Who could forget the experience of a substitute teacher? The disappointment expressed at your favorite teacher's absence, or the relief felt when you realize you won't be presenting that unfinished project that day. Indeed, the experience of a substitute teacher is almost iconic of the school years. All romantics aside, there is some real value to having a substitute teacher when your own teacher is absent. While you won't learn as much that day as normally, the substitute teacher is still a teacher teaching a class and that guarantees that you walk away having learned something. However, …

With 145 more students in the district than last year and a big shakeup in personnel wrought on by a loss in state aid and locked-in contractual costs, Superintendent Dr. Daniel Fishbein said that classroom sizes will be increasing and there will be an effect. "With a reduction in staff and an increase in enrollment there isn't going to be the same amount of one-on-one interactions. There just isn't," he said. The district will continue to provide personalized instruction to students, who now form the largest public school system in the county at 5,812 students, Fishbein said. "We deploy our …

The sobering reality is that even with breakage and new hires, there are fewer staff members and more students this year throughout Ridgewood schools. After New Jersey sliced their state aid entirely, costs in health care premiums stung their bottom line, and contractual salary increases and benefits to teachers combined for a $6.4 million budget gap from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011, Ridgewood school administrators and board of education members say they're not just looking to maintain one of the nation's top school districts–they're trying to improve. But to meet that challenge they'll have to do…