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Parents of New Jersey Twins Have Options

Here is an article from the Daily Record detailing the new law signed by Gov. Corzine.

September 7, 2008

Morris twins sometimes have teachers seeing double

New law gives parents say in classroom placements

By Abbott Koloff
Daily Record

Dorothy Frank, the Chatham woman who fought for a law to allow parents to keep twins together in the classroom, keeps her own twins apart.

She said she wanted to give parents more of a say in their children's education because schools often separate twins and triplets, saying that helps develop separate identities. Advocates for the new law said there are arguments for keeping some twins together.

Frank said Chatham school officials told her last year that, if she insisted, her 5-year-old fraternal twin boys would be kept together in kindergarten but would be separated after that.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do," she said. "I wanted to make sure mine and everyone else's options would be open."

Gov. Jon S. Corzine last week signed a law that makes New Jersey the eighth state to give parents the right to determine the placement of twins -- and a national organization that tracks such laws, twinslaw.org, says similar legislation is being sponsored by legislators in 12 other states.

Several local school officials questioned the need for legislation.

James O'Neill, superintendent of the Chatham school district, said the law takes away discretion from educators trained to deal with such issues.

"It's a ludicrous bill and disparaging of the knowledge that elementary school principals have," O'Neill said.

He said the Chathams district usually has kept twins apart, to help develop their own identities, but added that the district has kept twins together under some circumstances, such as a family emergency that created insecurity for the children.

While the new law, which applies to kindergarten through eighth grade, gives parents the final say, it also allows principals to appeal to the board of education after one marking period if twins in the same classroom cause a disruption. Among the bill's sponsors were state Assemblywoman Alison McHose and state Sen. Steven Oroho, both R-Sussex.

Donna Hilsinger, president of Twins 'N Triplets Mothers of Morris County, said she favors the law because it gives parents a choice. But she added that the issue hasn't come up often in Morris County and that in Parsippany, where she lives, educators asked what she wanted to do about her identical twin girls when they started kindergarten.

"I wanted them separate," she said.

She said it would have been easier to have her 9-year-old twins, Amanda and Karen, together because that would simplify helping them with homework and school projects. But she said their competitiveness would have undone any of the benefits, adding that both girls, now entering the fourth grade, have said they need some time apart.

Karen said last week that she and her sister argued all summer.

"I don't want to argue in the classroom," she said.

Amanda said she sometimes wants to be in the same class with her sister, but not all the time, adding that it would make it more difficult to meet new friends.

"You wouldn't need to talk to other girls," she said.

LeRoy Seitz, Parsippany's superintendent, said his district never has had a dispute over the placement of twins, and has always been able to accommodate parents' wishes.

"I'm not sure why we need a law to address this issue," he said.

Rene Rovtar, superintendent of the Long Hill School district, said twins generally do better apart because that allows them to express their individuality, but added that doesn't apply to every case.

"I think it's something that ought not to have risen to the level of legislation," she said.

Advocates of the law say that while there may be benefits to keeping some twins apart, others do better when kept together in early grades, especially when there's stress in the family.

Jennifer Kovach, an attorney who lives in Franklin in Sussex County, said her 6-year-old fraternal twins, Katie and Jacob, had a rough time last year when her divorce became final and she was recovering from cancer. The Franklin school district put her children in separate classes for kindergarten last year, she said, and her daughter sometimes hid under a desk at school.

Kovach said she suggested to a child study team that the twins be in the same class.

"They were not receptive to that idea," Kovach said, adding that she never made a formal request.

Thomas Turner, Franklin's superintendent, said his district encouraged the separation of twins but added that the new "law trumps policy." He also said the policy always had some flexibility.

"There are exceptions to the rule," he said. "I think parents should have an input."

Kovach said her daughter stopped having problems in school by February and her children are in separate first-grade classes this year. The law would allow her two weeks to request that they be placed together. She said she is waiting to see how they do over the next week.

Gina Coffano, principal of Pequannock's K-5 Stephen J. Gerace School, said she believes parents should have a say because they best understand their children's needs. She also is the mother of 4-year-old triplets and plans to keep them together when they start kindergarten next year in Bergen County. Had the new law not been passed, she said she might have had to argue her point with district officials.

"I think that was true of most districts," she said.

Morris County parents of twins interviewed last week all said they applaud the new law, whether or not they wanted their children in the same class.

Rosemarie Caroll of Hanover said she plans to have her 2-year-old twins together when they start kindergarten but may separate them after that.

"I have it in my mind to separate them so they are not known as "The Twins," she said.

Christina Parente of Parsippany said a lot of people know her 7-year-old fraternal twins, Joseph and Elizabeth, as a set, so she believed it was important for them to go their own ways in school. She said her son's teacher last year expressed surprise when told he was a twin, and her son liked the idea that someone didn't know.

"He was tickled," Parente said. "He said: 'That's so cool.'"

But for other parents, having twins in the same class has made life easier.

Kathy Vita, of Denville, has two sets of twins, and has tried it both ways. The 11-year-olds started together in kindergarten but later were separated. The 9-year-olds started kindergarten apart.

"We were spending hours on homework," Vita said.

She said her older twins didn't always have the same amount of homework when they were in separate third-grade classes two years ago, which made for some jealousy. She said the district agreed when she asked the following year to put them all together.

Better Test Taking

Take a deep breath before beginning in order to calm your mind. Racing forward in the first few minutes can lead to careless errors that are difficult to identify and correct.

Preview the test before you answer anything. This gets you thinking about the material. Chart your attack. Schedule your time based on the point values of each section.

Read the directions Never assume that you know what the directions say. I believe more points are lost and certainly more failing grades are earned by not reading the directions.

Underline the task. This will make you direct your energy toward answering the right questions.

Keep track of the time and progress during the test. If the test is timed, write down what time the test will conclude in the top corner of your test or scratch paper.

Answer the easy questions first. This will give you the confidence and momentum to get through the rest of the test. You are sure these answers are correct.

Go back to the difficult questions. There may be clues in the easier questions that jog your memory for the harder ones.

Answer all questions.

Avoid careless errors—Think before you start writing. Create a quick bullet point outline. Rambling wastes time and points.

Review the test carefully, especially the easy questions. Take your time and hammer the easy questions. Often they are worth just as much as the hard questions.

Use all of the time allotted for the test. If you finish early, put the test down for a minute. Take a deep breath and clear your head. Then go back and check any essay questions to make certain you answered the entire question. For other type questions review your work or make sure you only checked one box for each question on scanner type tests.

Show all your work (especially when partial credit is awarded) and write as legibly as possible.

This is not fatal - your grades on tests do not truly indicate your personal worth, your intelligence or your likelihood of success. That all comes from your character and if you are striving and challenging yourself to do well, regardless of the point total you are building a stronger character.

IEP Tune Up and the New School Year - Back to School Basics

Summer is just about over. Back to school sales, new clothes, supplies and book bags are things we all think of to give our children a head start this fall. Now is the right time to look at your child's IEP - it may be the best investment you make in his or her education this year.

A lot happened in your child's life over the summer. Are the goals still valid? Are there goals that need to be added or removed?

Make sure the IEP is personal, not a cut and paste mishmash of terms.

When you meet ask questions, lots of questions. Right down notes and questions for follow up. Get email addresses and direct phone numbers from the professionals. Let them know you want to work with them to make the time your child is in school valuable.

Get copies of everything. It's your right and you need those copies later.

Make sure any unfinished goals of past IEP's are addressed in the current IEP.

Make sure you get actual measurable goals. Goals should be SMART. S = Specific, M = Measurable, A = attainable R = Realistic T = have a Timeline.

If measuring tools say "classroom observation" then insist on a teachers written report daily on what was /was not observed that day pursuant to those goals.

Dont be afraid to insist on the specific strategies written down in the IEP. How will the teacher or professional utilize methods and exercises to reach the goals.

If there are issues regarding behavior then have them documented in the IEP along with strategies to deal with the disruptions and behavioral issues.

If your child is in high school or high school aged, then you need to talk with the child study team about transition goals. What are transition goals? Transition goals address skills which will help your child after they graduate or complete their time in an educational setting.

Read the IEP as if you knew nothing about your child. Could you determine the goals and how these will be attacked? If you were charged with instructing this child and had only this document to reference, would you be able to do a good job serving the needs of this child?

As a parent you have the right to ask for an IEP review. You can get the IEP revised then. Just write a letter and ask the school district Special Education Administrator/Child Study Team Director. It's your right as a parent.

Remember: you are you child's primary case manager!

Also remember, the vast majority of professionals have a heart for helping children succeed. They get run down on the job just like the rest of us. Let your passion and professionalism rub off on them!

Helping Chidren with Learning Difficulties

Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties

I want to recommend a book to any parent dealing with children with learning disabilities. Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties is an easy read which has a lot of practical advice on managing a struggling child’s education.

I really liked the charts at the center of the book. These materials give practical advice on how to help children struggling with specific areas such as memory, writing, organization, reading, social/emotional issues and others.

The book also has good checklists for parents and teachers to use in attempting to discern the individual strengths and struggles of the learner.

The legal section is basic and provides a good base for parents to begin to delve into the world of IDEA, IEP’s and 504’s.

The book really hit home for me. I was privileged to attend a great school and to attend Gifted and Talented classes for most of my elementary years. These classes were the highlight of my classroom experience. Still I struggled with the regular subjects in junior high, high school and even in college. Having two parents who were educators kept me afloat most of the time, though I can remember one hot summer attending summer school at Absegami High School. I had failed junior year English. Failed English while I was finishing my second year as the school newspaper editor and writing sports a couple nights per week for the Atlantic City Press!

It was not until I entered seminary that I ever considered I had a learning disability. Then one day a kindly professor, Dr. Donald Joy looked at me in the middle of a lecture and blurted out, “Jim, you have ADHD, don’t you.” I have no idea what I was doing at that moment but that was a moment I will never forget. After class Dr. Joy invited me to his office and spoke to me at length, questioning me about my education to that point.

Maybe it is ironic but I cannot remember what he said other than when he scored the test and told me I was off the chart for ADHD. I was confused, what did that mean? Dr. Joy began to explain to me the blessed double-edged sword of the diagnosis and I felt like this man who had known me for seven weeks or so had been following me around in secret for the two and a half decades I had walked the earth.

Over the past fourteen years or so since that day I have studied the unique blessing that is ADHD. I was able to finish two Masters and tackle and succeed in law school and pass the Bar exam on my first try. I believe those successes are in part linked to a greater understanding of my individual learning abilities and disabilities. I have learned to harness the abilities, to work around the disabilities and no longer carry the guilt of feeling lazy, incapable or stupid.

There are several books that have helped me along the way and if you are interested email me and I will share some of the titles with you. For today I want to recommend Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties to you in the hope that you will be able to help your student along the path to educational success as early as you can. They might make it without this help, but why handicap them when you have the opportunity to launch them forward?

Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties
Weinfeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler, Roffman Shevitz
Prufrock Press, 2006

Tenure Issues

Tenure has long been a hot button issue in New Jersey, however few cases have drawn the media attention this New York case has garnered.

Tenured teachers can prove difficult to fire

By FRANK ELTMAN • Associated Press • June 28, 2008

MIDDLE ISLAND, N.Y. — Few people know better than school superintendent Allan Gerstenlauer that disciplining a tenured teacher can be a long and expensive process.

An English teacher in his Long Island district remains on the payroll, earning an annual salary of $113,559, even after pleading guilty earlier this month to drunken driving charges -- her fifth DWI arrest in seven years.

The teacher will remain on paid leave at least until a disciplinary hearing in August, and it will be up to an impartial arbitrator to decide whether she needs to be fired as she faces a likely prison sentence.

"It is very frustrating that the process takes so long," Gerstenlauer conceded.

The case illustrates a nagging problem in school districts in New York and elsewhere around the country: firing bad teachers. It is also part of the ongoing debate over education reform and the role tenure plays in the process.

Advocates for reform cite a list of egregious examples they say demonstrate why teacher tenure rules need to be overhauled.

In New York City, it often costs taxpayers $250,000 just to fire one incompetent teacher. Some teachers remain on the payroll even after being convicted of serious felonies, requiring districts to hold disciplinary hearings behind prison walls.

"Protecting jobs of adults without regard to how well their students perform almost certainly will lead to greater costs, stagnant academic achievement, and greater dysfunction of our public education system," says tenure foe B. Jason Brooks of the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability.

Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, counters: "Tenure provides the right to due process. It is consistent with the American way; a person is innocent until proven guilty."

The issue has been gaining attention in New York.

New York legislators and Gov. David Paterson agreed this month on a bill that will automatically revoke the certification of teachers convicted of sex crimes against students. The law would end what is now often a yearlong administrative process to revoke the licenses of teachers and other school employees convicted of sex crimes against students.

And earlier this year, the Center for Union Facts launched a $1 million ad campaign featuring a billboard in Times Square, offering $10,000 to what it considers the 10 worst teachers in the country to quit their careers. The group claims unions back policies that protect all but the worst teachers.

"Paying teachers and school administrators based on how well they do their job rather than how long they've had their job makes sense," said Brooks.

Because tenure laws are different in every state, comparisons on the time and expense involved in disciplining or firing teachers are difficult. In New York state, the process can take six to 18 months and can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars, including the teachers' pay and fees for lawyers, stenographers and arbitrators.

In New York City, the cost to fire one incompetent tenured teacher is about $250,000, said Education Department spokeswoman Melody Meyer. She said that of 55,000 teachers on staff, 10 were fired last year.

"The chancellor would prefer that teachers be taken off the payroll while going through arbitration," Meyer said. "If the decision is in favor of the teacher, that money would be paid back with interest."

Dave Albert, a spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association, said that from 1995 to 2005 there were 633 disciplinary hearings statewide, 60 percent of them in New York City. Of the 633 cases, 184 resulted in termination and 234 teachers were placed on unpaid suspension.

The Washington-based Center for Union Facts says that from 1995 to 2005, 112 Los Angeles tenured teachers faced termination -- 11 per year -- out of 43,000. It also said 47 New Jersey teachers out of 100,000 were fired in a 10-year period.

New York teachers are granted tenure after three years. Before it is granted, Iannuzzi says, teachers undergo a constant series of reviews. "The reality is that during that process, all the cards are in the hands of the school district," he said. "When a teacher receives tenure, it is a real milestone. It is recognition that the person is qualified to be there."

Iannuzzi contends teachers should not bear all the blame. "Often the time and cost is the result of an excessive charge, or that the charges are baseless," he said. "It still takes a long time to weed through the case to learn this."

Gerstenlauer, the Longwood school superintendent, declined to discuss specifics in the case of the teacher with the drunken driving arrest, citing personnel confidentiality issues.

He said part of the reason for the drawn-out process is staff cuts in the state education department. Department representatives did not respond to calls seeking comment.

"I'm not looking to shortchange anybody's due process. I'm looking at a system that would allow us to move through at a reasonable pace, that would allow the district to move forward and the employee to move forward," the superintendent said.

Chipotle comes to Moorestown/Mt. Laurel/Maple Shade

This is a day I have been waiting for. Chipotle, a great concept restaurant, has come to the area. Today I took my wife and son for their first taste.

I know this has very little, OK nothing to do with the main concept of the blog but some of the ways Chipotle delivers Mexican food are ways that I strive to serve my clients, through my church and in my community.

• The place was clean - the decor was basic but clean. Inside was a warm Red colored paint on the walls, hardwood and corrogated metal. Some restaurants I go into feel more like a purse store than a restaurant so anything with exposed hardwoods and metal I love.
• There was a line but at several points in the line they had a little holder and menus available. My wife and I talked about what we would try and it made things easier when we got to the front.
• They make the meal right in front of you - think Subway meets backyard BBQ. Meats grilling, flatbread warming and the whole thing assembled right there. Again the work area and the people working looked clean.
• They had a little card by the beginning of the assembly line to tell me they did not have a kids menu. Instead they said I could look at what they had - it was all right there in plain view - and they would put whatever my one year old would eat into a bowl or a small tortilla for him. Then they did not charge me anything. Very cool.
• The food is fresh and the portions are great for the price compared with other eateries in the area. Chipotle at Moorestown Mall is within a half mile of a Taco Bell and a Don Pablos. It is certainly upscale from a Taco Bell and has less of a night out feel than a Don Pablo's. Well placed right in the middle.
• I am a hard core carnivor. We ordered a vegitarian burrito and a chicken burrito. The chicken burrito was good but we both preferred the veggie - this is the first time I have ever written "preferred the veggie" and this afternoon was the first time the thought had ever entered my mind.
  
• There were many unexpected little things I enjoyed but one more was that on my cup was a little blurb about a radio show out in Colorado called eTown. Reading about it made me want to come home and check out the website. Tonight I have been enjoying the podcasts of the Barenaked Ladies and the Bo Deans live on this unique and well done show.

I love when someone gives me a good tip about some place that they really like and delivers great service. I guess that is why I wrote this tonight.

I am always open to hear what places you like to frequent in and around New Jersey, often I have found the magazines miss the best places with the best stories. I would love to hear yours.