“Pay The Teachers!”

Jan 9, 20244 Comments

It was an interesting weekend. Since the controversial Reorganization Meeting, BOE Member Pamela Stanley made several posts on social media outlets with this simple line, claiming that four BOE Members voted down payroll. This connects to a chain of events started by Dr. Varley almost immediately after the meeting that created a great deal of confusion and concern among members of the public. Most teachers we spoke to saw through the email and provided us with a copy of it expressing disbelief in what appeared to be an attempt to spin the issue.

Several contributors have already written that this “Pay the Teachers” campaign is disingenuous – even if payroll was voted down during the Re-Org Meeting (and it wasn’t), teachers would have gotten paid by virtue of their contract. Teachers were never not going to get paid.

Several contributors also explained that the reason why that specific section was voted down was explained by BOE Members at the meeting- they believed that the language of the resolution violated policy – they simply wanted to amend it.

Here are several responses to Ms. Stanley’s social media posts made directly under her posts submitted by Shauna and Amy for publication in this article:

From Amy:

Pamela Ann Stanley why in God’s name are you running around acting as if the teachers aren’t getting paid? The resolution passed, but either way, by contract, they would have gotten paid. Haven’t you been a Board Member for three years. Do you know that every teacher in the District has no clue why your racing from one place to another saying this?

From Shauna:

Look, the vote was never on whether or not to pay the bills, it was on the resolution to appoint the Business Administrator to do it. Teachers were and are getting paid, so let’s put that to rest and focus on the real questions.

Real question #1:

Why would the Business Administrator remove policies and bylaws from the agenda when that goes against District policy?

Real question #2:

Why would four board members vote ‘yes’ on an agenda that violates their own policy?

The only plausible reason I can come up with as an answer to the first question is that he was directed by someone to remove the policies that had been on the first (correct) agenda.

As to who might’ve done that, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we should have a contest to see who can come up with the funniest answer or the most conspiracy theory answer Maybe Mrs. Stanley would like to come answer the second question for us?

I would like to take this opportunity to answer Shauna’s question.

My guess is that they simply cannot defend, publicly, the position that Ms Penna – who voted for the botched reconfiguration, voted for a tax -funded ethics investigation that has resulted in SEC-validated ethics complaints against her that are now in front of a judge, who was Vice President and President as the District declined further than six other comparable Districts and whose tenure is a long list of closing down avenues once available to families in providing feedback should be President. Speaking of teachers – let’s remember the resignations and reassignments.

I’m sure that BOE Members are aware of a public comment made during the Ridgewood BOE Meeting last night where a member of the public stated:

I always enjoy the reorganization meetings and I would like to extend my congratulations to trustee Mccaly and trustee Dani on your election. And Thank you so much for running. I do have to say I feel like I am in some kind of twilight zone or maybe a really bad of episode of saturday night live that A trustee with an ethics violation has been elected president.

And three of you saw fit to vote for this person to serve as president of Ridgewood Board of Education. It’s just embarrassing!

The debate cannot be about qualifications and performance – it had to be about something else – even if the possible consequence was confusion and panic.

Yes, Ms. Stanley – let’s pay the teachers. We’ve been on their side all along. If you and Dr. Varley truly believed that the vote would have resulted in teachers not getting paid, can I suggest you contact your fellow BOE Members to become educated on the topic?

In the interim, let’s get back to the more pressing issue of who is the most qualified and fit to be BOE President.