If you’ve watched recent River Edge school board meetings, you could be forgiven for thinking that most of the community is united against the River Edge School Board’s decision last week to reconfigure this tiny Bergen County district from two schools, both K-6, into two schools, K-3 and 4-6. Certainly that was my understanding. 

Yet there is another side of this story that gives a fuller picture, suggesting that many parents, in fact, favor the reconfiguration but are afraid to speak up. In many school districts across the nation, including in New Jersey, we see how public meetings have devolved into shouting matches about book-bans or sex education. That’s not what’s happening in River Edge yet the dynamics overlap: one loud group of parents is feeling empowered and one quiet group is feeling intimidated. As such, this tiny town remains a case study in how seemingly minor issues can divide a community.

Let’s look at this other version of the debate about reconfiguration, starting with this: while the parents described in the first article are fearless about expressing their disdain for the district’s reconfiguration plan, the parents who favor the plan feel oppressed and silenced. In my conversations with these parents—every one of whom expresses trepidation about being “outed”—one parent told me, “people literally feel they will be ostracized,” another said “if we talk our kids will be blacklisted” —there are two issues that are foremost in their minds: equity between the two elementary schools (Cherry Hill Elementary School and Roosevelt Elementary School) and special education. 

In NJ Ed Report’s first article about River Edge, I described the anger of parents who believe Superintendent Cathy Danahy and the school board railroaded through a plan that will endanger students and create headaches for families. Yet other parents say that the two schools in this 1.8 square mile town are separate and unequal, that at least some of the blowback is driven by prejudice against lower-income families and students with disabilities, and that the superintendent (hired just 18 months ago) simply has the stomach to implement what has long been contemplated. 

Who is right? I don’t know. But to get the full picture we must listen to those who, with a few exceptions, have been afraid to speak up.

Let’s acknowledge this: Both Cherry Hill Elementary School and Roosevelt Elementary School boast stellar student outcomes and meet every single state accountability metric. Test scores are sky-high: for instance statewide 42% of third-graders are proficient in reading but in River Edge 76% are proficient. It also sounds like a great place to live, just 15 miles from Manhattan, and, I’ve been told by parents on both sides, as bucolic as Mayberry RFD (if you can afford the average house price of $700K). 

Yet disparities exist, partly because Cherry Hill has 715 students while Roosevelt has only 478. So Cherry Hill students have no rooms dedicated to art and music; instead, it’s “art on a cart.” Roosevelt has a second-grade math club; there isn’t one at Cherry Hill. There are two areas for physical education at Roosevelt but only one at Cherry Hill. For the 6.5% of students who are English Language Learners at Roosevelt there is no dedicated space but there are three ELL classrooms at Cherry Hill for the 8.2% of students who need them.  At Roosevelt there are 1.5 full-time mental health professionals for the 478 students and the same FTE serves the 715 students at Cherry Hill. There are “great inequities” between the two schools, a parent told me. 

The inequities aren’t just about space. When I ask parents about the way the town itself is configured—the Roosevelt side is just about all single-family homes and the Cherry Hill side has three densely-populated apartment complexes—they hesitate to call it outright prejudice. It’s more “about microaggressions,” said one mother. People say, she says, “the Korean kids in the apartments keep the test scores up.” Another says, “there is an inherent sense of privilege in this town.”

But much of the divisiveness stems from the fact that the current configuration literally divides general education students from students with disabilities. That’s because Cherry Hill has another distinction: it houses all the self-contained special education classrooms (classes for students who require a high degree of support that preclude them from learning in a general education classroom). In fact, within Cherry Hill is a “separate” school, New Bridge Academy (which opened in 2007), that includes “kindergarten scholars, our district integrated preschool program, and our preschool, primary, and elementary Building Bridges and Building Connections classes.”  

Currently (the reconfiguration is slated to start in September 2024) students with disabilities are reasonably well-served at Cherry Hill, given the presence of New Bridge, but there is no space for inclusion classes which combine neuro-typical students and those with disabilities, a violation of state and federal law that says students classified as eligible for special education services must be educated in the “least restrictive environment.” At the same time, the special education program is so good that the district brings in over $400,000 a year in tuition from out-of-district students who want access to these classes. (Their local districts pay the tuition.) Also, River Edge sends out very few students  to out-of-district placements, proportionally far less than other districts. (Total out-of-district tuition is only about $250,000, which can’t be more than three or four students.)  

.It’s different for students with disabilities who are zoned for Roosevelt. One parent described to me her battle—which was resolved just short of a lawsuit—for her child, who is very smart but has a variety of sensory and social challenges, and was denied services because he is zoned for Roosevelt. “No parent should have to fight this hard,” she said. Another told the story of a parent who fought for her child with autism to be included in a kindergarten assembly. While he was allowed to attend, he made “stimming noises.” Later in the parking lot, she said, parents were “whispering about why ‘these’ children are even included in the event, as if his stimming ruined the assembly!”.

Seven months after superintendent Danahy was hired in September 2021, she brought on Dr. Evan Jaffe as Director of Special Services. Parents of students with disabilities appear thrilled with his approach to mitigating the inequities and supporting the rights of children with disabilities to an education in the least restrictive environment. The district website on reconfiguration has a whole section on the benefits of reconfiguration for students with disabilities who will have access to more inclusive programs and for neuro-typical children, who will benefit from exposure to diversity. 

But what about all the objections cited by anti-reconfiguration parents? Here’s what I was told:

• The concerns about increased traffic for parents who need to drop off children at two separate schools and subsequent safety issues aren’t real. While previously parents could only drop off their kids 10 minutes before school starts, now they’ll have a longer window so there won’t be a build-up of cars. One traffic study commissioned by the board concludes, “the proposed improvements should accommodate the increase in drop-off and pick-up.”

• While there has been much chatter about the petition opposing reconfiguration (it has 850 signatures), a parent points out, “There are 11,000 people in this town and only 800 signatures were on the online petition, many of which were anonymous and could not be proven to be River Edge residents. The other problem with the petition is that it says taxes will go up and there will be a 45% increase in traffic. Those are not accurate statements.”

• While the district will indeed be in compliance with state special education code next year, it is still not offering children with disabilities inclusion opportunities.

Are these pro-reconfiguration parents in the minority? The parents I spoke with don’t believe this. “It’s always the same people trolling and making nasty comments,” one said. Also, said another, “special education families often shy away from speaking in front of an entire town because they’d feel they have to share their children’s classifications.”

I don’t pretend to know who is right or who is wrong in this battle; there’s far more nuance than shouting matches about book-bans and parent notification policies.. Make your own choice. But let’s not let the loudest people have the final word.

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