For decades, the Englewood Public Schools have been on the defensive. Families with school age children have been advised to locate elsewhere. Local taxpayers have expressed resentment at being taxed for schools they feel they cannot use. A widespread perception of low academic standards, and the virtual absence of non-hispanic white and Asian students in the school population, have contributed to a sense of hopelessness. Repeated efforts by successive Boards of Education and Superintendents to upgrade the reality and the image of the schools have until recent years been largely futile. Long-running litigation with neighboring towns, and efforts at regionalization, stemming from a State Supreme Court decision requiring the State to end "de facto segregation" at Dwight Morrow High School, have been in retrospect largely a distraction.

As we have moved into the 21st century, however, several notable changes have occurred. In 2000, the Englewood electorate voted to change from an appointed to an elected Board of Education. In 2002, the elected Board hired Dr. John Grieco as Superintendent of Schools. Grieco had achieved considerable success and much praise for the creation of the Bergen County Academies in Hackensack with smaller specialized classes and higher academic standards. With strong support from the State Department of Education, he proposed and the Board approved the establishment of similar academies in Englewood. The Academies@Englewood, designed to hold half Englewood students and half from the rest of the County, eventually became the means by which the State could comply with the Supreme Court racial integration requirement.

On Grieco’s recommendation, the Board of Education also approved a sizable program to expand and modernize the system’s physical plant. Despite significant political opposition, a referendum authorizing this program was eventually passed by the voters in 2004, and Board members committed to its implementation were elected. The Board in recent years has also worked with successive superintendents (Grieco having died suddenly in 2004) to raise standards in the conventional high school and in the lower grades. Most recently the district’s successful efforts to integrate the Academies with Dwight Morrow High School have received praise from the State. Just this month the State Commissioner of Education in a report to the State Board said Englewood "has made the transition from a troubled district to one in rapid improvement mode."

Nobody thinks the long-standing difficulties, stemming from, among other things, demographic factors and constant leadership changes, have been overcome. But it is good to see that the district appears to be on a positive track, and that it appears to be in competent hands. One can hope that the opening of the new John Grieco School on Durie Avenue will signal the opening of a new and more positive era for the Englewood Public Schools.