At the February 21st Board of Education meeting, a group of Eric S. Smith Middle School 8th grade students presented a project expanding upon Ramsey’s time honored tradition of commemorating Memorial Day. The students proposed to create a Field of Flags, with each flag placed on the field to honor each fallen soldier lost during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to the Field of Flags, students are planning a ceremony on May 24th at 7pm to commemorate and reflect upon the purpose of Memorial Day. Students have been collaborating with faculty and various members of the community in order to formalize their idea of how they can give back to the community. In order to organize the project, students have devised smaller sub-committees with different responsibilities to complete the project. One group is responsible for the logistics of the field and ceremony. Another group is putting forth a marketing campaign to notify the public and to extend an open invitation to the community, who has provided so much to our schools throughout the years. The students are currently working on a Field of Flags website that people will be able to access through the Smith School homepage. This website will serve as an information and communication tool for all those who wish to be involved. A third group is tasked with raising the necessary funds to purchase the thousands of flags needed to properly show our support for this endeavor. Working together since November, these committees have shown great initiative and enthusiasm for this project. As they ended their presentation at February’s Board of Education meeting, the students explained, “This community does so much for our schools and our schools support our community. We want this project to be yet another example of how we work together...And how we give recognition to such an important day.” The flags will be set up by students at Eric Smith Middle School the week before Memorial Day and will remain up through Memorial Day.

As the Ramsey School District continues to evolve, the Family and Consumer Science Department has undergone a major re-design over the last five years, and it has become a place where district goals such as technology integration, student-centered instruction, and fostering creativity and critical thinking occur on a daily basis. The hiring of new staff, modernizing facility upgrades, and sustained professional development have all contributed to the innovative re-design of this department into a place where students are engaged in meaningful and exciting work on a daily basis.

Family and Consumer Science courses at Smith School and Ramsey High School cover topics related to Culinary Arts, Child Development, and Financial Literacy. All of the courses feature instruction which is performance-based and presents students with real-world problems. For instance, students in the Child Development class at Ramsey High School run a pre-school for 4-year old students, preparing lesson plans, assessing students' growth, and implementing strategies that foster the pre-school students' academic, social, emotional, and physical needs. Students in the Advanced Culinary Arts course at RHS explore issues of food sustainability by using local produce from the Ramsey Farmers Market as well as food grown on site at the school. And students in the Smith School Life Skills program participate in the popular "Cupcake Wars" challenge, based upon the popular TV show, which is judged by other faculty at the school. In Family and Consumer Science classes, content and process are both important parts of the curriculum. While the students are responsible for rigorous content in each course, there is equal emphasis teaching students to collaborate, think critically, and learn from their mistakes in order to "fail forward." These classes are centers for active learning, which is a key ingredient to a successful 21st Century education.

Andrea Lamendola was appointed trustee of the Ramsey Board of Education on February 21, 2017. Andrea and her husband, Michael Chambers, are graduates of the Ramsey School District and the proud parents of three children.

Andrea brings substantial community service experience to the board having served as a president of the Junior Woman’s Club of Ramsey, a trustee of the Ramsey Public Education Foundation, and an executive board member of the Ramsey Golf and Country Club. She is currently in her tenth year as a Ramsey Girl Scout leader and is a Bergen County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster children.

Andrea’s professional background is diverse with roles in management, communications, and digital technology. She was an Editor of Global Market Research at Bank of America, a key Account Manager focusing on the education sector for All Things Media, and a Marketing Manager with Burbio.com.

Andrea earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Philosophy from LeMoyne College.

The Ramsey Board of Education and Ramsey Education Association are pleased to announce that they reached a tentative agreement regarding the current contract negotiations for the 2016/17 - 2018/19 school years. Once salary guides are agreed upon, the full contract will be presented to both parties for ratification.

• March 21 - Board of Education Meeting at Tisdale School - 7:30 p.m.
• March 27 - No School for Students - Staff Development Day
• March 29 - Parent Academy - Grades K-12 @ RHS Lecture Hall : The Mind/Body Connection: How Your Emotions Affect Your Health - 7 p. m.
• April 10 - 14 - Spring Recess - Schools Closed

Please feel free to submit future ideas for articles or comments directly to Dr. Murphy - mmurphy@ramsey.k12.nj.us