Ridgewood NJ, in a bid to enhance their capabilities in handling complex situations involving differently abled individuals ie individuals with special needs and autism, Ridgewood Police officers recently underwent valuable hands-on training. Led by Police Chief Forest Lyons, the officers delved into practical scenarios to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application.
Glen Rock NJ, the Taylor Aguilar Memorial Scholarship Fund is, after a hiatus due to Covid, once again hosting an in person Oktoberfest on October 8, 2023 at 1PM at the Glen Rock Athletic Club The event will raise funds in Taylor’s memory that will be directly donated to children in our area with special needs or medical conditions.
Ridgewood schools were ranked nationally in the 1980s and 1990s. No more. As the “CEO” of a school board with a $110 mm annual budget, 10 “offices” and 500 employees, he has overseen the demise of our schools over the past decade. The “product” is in secular decline apart from very niche & expensive “special needs” education. Surely with a budget like that, we can attract world class & innovative leaders and educators that can improve our schools? Instead we get weather updates from Fishbein. If he’s so great, let him destroy another school system instead of ours.
The Geller Report has obtained a screenshot of the response some Facebook users received after reporting a disturbing video showing the torture and beating of a disabled white Trump supporter in Chicago. Upon reporting the violent video, Facebook replied, saying “We reviewed the video and it DOESN’T go against one of our specific community standards.
Ridgewood Nj, Council Candidate Ramon Hache further explains his statement regarding the effect high density housing on the Village schools and educational special needs programs .
“It seems some of your readers may have misinterpreted my comments regarding special needs children. The point I was trying to make is that this is a multi-factor model and we have to take all the factors into consideration. It’s the only way we can plan properly to ensure that we don’t strain our educational system and diminish the quality of both traditional and special needs programs. I think it’s wonderful that Ridgewood’s educational programs are highly sought after, particularly the special needs program.”
It doesn’t matter where new residents come from. It doesn’t matter if they are here for years or here for just one year. What is important is our town’s ability to provide a great education for each and every student, no matter how new or how old that student is to our district. With a state imposed cap on our school budget that is only allowed to increase by 2% per year, our district may not be able to handle a large influx of children without stressing already large class sizes. More kids does not lead to the hiring of more teachers and additional classrooms, the 2% cap won’t allow for this. If these new zoning approvals to build at 35 units an acre are the beginning of a new development trend in Ridgewood, then the residents deserve to know how this new trend will impact our schools and how will we pay for it? The good news, your taxes won’t go up because the state-imposed 2% cap will not allow for a tax increase. The bad news, you will pay for it with larger class sizes. 200 plus units today will look like a drop in the bucket 5 or 10 years from now when all of this expands throughout our CBD.
Deal puts focus on placing New Jersey’s disables kids in local classrooms
Thousands of special-needs students across New Jersey could get the support they need to attend mainstream classes or return from out-of-district programs to their local schools after a settlement was reached in a seven-year court fight over whether disabled children were unfairly segregated.
The federal suit, filed by an array of advocacy groups, contends that the state violated the rights of disabled children to attend school — to the greatest extent possible — with children who do not have disabilities and in their neighborhood schools. The suit said that because of the state’s failures, countless disabled children were unnecessarily separated from their peers.
About 15 percent of New Jersey’s 1.4 million public school students have special needs, and about 8 percent of the disabled go to out-of-district sites.
The settlement, approved by the state Board of Education on Wednesday, requires that for three years, the state must scrutinize the placement of special-needs children in more than 55 districts that put a disproportionate share of students in restrictive settings. That includes Westwood,Hackensack, Garfield, Passaic, Elmwood Park and Englewood.
If the state finds districts are not doing their utmost to include students in regular classes, school staff must undergo extra training in tailoring lessons to the children and giving them aides and other individualized services.
Ruth Lowenkron, an attorney at the Education Law Center, which was one of the plaintiffs, said the settlement could help many special-needs students in a state that has historically put more of them in separate programs than is typical nationwide. (Brody/The Record)
