Back to School: Welcome to the 2012-2013 School Year
Teacher Opening Day and Convocation is Tuesday, September 4. Students start the 2012 – 2013 school year on Thursday, September 6, with a Minimum Day schedule.
All parents and guardians must complete the Online Registration process through Skyward Family Access between September 1 and September 13. To register, go to the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us, choose Family Access under the Parents tab, log in with your username and password and select Start Registration. If you have forgotten your password, select the Forgot your Login/Password link on the log-on page and a password reset link will be e-mailed to you. You may also e-mail for assistance to [email protected]. Detailed instructions on Online Registration will be mailed home on or about August 29.
Residents are welcome at all public meetings of the Board of Education, which are held twice a month at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, floor 3. The meetings are also broadcast live on FiOS channel 33, Optimum channel 77, and via the district website at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us.
Upper Ridgewood Tennis Club, helps to have friends …
Well did anyone read the legal advertisement in the Ridgewood news. It seems that the Tennis Club is going in front the the Ridgewood Planning Board with and application for lights and other items.
Now if you read further is seems that Mr Harlow is listed as “technical advisory” Yes former Councilman, current member of The Board of Adjustment, Campaign Manger for Councilwoman Haulk. With the Mayor and Deputy Mayor on the Planing Board and the statement may by are now May that the three were ticket I just wounder why the Tennis Club was not allowed to “Phone in the Application ” because the deck is stacked.
The Hon. Chris Christie Governor of New Jersey Remarks as Prepared for Delivery at Republican National Convention August 28, 2012 Tue Aug 28 2012 21:26:40 ET
**Exclusive**
This stage and this moment are very improbable for me.
A New Jersey Republican delivering the keynote address to our national convention, from a state with 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
A New Jersey Republican stands before you tonight.
Proud of my party, proud of my state and proud of my country.
I am the son of an Irish father and a Sicilian mother.
My Dad, who I am blessed to have with me here tonight, is gregarious, outgoing and loveable.
My Mom, who I lost 8 years ago, was the enforcer. She made sure we all knew who set the rules.
In the automobile of life, Dad was just a passenger. Mom was the driver.
They both lived hard lives. Dad grew up in poverty. After returning from Army service, he worked at the Breyers Ice Cream plant in the 1950s. With that job and the G.I. bill he put himself through Rutgers University at night to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. Our first family picture was on his graduation day, with Mom beaming next to him, six months pregnant with me.
Mom also came from nothing. She was raised by a single mother who took three buses to get to work every day. And mom spent the time she was supposed to be a kid actually raising children – her two younger siblings. She was tough as nails and didn’t suffer fools at all. The truth was she couldn’t afford to. She spoke the truth – bluntly, directly and without much varnish.
I am her son.
I was her son as I listened to “Darkness on the Edge of Town” with my high school friends on the Jersey Shore.
I was her son as I moved into a studio apartment with Mary Pat to start a marriage that is now 26 years old.
I was her son as I coached our sons Andrew and Patrick on the fields of Mendham, and as I watched with pride as our daughters Sarah and Bridget marched with their soccer teams in the Labor Day parade.
And I am still her son today, as Governor, following the rules she taught me: to speak from the heart and to fight for your principles. She never thought you get extra credit for just speaking the truth.
The greatest lesson Mom ever taught me, though, was this one: she told me there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected. She said to always pick being respected, that love without respect was always fleeting — but that respect could grow into real, lasting love.
Now, of course, she was talking about women.
But I have learned over time that it applies just as much to leadership. In fact, I think that advice applies to America today more than ever.
I believe we have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved.
Our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity is fleeting and that this country’s principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and emotions of the times.
Our leaders today have decided it is more important to be popular, to do what is easy and say “yes,” rather than to say no when “no” is what’s required.
In recent years, we as a country have too often chosen the same path.
It’s been easy for our leaders to say not us, and not now, in taking on the tough issues. And we’ve stood silently by and let them get away with it.
But tonight, I say enough.
I say, together, let’s make a much different choice. Tonight, we are speaking up for ourselves and stepping up.
We are beginning to do what is right and what is necessary to make our country great again.
We are demanding that our leaders stop tearing each other down, and work together to take action on the big things facing America.
Tonight, we choose respect over love.
We are not afraid. We are taking our country back.
We are the great grandchildren of men and women who broke their backs in the name of American ingenuity; the grandchildren of the Greatest Generation; the sons and daughters of immigrants; the brothers and sisters of everyday heroes; the neighbors of entrepreneurs and firefighters, teachers and farmers, veterans and factory workers and everyone in-between who shows up not just on the big days or the good days, but on the bad days and on the hard days.
Each and every day. All 365 of them.
We are the United States of America.
Now we must lead the way our citizens live. To lead as my mother insisted I live, not by avoiding truths, especially the hard ones, but by facing up to them and being the better for it.
We cannot afford to do anything less.
I know because this was the challenge in New Jersey.
When I came into office, I could continue on the same path that led to wealth, jobs and people leaving the state or I could do the job the people elected me to do – to do the big things.
There were those who said it couldn’t be done. The problems were too big, too politically charged, too broken to fix. But we were on a path we could no longer afford to follow.
They said it was impossible to cut taxes in a state where taxes were raised 115 times in eight years. That it was impossible to balance a budget at the same time, with an $11 billion deficit. Three years later, we have three balanced budgets with lower taxes.
We did it.
They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics. To take on the public sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefit system that was headed to bankruptcy.
With bipartisan leadership we saved taxpayers $132 billion over 30 years and saved retirees their pension.
We did it.
They said it was impossible to speak the truth to the teachers union. They were just too powerful. Real teacher tenure reform that demands accountability and ends the guarantee of a job for life regardless of performance would never happen.
For the first time in 100 years with bipartisan support, we did it.
The disciples of yesterday’s politics underestimated the will of the people. They assumed our people were selfish; that when told of the difficult problems, tough choices and complicated solutions, they would simply turn their backs, that they would decide it was every man for himself.
Instead, the people of New Jersey stepped up and shared in the sacrifice.
They rewarded politicians who led instead of politicians who pandered.
We shouldn’t be surprised.
We’ve never been a country to shy away from the truth. History shows that we stand up when it counts and it’s this quality that has defined our character and our significance in the world.
I know this simple truth and I’m not afraid to say it: our ideas are right for America and their ideas have failed America.
Let’s be clear with the American people tonight. Here’s what we believe as Republicans and what they believe as Democrats.
We believe in telling hard working families the truth about our country’s fiscal realities. Telling them what they already know – the math of federal spending doesn’t add up.
With $5 trillion in debt added over the last four years, we have no other option but to make the hard choices, cut federal spending and fundamentally reduce the size of government.
They believe that the American people don’t want to hear the truth about the extent of our fiscal difficulties and need to be coddled by big government.
They believe the American people are content to live the lie with them.
We believe in telling seniors the truth about our overburdened entitlements.
We know seniors not only want these programs to survive, but they just as badly want them secured for their grandchildren.
Seniors are not selfish.
They believe seniors will always put themselves ahead of their grandchildren. So they prey on their vulnerabilities and scare them with misinformation for the cynical purpose of winning the next election.
Their plan: whistle a happy tune while driving us off the fiscal cliff, as long as they are behind the wheel of power.
We believe that the majority of teachers in America know our system must be reformed to put students first so that America can compete.
Teachers don’t teach to become rich or famous. They teach because they love children.
We believe that we should honor and reward the good ones while doing what’s best for our nation’s future – demanding accountability, higher standards and the best teacher in every classroom.
They believe the educational establishment will always put themselves ahead of children. That self-interest trumps common sense.
They believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents, and lobbyists against children.
They believe in teacher’s unions.
We believe in teachers.
We believe that if we tell the people the truth they will act bigger than the pettiness of Washington, D.C.
We believe it’s possible to forge bipartisan compromise and stand up for conservative principles.
It’s the power of our ideas, not of our rhetoric, that attracts people to our Party.
We win when we make it about what needs to be done; we lose when we play along with their game of scaring and dividing.
For make no mistake, the problems are too big to let the American people lose – the slowest economic recovery in decades, a spiraling out of control deficit, an education system that’s failing to compete in the world.
It doesn’t matter how we got here. There is enough blame to go around.
What matters now is what we do.
I know we can fix our problems.
When there are people in the room who care more about doing the job they were elected to do than worrying about winning re-election, it’s possible to work together, achieve principled compromise and get results.
The people have no patience for any other way.
It’s simple.
We need politicians to care more about doing something and less about being something.
Believe me, if we can do this in a blue state with a conservative Republican Governor, Washington is out of excuses.
Leadership delivers.
Leadership counts.
Leadership matters.
We have this leader for America.
We have a nominee who will tell us the truth and who will lead with conviction. And now he has a running mate who will do the same.
We have Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan, and we must make them our next President and Vice President.
Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to put us back on the path to growth and create good paying private sector jobs again in America.
Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy.
Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world’s greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.
We ended an era of absentee leadership without purpose or principle in New Jersey.
It’s time to end this era of absentee leadership in the Oval Office and send real leaders to the White House.
America needs Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and we need them right now.
There is doubt and fear for our future in every corner of our country.
These feelings are real.
This moment is real.
It’s a moment like this where some skeptics wonder if American greatness is over.
How those who have come before us had the spirit and tenacity to lead America to a new era of greatness in the face of challenge.
Not to look around and say “not me,” but to say, “YES, ME.”
I have an answer tonight for the skeptics and the naysayers, the dividers and the defenders of the status quo.
I have faith in us.
I know we can be the men and women our country calls on us to be.
I believe in America and her history.
There’s only one thing missing now. Leadership. It takes leadership that you don’t get from reading a poll.
You see, Mr. President – real leaders don’t follow polls. Real leaders change polls.
That’s what we need to do now.
Change polls through the power of our principles.
Change polls through the strength of our convictions.
Tonight, our duty is to tell the American people the truth.
Our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. We all must share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth.
I think tonight of the Greatest Generation.
We look back and marvel at their courage – overcoming the Great Depression, fighting Nazi tyranny, standing up for freedom around the world.
Now it’s our time to answer history’s call.
For make no mistake, every generation will be judged and so will we.
What will our children and grandchildren say of us? Will they say we buried our heads in the sand, we assuaged ourselves with the creature comforts we’ve acquired, that our problems were too big and we were too small, that someone else should make a difference because we can’t?
Or will they say we stood up and made the tough choices needed to preserve our way of life?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my children and grandchildren to have to read in a history book what it was like to live in an American Century.
I don’t want their only inheritance to be an enormous government that has overtaxed, overspent and over-borrowed a great people into second-class citizenship.
I want them to live in a second American Century.
A second American Century of strong economic growth where those who are willing to work hard will have good paying jobs to support their families and reach their dreams.
A second American Century where real American exceptionalism is not a political punch line, but is evident to everyone in the world just by watching the way our government conducts its business and everyday Americans live their lives.
A second American Century where our military is strong, our values are sure, our work ethic is unmatched and our Constitution remains a model for anyone in the world struggling for liberty.
Let us choose a path that will be remembered for generations to come. Standing strong for freedom will make the next century as great an American century as the last one.
This is the American way.
We have never been victims of destiny.
We have always been masters of our own.
I won’t be part of the generation that fails that test and neither will you.
It’s now time to stand up. There’s no time left to waste.
If you’re willing to stand up with me for America’s future, I will stand up with you.
If you’re willing to fight with me for Mitt Romney, I will fight with you.
If you’re willing to hear the truth about the hard road ahead, and the rewards for America that truth will bear, I’m here to begin with you this new era of truth-telling.
Tonight, we choose the path that has always defined our nation’s history.
Tonight, we finally and firmly answer the call that so many generations have had the courage to answer before us.
Tonight, we stand up for Mitt Romney as the next President of the United States.
And, together, we stand up once again for American greatness.
Some residents from Ridgewood and nearby area have been meeting recently to organize the
honoring of Gold Star Mothers, an organization of mothers whose sons or daughters served
and died while serving their nation in times of war or conflict. The Gold Star Mothers Day is a
national event to honor mothers who have lost a son or daughter in the service of our country.
On Sunday, September 30, 2012 our nation will honor our Gold Star Mothers and families. The
American Legion Post 53 and Ridgewood’s Blue Star Families are spearheading the effort to
bringing awareness to our community and commemorating the sacrifices these mothers and their
families have made. In Ridgewood, we will light luminaries from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. on Sunday,
September 30th at Van Neste Park. Residents will also light luminaries at the end of their
driveways. The goal is to see thousands of luminaries lit throughout Ridgewood to honor Gold
Star Mothers on September 30th!
The effort has seen a lot of enthusiasm from local groups such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
Order of Elks, VFW and many businesses. To find out how you can be part of this event, please
contact Maria Bombace or Bob Paoli.
Back to School: E-Books and a Healthier Food greet Students
Libraries at Benjamin Franklin and George Washington Middle Schools and Ridgewood High School will lend electronic books starting this fall. The Board approved funds for approximately 200 new e-books, which may be borrowed and downloaded to a variety of e-ink devices. The schools will also make available to students a limited number of ereaders for borrowing.
Also new this school year are revisions to the school lunch system, including the establishment of individual online accounts for all students and changes in menu items and portion sizes as mandated by new guidelines of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Look for more information to come on the lunch program and electronic library books.
The Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel Fishbein are interested in hearing residents’ thoughts and concerns. To facilitate dialogue, they are inviting residents to drop in for casual conversation and coffee several times during the 2012-2013 school year.
The first Coffee and Conversation will take place on Wednesday, September 12, from 7-8:30
p.m. at the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, floor 3.
Other Coffee and Conversation dates are November 14, January 16, 2013 and April 3, 2013.
Please come, and bring your questions, suggestions, comments and concerns.
STUDY: States over $4 trillion in debt
August 28, 2012 | 10:23 am
America’s 50 states are collectively over $4 trillion in debt according to a new study by an independent, non-partisan think tank.
State Budget Solutions‘ third annual State Debt Report shows that aggregate state debt fell from $.24 trillion last year to $4.19 trillion this year. State Budget Solutions’ debt calculations include a state’s regular debt, the fiscal year 2013 budget gap, outstanding unemployment trust fund loans, unfunded other post employment benefit liabilities, and the state’s unfunded pension liabilities.
Rutgers Poll: 64% of voters say they don’t care Christie wasn’t VP pick
Despite all the talk from the media seem no one cares
As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie prepares to give the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) today, New Jersey voters do not expect his latest moment on the national stage will benefit the Garden State’s image, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.
While nearly a third believes Christie’s address will enhance New Jersey’s image with the rest of the country, 46 percent think it will make no difference; 14 percent say Christie’s speech will hurt the state’s image.
That presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney failed to choose Christie as his running mate also elicits mostly yawns from voters: 64 percent say that it does not matter that Christie was not selected, a quarter are pleased with the outcome and only 10 percent are disappointed. (Staff, PolitickerNJ)
Heavy Marijuana Use in Teen Years May Lower IQ Later Study found those who smoked in adolescence lost roughly 8 points on IQ tests
By Jenifer Goodwin
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) — Teens who start smoking marijuana regularly experience what appear to be permanent declines in their IQs and other aspects of mental function, new research finds.
The study included information on more than 1,000 people born in New Zealand in 1972-1973. Participants took IQ and other mental functioning tests at age 13 — before any had started smoking marijuana — and then again at age 38.
Every few years, starting at age 18, participants were also asked about their use of marijuana and assessed for marijuana dependence. Marijuana dependence is defined as someone who feels they need to smoke more and more marijuana to get the same effect, who has tried to quit but can’t or who keeps using even though the habit is causing them problems, such as with their health, family, work or school.
About 5 percent reported using marijuana more than once a week before age 18 or were considered marijuana-dependent at one or more points during the study.
Those who started smoking marijuana heavily as teens — meaning at least once or week — or were diagnosed with marijuana dependence before age 18 and who continued to smoke into adulthood showed an average 8-point drop in their IQs by age 38.
Poll: Consumer confidence takes a hit in New Jersey
The number of New Jerseyans who say they are better off financially now than they were last year has dropped, according to a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University survey.
The university’s PublicMind poll found 26 percent of residents say they are in a better financial spot than they were last year – down six points from January 2012, according to the survey.
The poll found no change from January of people who report being worse off, according to the survey, which also reports that more residents – 26 percent – say they expect to be worse off financially in the upcoming year than the 19 percent surveyed believed so in January. (Arco, PolitickerNJ)
Ridgewood High School drops eight spots in rankings
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Ridgewood High School (RHS) has dropped eight spots in the past two years in a biennial ranking of New Jersey’s top 100 public high schools.
Ranked No. 20 in 2010, RHS is now No. 28, according to New Jersey Monthly’s list, available online now and in its print September issue. The high school has fallen steadily in the rankings over the past four years, after being ranked seventh in 2008.
It was ranked No. 24 in 2006 by the magazine, which has published its biennial rankings since 1992.
This year, New Providence High School in Union County ranked at the top. The former top school, Millburn High School in Essex County, dropped to eighth.
In Bergen County, six schools surpassed RHS on the list: Tenafly (3), Glen Rock (4), Park Ridge (14), Ramapo (17), Pascack Hills (18) and Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale (22).
The internet: Command and control
By Daniel Thomas, Richard Waters and James Fontanella-Khan
Future of digital world subject of intense debate to determine if it really will be for everyone
The man in the middle of the vast stadium pressed a button on a boxy old computer terminal, causing a message to flash across the darkness in front of a billion viewers scattered all over the world. This is for everyone, it said.
This was Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who helped create the World Wide Web and then surrendered control of it. The act, staged at the centre of the extravagant opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games, showed how his invention triggered a digital revolution as important as preceding scenes of industrial and social upheaval.
More than two decades after his breakthrough, the future of this digital world is the subject of intense debate to determine whether it really will be for everyone.
Feds: Too few Americans ‘turn to government for assistance’
August 27, 2012 | 2:18 pm
More Americans rely on their families for assistance than the government, so federal officials have undertaken an effort to help people to apply for federal assistance.
“Given that only 15 percent of you turn to government assistance in tough times, we want to make sure you know about benefits that could help you,” USA.gov announced today. The ”government made easy’ website has created a “help for difficult financial times” page for people to learn more about the programs.
Ridgewood Council members offer opinions on parking proposal
Monday August 27, 2012, 1:40 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Preliminary plans to construct two parking garages and a new large anchor store in the heart of the Central Business District (CBD) have been met with varying reviews, but the overriding feeling from most villagers is that the existing downtown situation needs improvement.
The proposal, as developed and presented by members of the business community earlier this month, calls for parking facilities at the corner of South Broad and Hudson streets, and another facing the Franklin Avenue corridor in the North Walnut Redevelopment zone.
Along with the parking structures, the group, which includes Chamber of Commerce members, also envisions a new storefront built on the current lot next to The Gap on East Ridgewood Avenue, according to plans unveiled during the Village Council’s work session meeting on Aug. 8.
This week, members of Ridgewood’s governing body offered their initial thoughts about the downtown proposal, weighing in on what they believed was the good, the bad, the ugly and the unknown, while offering some suggestions to make the plan more viable.
The overall pitch is laced mostly with good ideas, some council members told The Ridgewood News this week. They applauded the group for “its innovative thinking and ideas,” according to Mayor Paul Aronsohn.
Back to School: Back to School: Some Surprising Education Numbers
Lindsey Burke
August 27, 2012 at 12:25 pm
As children head back to the classrooms, let’s look at two important figures to consider this school year: 308,000 and $11,400.
308,000: Number of members lost by the National Education Association.
Education special interest groups, such as the teachers unions, are experiencing a decline in membership. As Stephen Sawchuck reports in Education Week, “by the end of its 2013–14 budget, NEA [the National Education Association] expects it will have lost 308,000 members and experienced a decline in revenue projected at some $65 million in all since 2010. (The figures are expressed in full-time equivalents, which means that the actual number of people affected is probably higher.)”
While the decline in membership appears to have shocked the NEA, the remarks of one of the union’s top officials, treasurer Becky Pringle, are even more shocking:
We’re living with a recession that just won’t end, political attacks that have turned brutal, and societal changes that are impacting us—from stupid education “reform” to an explosion of technology—all coming together to impact us in ways that we had never anticipated.
Pringle is likely referring to the reforms that Governor Scott Walker (R–WI) put into place in his state last year, giving teachers the choice to join the union or not. And it’s no surprise that the unions fear the “stupid” reforms that are underway, namely, online learning and school choice. As former New York City Schools chancellor Joel Klein wrote in The Atlantic last week:
[T]oday’s entrepreneurs know they can harness emerging technologies to reimagine teaching and learning. It’s a story as old as change itself. The candlemaker’s union wasn’t cheering Edison on.
Those reforms are even more crucial considering the amount of taxpayer dollars that will be poured into the public system this year.
$11,400: Average per-pupil, per year spending in public schools.
Students headed back to school this fall will have historically high levels of dollars spent on them in the public school system. Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year, meaning a child entering kindergarten today can expect to have no less than $148,000 spent on his or her education by the time the child graduates high school. In all, more than $570 billion will be spent on public K-12 education this year.
Sadly, continual increases in the money spent per child and in overall spending haven’t led to increases in academic achievement. That’s due in large part to the fact that most parents still do not have control over where or how that money is spent. We continue to fund institutions—sending that money to schools—instead of actually funding children.
Imagine if a child could put those dollars in a funding “backpack” and take that $11,400 to any school—public, private, or virtual. As in every other sector of American life, we would likely see outcomes improve as a result of competitive pressure placed on the government school system. Children would have access to schools that meet their unique learning needs. Parents would be able to harness the possibilities that online learning and customized education hold for tailoring their children’s educational experiences.
For all of those reasons and more, funding portability and school choice is an important assignment for policymakers to undertake as the school year begins.
