Spanish class at OLL

At Our Lady of the Lake School, a supportive educational team of students, faculty, parents, and community aims to provide a creative, challenging, and Christian learning environment. Emphasis is placed on developing students’ individual abilities, promoting social awareness, and lovingly preparing students to become responsible, contributing members of church and society. Our parents and children appreciate and love the special atmosphere that has developed over the 90 years of OLL’s history.

Our Lady of the Lake draws students from all over Essex County from all faiths and backgrounds. The school offers Pre-K3, Pre-K4, full day Kindergarten and Grades 1 through 8. Graduates go onto to successful high school and college careers. Interested parents and families can visit the school website, www.myoll.org or call 973-239-1160 for a private tour. Our Lady of the Lake School: Connecting on a Higher Level.

Allison Wright, a Verona resident, has let us know that there’s a college planning workshop in Montclair on Wednesday, January 21, for parents of high school students from all surrounding towns.

The workshop by College Planning 101 will feature a panel of five experts who will discuss and answer your questions about paying for college, financial aid opportunities, college and career fit, and how to organize it all so you and your child stay sane.

The workshop will be held at C3 Workplace – Above & Beyond, 26 Park Street in Montclair, Suite 2000, from 7 to 9 p.m. Interested parents should register in advance by sending your name, email address, home address, phone number and any questions you have about college to College411advisor@gmail.com. By pre-registering you will be automatically entered into a college-planning gift basket raffle. There’s a $5 registration fee at the door.

UPDATE: The organizers have let us know that, because of the weather report for Wednesday, this event is being postponed.

Save the night of night of Saturday March 28 for a Forest Avenue School fundraiser. The school’s SCA is holding a “Bet On The Bulldogs” Casino Night and Tricky Tray Auction from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Commonwealth Club in Upper Montclair.

The cost is $65 per person and it includes a buffet dinner, soft drinks, beer, wine, dessert, casino-style gambling and Tricky Tray auction, as well as $50 in Casino Play Dollars or 1 Tricky Tray auction ticket board. Additional Play Dollars and Tricky Tray tickets will be available for purchase the night of the event.

All net proceeds to benefit the Forest Avenue Elementary School. Attendees must be 21 years and over. The Forest Ave. SCA is a not-for-profit organization.

The SCA is also looking for sponsors, as well as prize donations; for more information about purchasing tickets, sponsoring a casino game table or donating a prize for the auction, contact:

Kristen Millar (kmillar815@yahoo.com) or
Tammi Rawding (tammieganrawding@hotmail.com)

Nerdwallet.com usually writes about the best credit cards and mortgages you can get. But on Sunday, it came out with a list of “Best School Districts for Your Buck in New Jersey“, and Verona is on the list.

In fact we’re number four, behind Haddonfield, Glen Rock and Bernards, and ahead of districts like Pequannock, Princeton Regional and New Providence. None of our neighboring towns made the list, which ranked 266 districts in New Jersey in terms of standardized test scores, college readiness and class size.

Here’s what the site had to say about Verona:

In Verona, school quality is widespread: Over the past 20 years, three of Verona’s six public schools, including Verona High School, have been recognized as “Star Schools,” the highest honor for schools in New Jersey. Verona has a 99% graduation rate and 97.2% of students score proficient or higher on the HSPA. Additionally, over the past five years, Verona High School has recorded 32 state and conference championships by its boys and girls sports teams.

To read more about the methodology and the rankings of the other schools click here.

The F.N. Brown School Community Association is hosting a Tricky Tray on March 18 at the Westmount Country Club.

Ticket sales are now open to the public. Tickets are $55 and include passed hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert and one ticket pack.

Anyone interested should contact Mindy Frey at mindyfrey@gmail.com or 973/641-2277.

The Verona Board of Education has called for an early dismissal at 12:30 p.m. on Monday because of the impending winter storm called Juno. All after-school activities are cancelled.

According to the National Weather Service, the snow is expected to start at 1 p.m. and could continue until midnight on Tuesday. At the current track, the storm could dump 20 to 30 inches of snow on our area. There will also be heavy winds with gusts up to 50 miles per hour and temperatures could fall to the mid-teens.

The Verona Police are asking residents to register for alerts about the storm from its Nixle service. Simply text Verona’s zip code, 07044, to 888777 to get signed up. You can see all current Nixle alerts here.

The Verona High School Mock Trial team recently participated in the first round of the Essex County Mock Trial Tournament at Veterans Courthouse in Newark.

The VHS team is comprised of four student attorneys, six student witnesses and a number of jurors. George Tamburino, a team captain, and Matt Marano were attorneys for the prosecution, while Annamaria Vasmatzidis, the team’s other captain and president, and Caitlin Klose represented the defense. The student witnesses were Sam Volpe, Krojana Selimi and Jake Houthuysen for the prosecution and Steve Bass, Dylan Gallagher and Anthony Freda. Isabella Josephson was a juror.

Mock Trial members prepare to participate in the New Jersey State Bar Foundation Mock Trial Competition. The team is advised by VHS teacher Christopher Tamburro.

Verona was one of only four teams to win both preliminary rounds, and advanced to the quarterfinals for the third year in a row.

A VFEE grant brought members of the Red Hawk Native American Arts Council to speak about Native American history and culture.

VFEE funds grants to Verona public school teachers for a wide variety of projects. It has funded teaching tools for physics and computer science at Verona High School, and a composer in residence at H.B. Whitehorne Middle School, as well as a class to study the ecology of the Peckman River.

The VFEE event will be held at Trattoria Bella Gente, 642 Bloomfield Avenue and tickets are $50 per person. Please RVSP by March 14 by calling or texting Palma Quagliata at 973-954-7797 or Jackie Quattrocchi a 201-563-2565. To RSVP by email, use chefquag@verizon.net.

Superintendent Rui Dionisio sent an email to public school parents on Sunday morning warning about a suspicious driver on the Forest Avenue side of town.

According to the email, on Friday morning a woman driving a silver or gold SUV with New York license plates asked three middle school students walking near Forest Avenue and Harrison Street if they wanted a ride to school. They declined, but the incident was relayed to school officials and the Verona Police Department, which is investigating.

“I am bringing this information to your attention because the safety of our students is of utmost importance to the Verona Public Schools and our entire community,” Dionisio wrote. “We encourage you to speak with your children to always be alert to their surroundings, never to engage in any conversation with strangers, and to immediately report any suspicious incident to a trusted adult such as a crossing guard, teacher, or other school staff member.”

The email asks students and parents to report any incidents to the appropriate school principal or the police, using either 911 or the main desk number, 973-239-5000.

At about 5:35 a.m., Verona joined a long list of school districts closed by the winter storm called Linus. All after-school activities and sports have also been cancelled. This is the second of the Verona pubic schools’ budgeted snow days to be used.

The Verona Police Department has asked that there be no street parking until 11 a.m. and Monday’s south side garbage pickup is also scrapped.

Remember that you have 24 hours to clear the snow from your sidewalk and you could be subject to a fine for blowing or shoveling your snow into the street. If you’ve got a fire hydrant by your home, please clear that out as well.

A group of parents from Verona and neighboring towns are holding an educational event on the Common Core State Standards Initiative on Saturday, February 21.

The Common Core is a nationwide educational initiative that aims to define what students from kindergarten through high school should know in language arts and math in each grade. Progress on the Common Core will be measured by a standardized test call the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), which will be given in New Jersey schools beginning this spring.

The February 21 event will feature Dr. Duke Pesta and Mary Calamia. Pesta is an experienced educational reformer, university professor and high school teacher, and the academic director of FreedomProject Education. He has delivered more than 280 talks in over 33 states on the Common Core. Calamia is a practicing psychotherapist from New York who speaks at educational forums.  

The event will be held at 1 p.m. at the Bethwood, 38 Lackawanna Avenue, Totowa. Tickets are $5 per person and organizers are looking for attendees to reserve their seats by February 11. To purchase tickets, e-mail 777parentscare@verizon.net or call Patricia or Lori at 862.227.6953.

In just one weekend, come learn everything you need to know to outsmart the SAT from the only prep company whose curriculum developers have earned multiple perfect scores (2400) on the test.

With Catalyst’s SAT Bootcamp, you’ll arm yourself with a strategy for every type of question guaranteed to be on the exam, learn how to avoid the most common traps, and discover how to compose a perfect-score essay — no matter what question is asked! The Bootcamp is a momentum-building weekend seminar that gives students not only the insights and confidence they need the day of the test, but also Catalyst’s self-study materials for sustained practice right up to the SAT itself.

The Bootcamp will be held at Verona High School on Saturday, March 7 and Sunday, March 8. Class runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and students attend both days. The cost of the program is $175 which includes all course material. Sign up online at www.catalystprep.com or by calling 1-800-235-0056. The deadline to enroll is Wednesday, March 4.

Proceeds benefit the Verona High School SCA.

Richard Rampolla, principal of Brookdale Avenue School, sought to allay concerns about the PARCC voiced by parents at the BOE meeting.

The BOE once again declined to join the 40-some other school districts in New Jersey that have adopted resolutions to accommodate students who opt out of the test, but said it was hopeful that state legislators would quickly adopt a bill formalizing a process for not taking it. The PARCC was developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers to measure progress with the so-called Common Core curriculum, standards for math and language arts education that have been adopted by 43 states including New Jersey.

In the video below (the discussion of the PARCC plans begins with questions from the public at the 1 hour 31 minute mark) BOE President John Quattrocchi makes several references to the “Diegnan bill”. State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr., who chairs the Assembly’s education committee, introduced a bill on January 29 that specifies what parents need to do to have their children sit out the test. Families would have to give 14 days notice of their refusal and schools will have to accommodate the children.

With the Diegnan bill widely expected to pass, the BOE said it will be sending parents a form to ascertain whether their children will be taking the PARCC. Quattrocchi and Superintendent Rui Dionisio emphatically denied rumors that Verona would make children who refuse the computer-based testing to sit at a computer with nothing to do, an approach adopted in other districts that has been called “sit and stare” by PARCC opponents. “We are not a punitive district,” said Dionisio. All students will be asked to  bring a book with them to testing, which they can read after they finish the test or instead of taking it. If students are absent on testing days, which will be staggered throughout March, they will be marked absent.

Quattrocchi reiterated a point he has made at several previous BOE meetings that, regardless of what other districts are doing, Verona cannot now legally pass a resolution against it. “We cannot explicitly provide a forum where the PARCC test is optional,” said Quattrocchi, who added that the BOE had “triple checked” with its lawyer, the state Department of Education, the school boards association and the county superintendent of schools. “Regardless of what those other districts are doing, we cannot do what they are doing,” he said. “It is a thousand percent one way: The test is mandatory and you must administer the test.”

Quattrocchi also repeated that he believes that the state has not properly prepared to administer the PARCC or assess its results, making the test “meaningless”. Verona will not use PARCC results for classroom placements next year and the test is not a graduation requirement this year.

The BOE heard from several parents opposed to the test and frustrated by what they said was the instruction time being lost to test prep this year. Regina French, a Brookside Avenue resident, said that her family had moved to Verona for the public school education, but they were for the first time considering private school. (Private schools are not required to give the PARCC.) “She’s not getting the same education,” she said of her daughter. “This PARCC test is affecting how the teachers are teaching.”

Richard Rampolla, the principal of Brookdale Avenue School, was also in the audience and sough to allay some of the concerns. “The hard part for many people tonight is looking for logical answers to an illogical situation,” he said. “But please know that Verona is a good district, and when we are done with the PARCC we will still be a good district.”

“We have never been a district that teaches to the test,” he added, “and I don’t think we have been this year either. I will be honest with you and say that preparing for the PARCC has impacted the way we do things. Yes kids gave been in the computer lab during library, which saddens me and the librarians.”

Verona will hold three information sessions on the PARCC, starting next week. The first will be at H.B. Whitehorne on Tuesday, February 10 at 7 p.m.; at Verona High School on Wednesday, February 11 at 7 p.m.; and a session for all elementary school parents that will be held at VHS on Thursday, February 19, at 7 p.m.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” Henry Ford

Dear Verona Parents and Guardians,

Verona Public Schools continues to provide an outstanding education to all of our students. The Verona staff and administration have been preparing our students for the PARCC Assessments for the past two years. Verona’s students have been learning the necessary skills in order to have a successful experience. This is the first year that our students will take thePARCC (Partnership for Assessment ofReadiness for College and Career) Assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics in grades 3 to 11. PARCC is a coalition of states working together to develop a common set of computer-based K–12 assessments linked to the new, more rigorous Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

As described by the NJ Department of Education, the PARCC assessment system will have several benefits not found in the previous assessment system including benefits to:

• Students, who will have clear information about whether they are working at expected levels and are on track for postsecondary success;
• Teachers, who will receive more timely and useful data to help inform instruction;
• Parents, who will have clear and timely information about the progress their children are making; and
• States, which will have comparable results across PARCC member states and will be home to a youth population that is better prepared for success.

Verona Public Schools will be providing three sessions specific to elementary, middle, and high school for parents to learn more about the Common Core State Standards and information about the PARCC assessments. Please join us on one of the following dates if you would like to learn more about this topic:

• Middle School PARCC Parent Night at HBW on Tuesday, February 10, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria
• High School PARCC Parent Night at VHS on Wednesday, February 11, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria
• Elementary PARCC Parent Night at VHS on Thursday, February 19, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria

OPINION

In reflecting on that statement I felt it was important express why this test does matter.

The PARCC test matters because Verona schools were not failing before the Common Core and PARCC arrived. Many would say we are failing now. We’re failing students and destroying the trust between administrators, teachers, students and parents. These tests are developmentally inappropriate as are the Common Core standards from which they are based. One does not have to go very far into any of the grade level tests to understand this (try them). These tests are designed to frustrate and fail students. Our children are struggling and parents are stressed trying to support them. I can’t tell you how many parents I have spoken with who have mentioned getting tutors, withdrawing from after school activities or wondering if their child has a learning disability since this complete overhaul of our curriculum began. This matters. Parents all across the state are starting to connect the dots and realize this stress is not caused by a flaw in our children but rather in the inappropriate curriculum and testing.

These tests matter because we have spent massive amounts of money to upgrade our technology, align our curriculum and purchase these tests. Verona recently bought 460 Chromebooks in order to implement this test. Verona taxpayers approved a massive technology upgrade which, while needed, was in large part was to support the PARCC testing mandate.

This test matters because Verona teachers are desperately trying to prepare our children for these tests. The tests WILL factor into a teacher’s evaluation. Our children are being told to do their best and when their best clearly isn’t good enough there are tears, frustration, and cries of, “I don’t want to go to school anymore.” The preparation for the PARCC began the first week of school. Test prep is being graded and counted towards marking period grades. Test prep is infused into every part of our children’s classrooms. Our elementary level children are being drilled on writing five-paragraph essays and dissecting convoluted math word problems rather than doing science experiments, learning social studies, going on field trips or doing any kind of creative writing. Ask your children. Many are now spending their library periods on the computers doing PARCC practice.

This test matters because a tremendous amount of instructional time is lost to the actual PARCC testing. Each school will be testing during both March and May and total “in chair” time will be 13 to 15 hours depending upon grade level.

The tests matter because 3rd graders who have never been taught to type will need to type fully edited essays while being subjected to time limits. These children will have to navigate lengthy texts on a computer with an interface that is neither intuitive nor age appropriate.

This test matters because data will be collected from our children without parental consent. This data will be used to create longitudinal databases that will follow our students throughout their school careers and lives. IEP and 504 information will be sent off with the PARCC tests to Pearson, which created the PARCC and scores it, and presumably any interested third party who requests that information as per the FERPA guidelines.

These tests matter because, in states like Tennessee, personal questions were embedded in PARCC practice tests that none of its administrators, teachers or parents were able to see beforehand or report on afterwards. This information will be forever associated with those children via their assigned personal identification numbers.

These tests matter because the trust between a student and teacher will be lost when that child raises his or her during the PARCC test and asks that teacher for assistance and the teacher CANNOT provide that help as per the testing guidelines. That trust may never be regained.

These tests matter because everything in school is now geared towards one learning style. Children with learning differences or children who think outside-the-box have been made to feel like they no longer have a chance at succeeding in our schools.

These test do matter to the citizens of Verona. They matter!

At the Febuary 3, 2015 meeting the Verona Board of Education informed us that if a parent refuses to allow their child to take the PARCC that child will be allowed to read a book but will likely have to sit at a computer in the testing room. There will be no penalties for a student who refuses the PARCC and the PARCC will not count for placement in any Verona schools. The BOE feels that providing alternative educational environments will violate directives from the State Board of Education.

I encourage everyone to educate themselves on these issues and get involved. If you’re interested you can join us on Facebook at Verona Cares About Schools.

Beth O’Donnell-Fischer is a Verona parent and a co-founder of Verona Cares About Schools.

An educational event on the Common Core is planned for Saturday, February 21, at 1 p.m. at the Bethwood, 38 Lackawanna Avenue, Totowa, NJ 07512.

What is the Common Core that is in our schools? Two renowned speakers will answer this question. Duke Pesta is an experienced educational reformer, university professor, high school teacher and the academic director of Freedom Project Education. Pesta is one of the leading experts in the United States on the Common Core, delivering more than 280 talks in over 33 states on this subject. Mary Calamia is a practicing psychotherapist from New York who speaks at educational forums and advocates tirelessly to enlighten legislators in New York schools.

Suggested donation $5. Registration will be accepted at the door. For more information, email 777parentscare@verizon.net or call Patricia or Lori at 862.227.6953.

This event was organized by caring parents in Verona and the surrounding towns.

Samantha Lee Sweeney of Verona and Byron Hargrove, PhD, Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, Berkeley College School of Liberal Arts. Ms. Sweeney received a scholarship to attend Berkeley College.

“These students have demonstrated their ability and desire to further their achievements by pursuing a college degree,” said Dario A. Cortes, PhD, President of Berkeley College. “They deserve these scholarships, which can go a long way in helping the next generation of students access a well-rounded, career-focused education.”

Berkeley College provides traditional and online degree options and blended learning opportunities to prepare students for careers in some of today’s most in-demand professions. The College was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the Best Colleges in the 2014 and 2015 Online Bachelor Degree category rankings. Students at Berkeley College benefit from a supportive, flexible, diverse learning environment that connects them with workplace experiences in their areas of study and pathways to dynamic careers.

A leader in providing career-focused education since 1931, Berkeley College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and enrolls approximately 8,000 students – including more than 900 international students – in its Baccalaureate and Associate degree and Certificate programs. The College has six New Jersey locations – Woodland Park, Paramus, Woodbridge, Newark, Clifton and Dover. In New York there are three locations – Midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and White Plains. Berkeley College Online® serves a global population. Programs are offered in more than 20 career fields in the Larry L. Luing School of Business, the School of Professional Studies, the School of Health Studies, and the School of Liberal Arts.

Last Friday, the seventh and eighth grade at Our Lady of the Lake School began a six-week program called TREP$ that teaches them about entrepreneurship. The students are working at home on developing their own businesses. The program will culminate on Friday, May 1, from 3 to 7 p.m., when the students will launch their businesses in a flea market-style TREP$ Marketplace that will take place in the school auditorium. Mark your calendars!

On Friday, February 6, Verona High School French students visited Montclair State University for a day of French immersion. Prior to the event, they created and filmed a short video that highlighted the sites of Quebec City, which was entered into the movie contest. The students were among several schools in New Jersey to participate in the competition. During the closing ceremony of the event, it was announced that the VHS students won the first place in the movie festival.

Today was the first day of testing in Verona for the new statewide standardized test prepared by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), and 10% of Verona’s students refused to take it.

According to Verona’s superintendent of schools, Rui Dionisio, a total of 221 students submitted letters that they would not be taking the test, out of Verona’s 2,212 enrollment. While that is 10% of total enrollment, students in kindergarten, first, second and twelfth grades are not taking the PARCC this year, putting the actual refusal rate at perhaps as much as 15%. The refusals by school were:

• Verona High School: 89
• H.B. Whitehorne Middle School: 89
• Brookdale Avenue School: 4
• F.N. Brown School: 15
• Forest Avenue School: 8
• Laning Avenue School: 17

Dionisio was sanguine despite the high refusal rate. “Today was a very smooth and productive first day of the PARCC administration,” he wrote in an email. “Our students were positive, prepared, and ready to test; our staff was extremely supportive and handled the new testing procedures perfectly; the new wireless network worked great; and the Chromebooks were seamless.”

The high refusal rate is something of a victory for Verona Cares About Schools, a group of parents who disseminated information about the test and a form refusal letter that the Verona Board of Education would accept from families who were opting out.

“More than 10% of Verona students in testing grades refused the PARCC today,” said Beth O’Donnell-Fischer, one of the creators of Verona Cares About School. “Through these refusals district parents have shown their lack confidence in the ability of Pearson to create a fair assessment and have expressed their displeasure with the massive amount of test prep, lost instructional time, data collection and the Common Core curriculum on which it’s all based. Some students commented today that it was easier than expected. One cannot help but wonder if there was last minute manipulation of the PARCC test’s ‘rigor’ in reaction to the anti-PARCC movement. Interestingly, when the first Common Core aligned tests were administered in New York state in 2013, students expressed similar opinions on the level of difficulty. When the test scores came in, over 70% of students had failed. We won’t find out our scores until 2016 and Pearson still has not determined what the cut scores for the PARCC will be.”

The BOE has been openly critical of the test for many months. “The only people more stressed out than parents and teachers about the PARCC are school boards because we are being forced to do something that we don’t believe is sensible, rational or thought out,” BOE President John Quattrocchi said in January. Quattrocchi predicted then that the PARCC, in its current form, will “collapse”.

The BOE agreed in February that students who came to school but refused to take the test could sit in the testing room and read a book but would not be punished for their refusal to take the test. According to anecdotal reports on the Verona Cares About Schools Facebook page, some Verona High School students were able to attend classes going on in other parts of the building.

It is unclear what repercussions from the high refusal rate might await Verona. The BOE repeatedly told parents that it could not refuse to administer the test without risking a loss of state aid or other penalties. So-called Title I schools–those in economically disadvantaged areas that get funding from the federal Department of Education–could suffer penalties if a school does not have 95% test participation for two years in a row, but Verona is not a Title I school.

PARCC testing continues through next week.