Departing BOE member will focus on HEROES

MONROE — Although Rita Ostrager will no longer be on the Board of Education, she said she will still be working hard for young people.

Ostrager is establishing a nonprofit organization called HEROES, or Higher Education Resources for Outstanding Exceptional Scholars.

In January, she ran a HEROES conference for 80 families of New Jersey students considered to be profoundly gifted. The Rutgers Office of Continuous Education and Outreach, and Johns Hopkins University's Study of Exceptional Talent co-sponsored the program.

Ostrager's son Ryan, at 12 years old, is a nonmatriculated student at Rutgers. Although he was accepted as a matriculated student for the fall, he declined for this year and will reapply next year. Ryan has been awarded a number of scholarships, including two for this summer — the Davidson/ Stanley Merit Scholarship from Johns Hopkins University for being one of the top-scoring seventh-graders on the SAT-M, and the High School Summer Scholars program at Rutgers.

Ostrager is organizing HEROES to facilitate the creation of higher educational resources for the profoundly gifted, as well as inform profoundly gifted students, parents and educators about appropriately challenging educational opportunities. It will reduce barriers that prevent these students from accessing educational opportunities that meet their needs, and create opportunities for them to interact socially, she said.

According to Ostrager, the profoundly gifted are a unique group that has great potential, but often cannot receive an appropriate public education.

"Our public schools do not know how to deal with a 12-year-old who has already finished calculus and is writing at a college level," she said. "Parents are forced to choose keeping these kids with their agemates at school where the coursework is completely inappropriate for them; skipping them several grades, if the school district will even allow it; or home-schooling them."

Ostrager said such students cannot be handled in the public schools, yet these are the kids who have the greatest potential to grow up to solve health, environmental, political and other problems.

"We as a society must nurture these kids in order that they can reach their full potential and use their talents to benefit society. If we continue to ignore them, we risk alienating them from society and they may be our [Ted] Kaczynski or [Bernard] Madoff of the future," she said.

HEROES is currently working with Rutgers on creating opportunities for these kids in New Jersey, and contacting other institutions to expand the program to other parts of the state.

Ostrager, who moved to Monroe in 2003, has a husband Robert, another son, Michael, 25, of Highland Park, and a 14- year-old daughter, Danielle, a freshman at Monroe Township High School. Danielle plays flute in the marching band and is involved in a variety of school activities, as well as serving as co-youth director for the Monroe Township Jewish Center.

Ostrager, who has served on the school board for three years, decided not to seek re-election because she prefers to focus on one major volunteer project at a time.

She recalled that when her daughter entered kindergarten, she was involved in every volunteer activity, including class mom, library helper, science class helper, school literary book editor, Girl Scout leader, preschool volunteer and field trip chaperone. "By the end of the year I was completely burned out and felt that I wasn't doing a proper job in any of these positions. I decided that in the future I would focus on a single volunteer project," she said.

For the most part, she has stuck to that decision.

"I was very involved with Girl Scouts for about five years. For the past three years I've been on the school board. Now that my term is up, I need to decide again where best to use my energy," she said. Ultimately, she chose HEROES.

During her tenure on the board, Ostrager was outspoken and often represented the minority vote on several issues. She acknowledged that she wasn't always popular with other board members or the past administration.

"Over the past three years I've tried to get this board to stop being a rubber-stamp board and to actively look at the issues being presented before it," she said. "I do a lot of research on issues before board meetings and always try to give a reason for my votes. Over the past year, my relationship with some board members has improved."

As for some of the highlights of her time on the board, Ostrager recalled that shortly after she was elected, she talked to the administration about the way parents dropped off kids at Brookside School.

"Because of the increase in enrollment, the circle in the front of the school was being used for additional bus parking, so parents were pulling into the parking lot, dropping off kids and then trying to back up and turn around to get out. I thought it was a disaster waiting to happen because kids were getting out of cars while other cars were backing up," she said. Initially, she said, the administration argued that parents shouldn't be driving their kids to school in the morning anyway, and that it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a turnaround, according to Ostrager. "But that summer they figured out a way to remove three parking spaces, repaint part of the parking lot, and make a loop for dropping off kids. It was a much safer system. I remember going to the school and standing in the middle of the loop and feeling very proud," she said.

The most exciting day for her occurred last June when the board decided to expand the summer program for autistic students after parents approached the board on several occasions.

"That was the first time in my experience that the board listened to the public, actively debated the topic and came up with a decision. I was very proud of the board, not just because they decided to approve this program, but because they actively debated the topic and came to a decision," she said.

Ostrager still thinks the board should change the way it operates and cited a need for goal-setting, making decisions based on research, and actively debating topics rather than debating whether someone has a right to ask questions or state opinions. She thinks the new schools superintendent, Kenneth Hamilton, can be instrumental in those matters.

"Particular issues like building a school, putting together a budget, upgrading the curriculum would all benefit if the board set annual goals as well as long-term goals," she said.

Looking ahead, Ostrager said more school space will be needed in Monroe. She noted stated that the prekindergarten through sixth-grade enrollment, as of Feb. 28, was 3,052 students, and that continues to increase by about 250-300 students per year. Even accounting for the fact that sixth grade will be moved to the middle school, she said, the district will need to build at least one more elementary school.