Public School Update

For the first time the Englewood Board of Education is truly showing great interest and willingness for a partnership with Bergen County Technical Schools. The County Academies are extremely prestigious and very successful under the direction of County Superintendent Dr John Grieco. Thousands of students from Bergen County submit their application every year, but hundreds of them cannot be accepted because of lack of space. Each district pays approximately $5,000 per student to attend the academies, and provides funds for transportation. If the Englewood Board of Education trustees enter into a partnership with Bergen County Technical School it will be the greatest thing that could happen to Englewood students and the community as well.

At this time there are several issues pending. The state and county must come up with monies to update the classrooms and programs. Also, it is our opinion that this partnership can only succeed if it is under the supervision of Dr. Grieco whose reputation as an educator and administrator is trusted by the state, county and many corporations. Our superintendent does not have the experience nor the expertise to do this job. Regardless of her quotes lately in the press, we are aware that our superintendent Dr. Bayne’s does not want this partnership, because she will lose control. A balance must be established between our elected trustees and Dr. Grieco’s administration. The majority of the students who attend Bergen County Technical Schools continue on to well-known colleges and universities. The academies also offer fabulous vocational programs for those students who choose to perfect their skills for a particular trade. It is reasonable to believe that not all students are college material, and Dr. Grieco tackles this issue extremely well. Our School Board of Trustees will meet with the Commissioner of Education in Trenton within the next three or four weeks. Bergen County Technical Schools are located in Hackensack, Paramus and Teterboro. The Teterboro campus received some 500 applications for 186 seats in the latest freshman class. Among those freshman starting this year is the son of Bill Anderson, one of the three political appointees left on the Englewood Board of Education.

Last year 32 students from Englewood were admitted into the prestigious Bergen County Technical School in Hackensack, and busing was provided for them. In addition, four buses (with 54 seats each) went to the Teterboro Technical School campus and the Bergen County Vocational School campus in Paramus. Approximately 216 attended these campuses and out of the 216 students only about 43 were special educational students. To date we have not been informed of the number of Englewood students starting at the Bergen County Academies this year.

The ethnic background of the majority of students attending the county schools from Englewood is a mixture of African Americans, Caucasians, Asians and Hispanics. At the Bergen County Technical School district there are proposals for new courses: Travel and Tourism, Information Technology, Law and Public Safety are courses of study in Teterboro. The Academy for Visual and Graphic Communications will become the Academy for Visual and Performing Arts; and Telecommunications and Computer Science Academy.

For this magic partnership to take place the Englewood Board of Education will have to completely drop the lawsuit against Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs that started in 1985.

Our educational dollars have paid about $7 million dollars in legal fees. The leading council of this 16 years old lawsuit is Agnes Rymer who has jumped from law firm to law firm since 1985 carrying in her briefcase the cash cows of New Jersey: we the homeowners and taxpayers of Englewood. Some of the law firms involved in this case are DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Gluck, Kraemer, Burns, Mytelka, Lovell & Kulka, and Paul L. Tractenberg. Ms. Rymer and all the law firms that she has been associated with have lost every single step of this lawsuit. Finally, she lost the appeal to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Justice concluded that the approach that should be taken must be a voluntary one. It is our opinion that there is no court in the United States who will force the students from one municipality to attend public school in another. Any pursuit on the regionalization lawsuit is unwise and foolish.

In 1998, it was Mayor Fader and his politically appointed board of education who allowed Ms. Rymer and the above law firms to file this appeal. Coincidently it was before that time that Dr. John Grieco approached Englewood Board of Education about a partnership between Dwight Morrow High School and the County Academies. Mayor Fader and the majority of his appointees, (we believe Mr. Matthews was the only one who did not agree) decided not to enter into a dialogue with the county. Instead they chose to pursue this endless and extremely costly lawsuit. Mayor Fader will be remembered by many homeowners and taxpayers of Englewood as the “King of Lawsuits“. He is also responsible for the four year lawsuit against the charter school, which cost hundreds of thousands of our educational dollars. If any of our members is interested in reading the decision of the Supreme Court on this last appeal, the EHOA office will be happy to mail any member in good standing a copy of this decision upon request.

Agnes Rymer, (who again has joined another law firm, Berkowitz in West Orange) regardless of all her negative results and huge legal fees was given the green light by Mayor Fader and his appointed board to pursue a new lawsuit, this time asking the State Department of Education for money. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on this particular case. She is expected to have oral arguments on this issue at the end of October or the beginning of November 2001. This oral argument will require additional education dollars from the homeowners and taxpayers of Englewood. We don’t believe that this new case at best will be substantially successful. And it may create serious hurdles as the Department of Education, the Englewood Board of Education and the Bergen County Technical School are negotiating a partnership.

We don’t understand why the Supreme Court would force the State Department of Education to give substantial sums of money to the Englewood school district to create its own magnet school programs when the Bergen County Technical School is willing to enter into a partnership with Dwight Morrow High School. We are not a poor district (i.e. Abbott district) like Paterson, New Jersey. The truth is that in our new tax bill clearly shows that homeowners and taxpayers will pay about $30 million dollars in public education. Also, the student population of our school has changed in the past five years. The Hispanic population in Englewood is 22%. About 900 Hispanic students or more attend our public schools.

Let’s face it, the judges of the Supreme Court are politically appointed. The Department of Education Commissioners are appointed as well. Why would a group of appointees punish another in the same State? Even if they agree to give us some money, it could be a small sum. What will this new lawsuit and Ms. Rymer’s oral arguments accomplish? This is publicity for our district, State Department of Education and the Supreme Court. We believe in the end, nothing financially substantial will be mandated for Englewood.

Maybe it will be best if the State and the Englewood Board of Education could file this stay simultaneously. If not, Englewood’s district should do it anyway.

The EHOA co-president Eugenia Vogel, who has attended all public school board meetings since 1997, has repeatedly asked the Board of Education to stop developing a very unsuccessful magnet school program on our own, and enter into a partnership with the Bergen County Technical Schools. Vogel has lobbied relentlessly to state officials, county officials and local officials. She has visited all county schools in the company of Englewood parents whose children attend the different campuses. This time, we are truly hopeful that this partnership will take place and bring back to the district hundreds of students from different ethnic backgrounds. This will create a successful, new and fresh start with high standards. FYI: All students from Englewood and Englewood Cliffs can only attend Dwight Morrow High School by court order. We believe this court order should be lifted as the partnership negotiations with the Bergen County Academy progresses.

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