Meeting Recap: New Superintendent Selected, Declining Enrollment, Curriculum Director’s Spending Questioned & More

Recap of the April 29 RIH BOE meeting:

The Board has selected a new Superintendent. The name of the candidate was not announced, and the board stated that the contract has not been finalized.

As of this writing next year’s enrollment is down at both Hills and Ramapo. It has been reported that Hills is down to 667 students next year and Ramapo is down to 1190 (down by 60). While some see the issue solely as low enrollment at Hills, the fact is that the overall district enrollment has been declining, and based on trends in the elementary schools will continue to do so. The numbers do not lie. Enrollment disparity between schools is a concerning issue, and so is declining enrollment across the district. Even if a magical solution to attract more students back to Hills were to occur, we will still be left with two schools with under-enrollment.

The Curriculum Presentation was not a presentation, it was a re-introduction of the existing Supervisory staff, reading from scripted cards. It did not tell us how the additional $100,000 the restructuring cost would benefit students (amount previously stated by the Curriculum Director and Interim Superintendent), and it did not tell us why the restructuring and possible contract negotiation was done by the administration without the involvement of the Board. Supervisor staff have been told there is no defined dollar amount until the contract is negotiated.

A last minute motion was added to the agenda to approve a Virginia based market research firm at a cost of $48,500 to conduct curriculum 'evaluation’. Curriculum evaluation is the task of the Curriculum Director. So far this year, the new Curriculum Director, who makes an annual salary of $194,670 plus a $4,000 Doctorate Stipend, has spent $100k of our tax dollars on a “restructuring” which gave her 2 ‘assistant’ curriculum supervisors (newly created positions), and has now spent $49K to hire an outside consulting firm to evaluate our curriculum. What do all of our new curriculum directors do, if they are not evaluating our curriculum? Our district has become very top heavy while enrollment is shrinking, and our cost per student continues to escalate (cost per student is up 42% since 2017, from $18,460 to $26,242 in 2023-2024).

In January 2023 the Board changed Policy 0164 to insist that the Superintendent provide all motions to the Board five days in advance in order for the Board to have ample time to review. Policy 0164 reads “The agenda shall be delivered to each Board member no later than five calendar days before the meeting and shall include reports and supplementary materials (commonly defined as "Board Packet")”. The current board majority insisted on this policy as they complained about the Board AND the public not having information in advance.

Yet in 2024, several items, including the $48K Curriculum ‘Evaluation’, have been slipped quietly onto the agenda over the weekend or on the day of the meeting, by the Interim Superintendent, avoiding public notice and in complete ignorance of the Board Policy. Board members who professed to be about transparency and more time for board review now seem comfortable rubber stamping significant last minute proposals with minimal to no discussion. Several Policy changes were also added to the agenda over the weekend. Why all the secrecy and last minute additions to the agenda in violation of the Board’s Policy? Why is the Board not enforcing that the Interim Superintendent comply with their Policy?

The Board had zero questions about the 2024-2025 budget and it was approved unanimously.

Former Board member Vivian King raised awareness of the fact that the district will no longer be offering Accounting or Economics CPE classes at Indian Hills due to the enrollment disparity issues. It is outrageous to me that students at Indian Hills cannot access classes. This will perpetuate the issue of students choosing Ramapo over Indian Hills.

Additionally, Melissa Kiel reported that her committee supports changing the district RIH dance team to be a Ramapo only team. There was no mention about what would happen to current or future Indian Hills students who wish to participate on a dance team. Interestingly, Kiel did not say that the district RIH Mountain Biking team would be also split by school. Why the disparity of policy? It should be noted that VP Marianna Emmolo’s daughter is on the dance team and perhaps she should recuse herself from these discussions.

Rather than recommend solutions to create an equal educational opportunities across the district, the Board instead hired a $3500/month public relations firm to address the enrollment disparity issue, which it clearly has not done.

The RIH BOE under Kim Ansh is both creating and perpetuating problems, while spending money and hiding their decision making behind the scenes in committees, rather than providing real solutions to the issues at hand. A look at the User Friendly Budgets on the district website shows that while enrollment decreased by 15% from 2017-2024, our cost per pupil increased 42% from $18,460 to $26,242.

Here is the link to the district's Strategic Plan, presented to the BOE in June 2023. Page 18 addressed Enrollment Disparity (unfortunately, the RIH BOE chose to hire a $3500/month public relations firm to address the disparity, rather than follow the Strategic Plan): https://cdnsm5-ss11.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_237981/Image/Data%20Review%20Agenda/RIH%20Strategic%20Planning%20Board%20Update.pdf