the presentation appeared to be a sixth-grade project in which students independently chose their own books, subject to teacher approval, rather than an assignment given to the whole grade, and said he would follow up with more detail. No comments were raised during the meeting's second public comment period.

Because three new members were being sworn in, the board held its executive session after rather than before the public meeting, entering closed session at 7:58 p.m. to discuss personnel, confidential pupil matters, and possible litigation. The board returned to public session at 9:12 p.m. and adjourned at 9:13 p.m. The board also approved nine further routine annual business items, including vendor and insurance renewals and standard officer designations, without discussion.

Action items

• Adopted the official Textbook List for Glen Ridge Public Schools for the period January 4, 2023 through January 3, 2024 (Akinwande and Yaros-Ramos abstained).
• Approved the second reading of revised policies on Board Member Election and Appointment and the district's Organizational Chart (Akinwande and Yaros-Ramos abstained).
• Adopted the New Jersey School Boards Association's Code of Ethics as the district's official Code of Ethics (Akinwande abstained).
• Approved three field trips: the High School Model UN Conference in Philadelphia (Feb. 23-26), a National Art Honor Society tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Jan. 17), and a Forest Avenue School second-grade trip to the Museum at Liberty Hall in Union (Feb. 7).

Watch key moments

• 30:12 — A roll-call vote for 2nd Vice President between David Campbell and Jocelyn Gottlieb leads to a mid-meeting mix-up over how members should cast a yes/no/abstain vote.
• 58:07 — Asked if he dresses up as a firefly for student photos, Forest Avenue Principal Matthew Murphy admits he has -- but usually to play "Happy Birthday" on the Glockenspiel.
• 1:05:28 — Resident Raymond Donnelly delivers an impassioned public comment blasting the novel "Ghost Boys" as unfairly portraying police officers, invoking his own family's law-enforcement history.