Ridgewodoo Nj, Aaccoring to readers ,Ridgewood is absolutely a magnet for parents with special needs children. We have great services.
I know a family that planned to move to a mega house in Saddle River. Their elementary school daughter was diagnosed, they looked around, and decided to stay.
Please read the key studies here on costs of students, special needs children have a different set of costs to support an excellent education. It is a fact and it is great we excel at it in our schools. As these reports show, one special needs student can tip the funding scales for an entire school. You have to plan for that as a village in all your housing studies. You can’t fail that child and family by not planning for it, and to plan for it you have to talk about it.
What makes Ridgewood different with respect to educating special need children is that we cover so much more, financially, than other districts. Fairlawn school district, as well as others, do not cover all the costs of ot, physical therapy, speech, etc. in a lot of cases, those costs are passed onto the families. To ignore the financial impact to the taxpayer when contemplating growing our population could potentially diminish these wonderful benefits to special need children currently living here. Cuts will be made in our schools when the school population grows. With a 2% cap, cuts will be necessary. It is a fact that families rent their homes in their towns, and find a rental here to take advantage of our school benefits. Our family is grateful for the wonderful services our children receive, including our special need child.
School children in general are a burden to our taxes. With an average cost of educating a non-special needs child around 13K/child most of us with 2, 3 or 4+ kids do not pay enough taxes to pay just the school portion of the bill, let alone other services. I find veering off into the special needs category unnecessary and actually hurtful for the argument at hand…
Again….adjustments to the cap are allowed for enrollment increases in both general and special education. Your assessment of services available in surrounding districts isn’t entirely accurate.
Everyone knows how expensive it is for a district to educate Special Needs students…Ramon didn’t have to mention it. It’s understood.
Sorry totally disagree it part of you social responsibility to face the facts on financing and no not everyone knows
$100,000,000 school budget, approximately 5,700 students equates to $17,544 per student. CRAZY!
The BOE has been very silent on this. Increased enrollment will give them the ability to go beyond the 2%cap. They will get raise taxes to get more $$ for schools without putting it to a vote, how convenient. maybe this was always part of the plan.
I feel very sad to keep suspecting that my town’s Board of Education is devious and trying to put things over on us, yet that thought has become unavoidable. When people get mad at the municipal budget they keep forgetting that about 2/3 of property taxes go to the schools. The BOE has not been fiscally frugal for many years and gets away with it. We can no longer even voice our opinion about the school budget now that it has been removed from the ballot. The full-day kindergarten referendum will be yet another joke with Fishbein and others pushing very very very hard through the schools and email messages and letters. UGH.
If the studies were true – then the rentals would pay more taxes and school should not have to increase taxes. BOE is silent because they want to use the increased enrollment as an opportunity to raise the taxes beyond 2%. We will have to probably find the clause somewhere which shows them that they can’t increase it beyond 2% if the tax base is ALSO increasing and sue them for this.
Follow the friends….Sheila Brogan who said this large hospital will not impact the students at BF, just got elected (last year?) as the Board’s President. The person who helped run her campaign?…..Roberta, our own Village Manager.
The corner of Linwood and Van Dien today is an old country crossing with so much activity and traffic amidst a massive school children crossing operation towards BF during morning rush hour and then again mid late afternoon including the darker winter months.turning lanes,other cars speeding around stopped left turn lines..one crossing guard today struggles to keep
Children and Hospital bus stop traffic safe,Add in a Five Story garage….only positives is the injured and maimed can be carried into the OR on foot or stretchers…this project is unsafe and insane.
Ridgewood taxpayers will be lucky if budget is only 1 mill….wait and see….