Friday, March 12, 2010
The program focuses on anti-bullying and not being a bystander.
"What should you do when you see bullying?" "Tell your teacher!" Students yelled the mantra during Friday's Power of One anti-bullying program at Hartshorn Elementary School. Students were broken into two groups—kindergarten through third grade and fourth and fifth graders—to learn about how they can do their part to stop bullying. Molly and Andrew from Soren Bennick Production lead the program that unfolded in a series of skits. They each wore colored masks to show the different people who can be involved in bullying. Green was for the bully, purple for the victim and yellow for the bystander, who can laugh at or ignore bullying. For the younger grades they showed verbal and physical bullying, and the older students also learned about …
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
They now compete for part of $51 million in scholarship funds.
SCHOOLS|2 days ago
Millburn High School has 12 National Merit Semifinalists, and they all have been selected as finalists in the 2010 Competition for National Merit Scholarships. They are Julianna Brunini, Amy Chen, Maia Cole, Michael Davis, Angela Du, Rachel Finkel, Caleb Kao, Marisa Karchin, Timothy Matchen, Mayabea Shechner, Andrew Spelman and Caroline Tan. More than 1.5 million students in nearly 22,000 high schools across the country entered the program as juniors by taking the 2008 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The nationwide pool of 16,000 Semifinalists included the highest scoring entrants in each state, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. To become finalists, these twelve students had to …
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
They learn about other cultures by learning to sing their songs.
Students at Deerfield Elementary School are learning about different cultures through song, and people got a taste of it Monday night. The fifth grade chorus sang two songs they've learned through their music class—one in Latin and one in French—to show off what they've learned during the Board of Education meeting. It was part of a demonstration of how culture and language are expressed through music. Courtney Nelson, a Deerfield teacher, showed off the songs students learn from around the globe including a song from India for fifth graders and one in Spanish in second grade, which is when students start taking Spanish. Other students learn about African instruments when they learn about songs from there.
The BOE Property Committee plans to hire a demographer within the next week.
It could take a demographer about six weeks to complete a school redistricting plan, which would have it before the Board of Education around May 1. Board of Education Property Committee Chairman Michael Birnberg said during Monday's school board meeting the committee had interviewed three demographers. It plans to interview two more before making a decision. A decision on a demographer could be made within the next week. The committee's members have been told by everyone they've interviewed it would cost $8,000 to $10,000 to complete a redistricting plan. Additionally, the demographers said it could take about six weeks to complete the report. School officials are planning to redistrict students to solve an overcrowding issue at Glenwood …
Monday, March 8, 2010
But We Love Millburn is threatening to call for an investigation into "fiscal mismanagement" if the proposed 2010-11 budget has any increase.
The school tax won't be going up as much as originally proposed. School officials said Monday night during the Board of Education meeting the proposed 2010-11 budget calls for a 1.2 percent tax increase. School officials said at the last school board meeting two weeks ago taxes would increase by 4 percent, the highest tax increase allowed under state statutes. But the application of more excess surplus and other measures are allowing school officials to drop the tax increase to 1.2 percent. BOE Finance Committee Chairman Jeff Waters said with the current economy school officials could no longer justify having a high number in excess surplus, and they started to draw it down a year ago. The plan was to do so over two or three years. A year …
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The high school's literary magazine has earned high honors for four years.
SCHOOLS|Saturday, March 6
The Millburn High School Literary Magazine Word won the highest ranking of "superior" in the 2009 National Council of Teaters of English Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magainzes. The 2009 edition earned the award. Word was one of four New Jersey publications also to be nominated for the "highest" award, given to 26 schools from around the country. Over 400 schools submitted entries in this year's contest, and, of those, 26 were selected as highest, 81 superior, 207 excellent, and 48 above average. The mission of the National Council of Teachers of English Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines is to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines. The program fosters excellence in writing and…
Thursday, March 4, 2010
They argue it's more accurate to use the "median" rather than "average" tax bill and that would show Millburn does not have the highest tax bills in New Jersey.
Millburn officials are quick to argue the state's calculations ranking the township's average tax bills are flawed, but taxes are some of the highest in the state no matter how they're calculated. New state information concluded that Millburn had the highest average tax bill in New Jersey in 2009, coming in at $19,097. It's a 5 percent increase over what the state data for Millburn's average tax bill in 2008. But township officials said this week the calculation should be for the median bill, not the average, because of the diverse real estate values in Millburn-Short Hills. The higher real estate values skew the average higher, they said. "There is so much variance from between the lower and higher real estate values," said Township …
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Last week's shortened day counted as a school day.
The Millburn School District is at its limit of snow days before they need to take away an April vacation day. Schools Supt. Richard Brodow said last Thursday's early dismissal day counts as an official school day, which means the district is not yet over its limit of snow days. The Millburn school calendar has three built in snow days. "It was half a day of school, so it counts as a day of school," he said. Millburn students were released starting at 10 a.m. on Thursday after snow started falling. High school and middle school students were dismissed at 10 a.m. Elementary school studnts were released at 10:45 a.m. There was no school on Friday, which was Millburn's third snow day for students. At least a foot of snow fell during last week…
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Millburn student art was on display at the Paper Mill Playhouse.
It was a crowded scene at the Paper Mill Playhouse on Tuesday night, but it wasn't because people were rushing to see the latest hit performance on the stage. Millburn-Short Hills students and their parents and friends flocked to the theater for a Youth Art Month reception. The art work was in every space in the theater's gallery space and in the Carriage House, and it featured the best from students in every grade. In addition to the work from students, The Perfect Fourth String Quartet played a selection of music in the playhouse's gallery. In the quartet are Millburn High School students Julianna Brunini on violin, Caroline Tan on violin, Hannah Berg on violin and Marissa Karchin on cello. The art work on display Tuesday night will be …
Bret Schundler discusses surplus freezes, possible reductions in state aid allocations.
Bret Schundler, newly sworn in as New Jersey's Commissioner of Education, defended the cuts in school aid already enacted by the Christie administration and warned educators Monday that more are on the way. Schundler spoke at the Garden State Coalition of Schools meeting at Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School Monday night. The topic of conversation was the current financial state of education in New Jersey. Many districts represented received notice recently they would not be getting the remainder of the state aid they were expecting. Millburn stands to lose about $1 million. Most districts also are expecting state aid cuts for the 2010-2011 budget year. "We all know we're in trouble here–in the state, in the country, in the local …
""What should you do when you see bullying?" "Tell your teacher!"" I think this is a valuable program but I am not sure how realistic that advise is, or, in the real world, how advisable that really is. more ›