John Venino at the RBR board meeting on September 11. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Regional High School board of ed member John Venino wound up with a black eye following a student altercation last week at a middle school where he works in Asbury Park, according to a TV news report Monday.
Dreamers Club executive committee members Selena Martinez-Santiago, Madelyn Sanchez-Berra and Bethzy Vera Varela looked on as president Edith Lozano Zane addressed the RBR board on September 11. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
UPDATE: Because of rain in the forecast, this Saturday’s Hispanic Heritage Celebration in Riverside Gardens Park has been rescheduled for September 30.
By JOHN T. WARD
Kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month, Red Bank’s mayor and council trained a spotlight on four young Latina students at Red Bank Regional High School last week.
The self-styled “Dream 4” were fresh off an emotional revival of a school club that advocates for Hispanic and Latinx students.
Dreamers Club executive committee member Selena Martinez-Santiago delivers a petition in support of the group to RBR board president Patrick Noble. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Reversing an action that sparked a civil rights complaint and community outrage, Red Bank Regional High School’s board of ed restored funding for an immigrants’ advocacy student group Monday night.
At special session in the Little Silver school’s cafeteria that drew a large crowd – including Red Bank’s entire governing body – speakers voiced support for the Dreamers Club while denouncing a lone board member’s vote that they said imperiled years of progress.
Three of the four members of the Dreamers Club executive committee volunteering at Dog Days on Saturday: from left, Madelyn Sanchez-Berra, Selena Martinez-Santiago and Bethzy Vera-Varela. Below, club president Edith Lozano Zane. (Top photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Dreamers Club at Red Bank Regional High School has filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights alleging it has been “singled out for nine years” of discrimination, the group announced Friday.
The allegations of bias are expected to be in the spotlight when the RBR board of education meets in a special session Monday night. Meantime, Superintendent Lou Moore said he’s “hopeful” the board will reinstate the club by reappointing its advisor.
The Red Bank Regional High School Choir, above, and the Red Bank Charter School 2nd & 3rd Grade Choir, below, performed at the event. (Photos by Millie Jeter. Click to enlarge)
Press release from Pilgrim Baptist Church
On Monday, January 16, Pilgrim Baptist Church of Red Bank hosted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Commemorative Celebration. More →
Members of the Young Feminists outside Red Bank Regional High in February. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Frustrated by bureaucracy, representatives of a new Young Feminists group pressed the Red Bank Regional High School board of education for clarity on how to achieve club status last week night.
National Honor Society members read to young students and gave each a care packages of books. (Click to enlarge.)
Members of the National Honor Society at Red Bank Regional High School recently completed a drive to provide Read Across America care packages to students at Red Bank borough preschools.
The project was “amazing,” said TJ Eyerman, a senior who serves as NHS president. But it also underscored the needs of the Rumson-based Bridge of Books Foundation, he said.
Del DalPra at Count Basie Park in August, 2021. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After just nine months on the job, Red Bank parks and recreation director Louis ‘Del’ DalPra is leaving the position.
Students and staff at Red Bank Regional are scheduled begin 2022 in remote mode Tuesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank borough schools will be open Tuesday, but the regional high school in Little Silver will go remote as shifting approaches to a surging COVID-19 virus arrived with the new year.
The trend in lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases for three towns since November 1. (redbankgreen chart from Monmouth County data. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Sharp increases in COVID-19 cases scrambled schedules for some Red Bank-area schools as they emerged from their year-end 2021 breaks Monday.
Here’s a rundown.
A utility box at the corner of Monmouth and Broad streets in Red Bank is popping with bright colors and images these days, courtesy of a borough artist.
Del Dal Pra at Count Basie Park, where the stadium football field was prepped for installation of a new surface last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Early on in his new job as Red Bank parks and recreation director, Louis ‘Del’ Dal Pra suspected he’d have to make changes that would tick some people off.
Two encounters this spring convinced him he had no choice.
Louis ‘Del’ DalPra at Red Bank Regional in 2009. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Former Red Bank Regional High athletic director and coach Louis ‘Del’ DalPra was named director of the borough’s parks and recreation department Wednesday night.
Fewer than 240 of the 653 students who might have attended classes did so Tuesday Moore said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Whipsawed students, parents and teachers at Red Bank Regional High are in for another schedule change starting Thursday.
With COVID-19 cases rising and absenteeism high, the Little Silver school will again suspend in-school instruction at least through December 11, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Wednesday.
After a month away, students and teachers are to begin their return to Red Bank Regional High for in-person classes Tuesday, Superintendent Lou Moore said Monday night.
Upending plans at the last minute, Red Bank Regional High will not reopen for in-person classes Monday, according to an announcement made shortly before dawn.
The Red Bank Regional building has been idle since November 2. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After four weeks of all-remote instruction, Red Bank Regional High plans to resume in-person classes Monday, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Wednesday.
Only two candidates formally sought three seats on the borough school board. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A write-in candidate expects to join the Red Bank Board of Education when it reorganizes January 5.
And as telegraphed by early results from the November 3 election, a newcomer has displaced Red Bank Regional High board’s president.
Red Bank Regional students won’t be back on the Little Silver campus for classes before November 30 at the soonest. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Regional High will stick with all-remote schooling through Thanksgiving because of rapidly spreading COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Wednesday evening.
Separately, a plan to resume a ‘hybrid’ of in-school and at-home instruction for Red Bank’s primary and middle school students as soon as Thursday has been scrapped because of the resurging virus.
Amid rising COVID-19 counts, Red Bank Regional High will remain on remote instruction for at least two more days, school officials announced Monday.
“We learned today that a number of individuals at RBR have tested positive for COVID-19,” Superintendent Lou Moore wrote on the district website in late afternoon.
COVID-19 kept Red Bank Regional High closed for at least another day Monday.
The Little Silver school, which had been scheduled to reopen for in-person activity after a nearly two-week interval, instead remained in all-remote mode, per an announcement by the school Sunday night.
The high school, based on Broad Street, shares a parish campus with St. James School and church. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Catholic High School has shut down in-person instruction and canceled Friday night’s football game “due to COVID-19 exposure,” according to a published report.
The school has suspended all athletics and extracurricular activities through November 19 and will shift to virtual instruction, according to a report Thursday night by Shore Sports Network.
Superintendent Lou Moore in March, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Regional High will be off-limits to students and staff through next week over concerns about COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Wednesday afternoon.
While there continues to be “no evidence of community transmission” of the virus on the Little Silver school’s campus, a defacto closure now in effect is being extended one week “to minimize the risk of possible spread,” Moore wrote on the school’s website.
The administration building on the Red Bank Regional campus in Little Silver. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Newcomer Stephanie Albanese appears to have displaced incumbent president John Garofalo from the Red Bank Regional High board of education in Tuesday’s election.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, the Monmouth County clerk’s incomplete vote tally showed Albanese (seen at right) leading Garofalo, 1,352 votes to 649.
Four students have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two more students at Red Bank Regional High have tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Monday evening.
That brings the total in the past week to four, though Moore said in the notice that the most recent cases involved two siblings who “did not contract the virus at” the Little Silver school, and “there is no evidence of community transmission of the virus within the school.”