New Jersey State Senator Joseph Lagana (D-Bergen/Passaic), Assemblyman Gary Schaer, (D – Bergen/Passaic) and Assemblywoman Lisa Swain (D-Bergen/Passaic) visited RYNJ, on Tuesday, February 5. The visit, organized in cooperation with Teach NJ, was an opportunity for RYNJ to thank the legislators for their leadership in sponsoring the nonpublic school security legislation that doubled security funding this year and to show how their support helps the school. The security bill was signed into law by Governor Murphy on January 8.

Rabbi Daniel Price, RYNJ’s head of school, commented, “RYNJ appreciates the legislators’ support and also thanks Teach NJ for advocating on behalf of all nonpublic schools. Our students learned a lot about how state government works and how they can have an impact on state law by becoming activists. They also used the opportunity to express their hakarat hatov, gratitude, because all three legislators were critical endorsers and sponsors of the recent security bill which doubled the allocation of security funds to RYNJ and all non-public schools in New Jersey.”

The legislators were led on a tour of the facility by Rabbi Price, who pointed out how the school is able to continue to enhance their current security infrastructure with the new funding.

Meital Mandlebaum’s seventh grade students were given the opportunity to meet the elected officials and better understand their roles in state government. In the Q & A portion of the program, Ayelet Eizikovitz from Bergenfield wanted to know approximately how many bills are written each year and how many of those are actually signed into law by the governor. Assemblyman Schaer explained that there are over 2500 bills written every year and that last year only around 250 of them were signed into law. Senator Lagana then described the complicated process for how bills are passed in the state government.