Tag: Ridgewood Schools

The Learning Commons Benefit Event is January 11

On Friday, January 11, 2013 from 7:00 to 11:00 pm, the 07450 Schools Committee will host a fundraiser to benefit the Ridgewood High School Learning Commons project at The Woodcliff Lake Hilton in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. Due to hurricane Sandy and the families still suffering, the event that was originally scheduled to take place at the end of November was postponed.

The event is open to all Ridgewood families and alumni and will include cocktails, dinner and dancing, with giving opportunities at all levels.

Guests will enjoy live music by Matthew Friedman and Uptown Sounds. Matthew Friedman starred as “The Piano Man” in Billy Joel’s award-winning musical, Movin’ Out. Friedman brings his unique talent and two decades of performing experience to this versatile band, which features members of Billy Joel’s own band and a former singer from Meatloaf. The group can cover a wide range of musical styles – from Journey to Jay Z, Lady Gaga to The Cure – and of course, Billy Joel.

Admission for the event is $110 per person and $200 per couple, and includes an open bar. All donations made at the event are tax deductible.

RSVP: https://rhslearningcommons.com/special-event-011113/

Bringing it Home
November 30,2012
Dr. Daniel Fishbein

When we close our eyes and recall Thanksgiving, each of us can imagine our own scenes with family and friends, the smell and even taste of our favorite dishes, and the expressions of gratitude that were exchanged at the dinner table. This year I am especially thankful because while many in our community suffered property and material damages during Hurricane Sandy, we did not endure the loss of any community member or experience the elimination of an entire village infrastructure, as some municipalities sadly did. Even Ridgewood’s lost pets were found safe and sound.

We were lucky. Fortunately Sandy is behind us and life in Ridgewood has for the most part returned to normal. And while we still see tarps on roofs, enormous tree stumps and broken sidewalks around the Village, the ongoing regional media coverage continues to remind us that
normalcy has not returned to many areas and/or families, nor will it for years to come.

That means our work as citizen neighbors is not done. Along with its wallop, Sandy delivered to us a small taste of what it is like to live without the very basics for even a short period of time. Schools were closed but the lessons continued firsthand, especially the one about how a small amount of generosity goes a very long way to people in need. How our temporary hardship is something that many people around the world live with every day, even when the winds are still and the sun is shining.

Each year, around this time, our students and staff go into overdrive to organize activities that raise awareness about people in need. They solicit monetary donations, collect food and assemble clothing drives and the like for those less fortunate than we. The causes extend all over the globe and each and every one of them is worthy of our support. And yet this year, because Sandy chose to hit so close to home, we have the unique opportunity to truly think globally and act locally, as the saying goes, to bolster the service organizations in our own backyard. There is a particularly increased need for our investment in our community.

So please, help to replenish the shelves at our food pantries and to fill storage lockers at our blood banks. Go through your closets and drawers and give to the clothing and coat drives of your choice. And finally, for those who can, please give to the hurricane relief effort of your choice. Your acts of kindness will be appreciated by those in need and will also make you feel good about yourself.

I hope the beginning of the holiday season was happy and restful and that the rest of this season brings you peace! Be well and thank you for giving!

Photo By Boyd Loving

IRS: Retirement Plans Can Make Loans, Hardship Distributions to Sandy Victims
IR-2012-93, Nov. 16, 2012

WASHINGTON — As part of the administration’s efforts to bring all available resources to bear to support state and local partners impacted by Hurricane Sandy, the Internal Revenue Service today announced that 401(k)s and similar employer-sponsored retirement plans can make loans and hardship distributions to victims of Hurricane Sandy and members of their families.

401(k) plan participants, employees of public schools and tax-exempt organizations with 403(b) tax-sheltered annuities, and state and local government employees with 457(b) deferred-compensation plans may be eligible to take advantage of these streamlined loan procedures and liberalized hardship distribution rules. Though IRA participants are barred from taking out loans, they may be eligible to receive distributions under liberalized procedures.
Retirement plans can provide this relief to employees and certain members of their families who live or work in the disaster area. To qualify for this relief, hardship withdrawals must be made by Feb. 1, 2013.

The IRS is also relaxing procedural and administrative rules that normally apply to retirement plan loans and hardship distributions. As a result, eligible retirement plan participants will be able to access their money more quickly with a minimum of red tape. In addition, the six-month ban on 401(k) and 403(b) contributions that normally affects employees who take hardship distributions will not apply.

This broad-based relief means that a retirement plan can allow a Sandy victim to take a hardship distribution or borrow up to the specified statutory limits from the victim’s retirement plan. It also means that a person who lives outside the disaster area can take out a retirement plan loan or hardship distribution and use it to assist a son, daughter, parent, grandparent or other dependent who lived or worked in the disaster area.

Plans will be allowed to make loans or hardship distributions before the plan is formally amended to provide for such features. In addition, the plan can ignore the limits that normally apply to hardship distributions, thus allowing them, for example, to be used for food and shelter. If a plan requires certain documentation before a distribution is made, the plan can relax this requirement as described in the announcement.

Ordinarily, retirement plan loan proceeds are tax-free if they are repaid over a period of five years or less. Under current law, hardship distributions are generally taxable. Also, a 10 percent early-withdrawal tax usually applies.

Further details are in Announcement 2012-44.

file photo Ridgewood Train Station

School Choice: Securing a Better Future for Our Country
by Andrew Campanella

It’s time to take the fight for school choice in America to a new level. To ensure that millions of additional children have access to the best schools possible, we must — must — reach tens of millions of additional Americans and galvanize their support for educational equality.

With one American child dropping out of school every 26 seconds, we cannot wait. Our country faces an education crisis, and it’s up to us to let our friends and neighbors know — en masse — that school choice CAN provide an essential and beneficial solution for families across the country.

To help make this vision a reality, National School Choice Week will host the first-ever nationwide, whistle-stop train tour in support of school choice.
The goal of this tour — along with the record-breaking 3,000 events being independently planned for National School Choice Week 2013 — is to demonstrate overwhelming support, and demand, for school choice…while shining a positive spotlight on the hundreds of organizations, thousands of schools, and millions of Americans working every day to increase access to great schools in our country.

The National School Choice Week Special — a historic railcar — will depart Los Angeles Union Station on January 25, 2013 and arrive in New York on February 2, 2013. Parents, students, community leaders, education organizations and elected officials of both parties will host 14 very special events along the tour’s route.

The Special will link the modern-day fight for educational equality to important movements that have shaped the American way of life — from suffrage to civil rights — all of which used similar whistle-stop tours to generate overwhelming support for causes that changed our history for the better.

With bold strokes, our generation can — and will — make its mark on the tapestry of our national experience. Social change isn’t just something we read about in history books. It’s something we can make a reality, and in the process, secure for ourselves not only a place in history books yet unwritten, but secure for our country a brighter and more prosperous futurewhere no child is denied the opportunity to attend the best schools possible.

BOE GETS $500K BOOSTER SHOT FROM VALLEY FOR STUDENT HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAMMING

Ridgewood NJ, The Valley Hospital has pledged to donate $500,000, payable over five years, to the Ridgewood Public Schools. The donation will support both new and existing initiatives in the areas of health education, fitness and wellness, and disease prevention programs aimed at raising awareness and promoting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle to Ridgewood students, faculty and their families. Examples to be considered include adolescent health and wellness education, diabetes education, injury prevention, and nutrition.

“We truly appreciate Valley’s generosity with this five-year grant,” said Sheila Brogan, Ridgewood Board of Education President. “The Valley Hospital has long been a good neighbor to the Ridgewood Public Schools and a valuable partner in several programs that support the district’s mission of excellence. The Ridgewood Academy for the Health Professions, ongoing classroom speaker series and funding of special projects through the Ridgewood Education Foundation are but a few examples of our ongoing and successful relationship with Valley. Their continued support through this grant will enable us to continue our mutual commitment to the health and wellness of our students.”