RED BANK: SCHOOLS GRADUATE 147
Sunshine and cool breezes set the stage as 147 eighth-graders from Red Bank Charter School and Red Bank Middle School gathered for outdoor commencement ceremonies Wednesday evening.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL TEAM LAUDED
The Red Bank Mayor and Council honored the Red Bank Charter School girls basketball team Wednesday night.
The Red Bank Charter School Girls Basketball team went 4-4 during the conference season, securing the number two seed in the conference. After winning the semi-final game at home, the girls went on the road to face the number one seed. Leading the way on the court was one of our 8th grade captains, scoring a school record 111 points this season.
RED BANK: FIRINGS ANGER CHARTER PARENTS
Alison Weiler and Nicole Navarrete, center, speak with well-wishers Tuesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Charter School parents packed a board meeting Tuesday night to protest the firings of two teachers who briefly left a sleeping child behind during a fire drill earlier this month.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL NAMES NEW HEAD
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank Charter School has hired a new head of school, an administrator whose last job was clouded by calls for her resignation.
Kristen Martello, the former superintendent of the Berlin school district in Camden County, is scheduled to succeed Meredith Pennotti, who guided the Oakland Street institution through its first two decades.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL HEAD TO RETIRE
Charter school Principal and Superintendent Meredith Pennotti in 2016. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Meredith Pennotti, who guided the Red Bank Charter School through two often fraught decades, plans to retire in June, the school announced earlier this week.
RED BANK: DISTRICT GETS FUNDING BOOST
Jobs and after-school programs that were cut this spring are being restored, said Superintendent Jared Rumage, seen at left with board president Fred Stone before a lobbying trip to Trenton in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank school officials have been busy in recent days restoring jobs, programs and contracts eliminated just four months ago.
Under Governor Phil Murphy’s first budget, the borough’s 1,422-student pre-K-8 district saw a 55-percent jump in state aid, which board members said Tuesday night was a cause for both celebration and frustration.
RED BANK: SCHOOL TAX HIKE, JOB CUTS LOOM
Jobs and after-school programs are on the cutting block unless the state comes through with an additional $750,000, said Superintendent Jared Rumage. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The average Red Bank homeowner would pay about $117 more in taxes to support borough schools this year if New Jersey legislators don’t come through with more funding, Superintendent Jared Rumage said Tuesday night.
Even with the levy increase, the local primary and middle schools could see cuts in staffing and extracurricular programs such as jazz band and the fledgling cross-country track team, he said.
RED BANK: CHARTER AID BOOST SLAMMED
District officials say they may have to eliminate a new cross-country program in order to balance the budget. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank school board members and parents reacted with outrage Monday night to an effective reduction in state aid under funding announced by the administration of Governor Phil Murphy last week.
Though nominally a $178,503 increase for the district, more than that sum is to be relayed to the Red Bank Charter School, Superintendent Jared Rumage said at a board meeting at the primary school.
With the district seeing an effective decline in aid while state funding to the charter school’s rises $1,025 per student, “I think the time has come to have the discussion about running two public schools in Red Bank,” Rumage told redbankgreen.
LITTLE SILVER: LAWMAKERS ADDRESS FUNDING
Local residents and school officials, including state Senator Declan O’Scanlon, below, turned out for the event at the Markham Place School. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Dozens of taxpayers and school administrators from the Greater Red Bank Green packed a Little Silver auditorium Wednesday night to press legislators for help with education costs.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL EYES THE WORLD
Red Bank Charter School S students with Principal Meredith Pennotti on International Day.
Classrooms at Red Bank Charter School were transformed into disaster zones as students immersed themselves in a learning experience that combined performance art with history, culture, science and cuisine as part of the school’s annual International Day.
RED BANK: BURSTING WITH KINDNESS
First came the “freezemob,” as hundreds of orange-clad participants stopped in poses of kindness on a stretch of Broad Street in downtown Red Bank. Then came the “flashmob,” as music was cranked up and the mob broke into joyous dance.
The occasion was the fifth annual ‘Dance for Kindness,’ a campaign to support random acts of kindness that involved 100 locations around the globe Sunday. redbankgreen trained its lens on the local edition; please check out the additional photos below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.) (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge) Read More
RED BANK GIRL TO ROCK RAHWAY
Lily “Grace” Riddle, a sixth-grader at the Red Bank Charter School, has been tapped for the role of Brittany in School of Rock at the Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway.
Grace has been studying acting and musical theater at the Count Basie Performing Arts Academy in Red Bank for the past three years, and is a member of the Broadway Youth Ensemble in New York City.
RED BANK: A CARD OF THANKS
After the conclusion of their school-record 10-4 regular season last week, the girls’ basketball team of the Red Bank Charter School presented an oversized thank-you card to their final opponent, Calvary Christian of Old Bridge. The note congratulated the Lions on their team play and sportsmanship.
“Several of their girls gave our girls notes last time we played them, so we thought it would be nice to do something for them,” said charter school coach Vern Ford.
RED BANK: CHILD STRUCK BY VEHICLE
A 12-year-old Red Bank Charter School student was struck by a vehicle on Monmouth Street Monday afternoon.
Police Chief Darren McConnell told redbankgreen that the girl, a female, was transported to Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune with injuries that were not life-threatening.
RED BANK: COUNCIL WRAP-UP
Seventh-graders from the Red Bank Charter School presented a report on “serving a healthy town,” and Mayor Pasquale Menna, below, returned to the dais after heart surgery. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Here’s some of what went on at the semimonthly meeting of the Red Bank council Wednesday night:
• Mayor Pasqule Menna presided over his first meeting following a month away following open-heart surgery. He thanked Council President Art Murphy for filling in for him at various events, and for “chauffering me around – ‘Driving Mr. Daisy,’ I suppose,” he said.
RED BANK: CHARTER SCHOOL CELEBRATES KING
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream Speech, on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
By ISABEL HALLORAN
In his I Have a Dream speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
Martin Luther King Jr. modeled his life around these words. He lived with the faith that African Americans’ suffering would not go unnoticed, and that someday people would realize that racism, segregation and unequal rights were not fair, and should have never been accepted in the first place.
Martin Luther King Jr. asks people to have faith, because he believes that it will get them through the hard times. Faith is like hope. It can be challenging to believe in, but possessing faith and living by it is an important part of life.
RED BANK: STREET SCENES ON HALLOWEEN
Halloween celebrants from Defined Logic, above, Yo Mon Yogurt, right, and the Red Bank Charter School (see below) were among the characters who added random splashes of color – and fake blood – to a gray Halloween in Red Bank Thursday. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: TEENS HOPE TO BE GAME-CHANGERS
Tommy Murray, CJ Bevacqua and Evan Leifman at CREATiV MIND headquarters, in Bevacqua’s bedroom. Below, a duct-taped prototype of their mobile gaming device. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five years from now, if dreams pan out, a handheld gaming device called CREATiV Mind will be as ubiquitous as iPhones.
And just about then, its creators will be turning old enough to vote.
Based in a prototypically messy teenager’s bedroom on Red Bank’s South Street, CREATIiV Mind is the brainchild of three 13-year-olds who count Steve Jobs and Nikola Tesla among their idols. Just a month old, their prototype product is an awkward mix of high technology and duct tape.
But the three – CJ Bevacqua and Evan Leifman of Red Bank and Tommy Murray of Atlantic Highlands – are serious about building a market-changing device.
RED BANK: ANOTHER KETTLE CLASSIC
Two Red Bank Charter players hugging after they lost their game, above. Below, Ashley Houck of Charter driving on a Seashore Academy defender. (Photos by Lola Todman. Click to enlarge)
By LOLA TODMAN
The Red Kettle Classic is a day-long series of elementary-school basketball games taking place from early in the morning each December at the Salvation Army gym in Red Bank.
This year’s edition, the eighth annual, held Saturday, featured boys’ and girls’ teams from Holy Cross and Forrestdale schools in Rumson; Knollwood School in Fair Haven; Seashore Academy in Long Branch; and Red Bank Charter School and St. James School in Red Bank.
In the large-school division, the Holy Cross boys beat Forrestdale, and on the girls’ side, Knollwood won for the fourth time in eight years over Forrestdale.
Here’s redbankgreen‘s report on the two small-school games.
FROM JOHNSTOWN TO JERSEY, STORM RELIEF
Students from Red Bank Charter School helped unload a tractor-trailer full of donated food and personal care items at Lunch Break Monday morning. The material came from Johnstown, Pennsylvania-area residents, who responded to a plea for storm relief by radio station 96Key. (Photos by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)
BATTLES BREWING FOR TONIGHT’S BASIE CUP
Action during the 2011 edition of the Basie Cup girls’ game, which ended in a tie after overtime. (Click to enlarge)
By LOLA TODMAN
Red Bank Charter School Intern
Bright lights and an anxious crowd. Players overwhelmed with pressure, almost wishing it was over before it starts, but thinking about the rush of victory and the accolades that follow.
Game on.
This is what it feels like for players competing in the Count Basie Cup, the annual pair of soccer games that pit teams from the Red Bank Charter and Red Bank Middle schools, and take place under the lights tonight at Count Basie Fields.
HUMANISTS FIRE BACK IN ‘WAR ON WOMEN’
Pat Barr, a self-described “anti-demonstration demonstrator,” tells fellow humanists about her experiences as pro-choice picketer. (Click to enlarge)
By STACIE FANELLI
In a presentation heavy on how labels are deployed in political battles, Irma Lester wondered aloud whether the term “war” correctly describes what she sees as a recent stripping of reproductive and economic rights from women.
Despite the harsh connotation of a battlefield, she said it “does catch the sense of danger that we’re in today.”
Lester, a professor emeritus of women’s studies at Brookdale Community College women’s, appeared before the Red Bank Humanists on Sunday at the Red Bank Charter School as the special guest speaker for its June forum: “The War on Women: Myth or Reality?”
Whatever terminology backers of women’s rights use to describe themselves and their causes, their conservative opponents are “going to demonize” them, Lester said. “Stick with ‘feminist.’ Stick with ‘abortion.'”
GIRL’S BEST FRIEND? A DIAMOND IN THE RUFF
They were supposed to be drumming up attention for the Red Bank Charter School raffle of a $4,000 diamond pendant donated by A.H. Fisher Diamonds. But these girls were distracted Sunday by the sudden appearance outside the Broad Street jewelry store of a cute puppy.
Tickets are $20 each, and the raffle will be held at the store at 4 p.m. on May 20. (Click to enlarge)
CHARTER V. MIDDLE GIRLS: IT’S ALL DEFENSE
The girls of Red Bank Charter School and Red Bank Middle School fought to a scoreless tie, even after an overtime, in their second annual soccer matchup, held at Count Basie Fields Saturday. Later, the charter school’s boys topped their middle school counterparts, 3-1 under the lights. Students from the schools worked the play-by-play from the announcer’s booth.(Click to enlarge)
CHARTER TEACHERS TO SHARE IN $100K GRANT
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Three years’ worth of student achievements at the Red Bank Charter School put the school at the top of a national list to receive a heavy infusion of cash and a boost in morale for its teachers and administrators.
The school’s 19 teachers and seven adjuncts will share $100,000 in incentive money from the New Leaders for New Schools’ Effective Practice Incentive Community for overseeing “breakthrough student achievement gains” in standardized state test scores the last three years, according to an announcement from the benefactor organization.
Of the 18 schools selected for the grant, the charter school was one of only four to receive the Gold Gain Award, the highest attainable level.
The funneling of additional cash into teachers’ pockets, who took a pay freeze this school year, is not only a professional reward, but a personal one, Principal Meredith Pennotti said.
“They felt affirmed,” Pennotti said. “They took the hit last year because it’s what we needed, so to have this reward affirmed by a credible organization was really gratifying.”
1 2