Orthodox School District Gets Funding Boost — but More Oversight From New York State
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
NEW YORK — New York’s state legislature approved a bill that would provide greater oversight of an Orthodox-controlled school district along with $3 million in aid.
The bill concerning the embattled and financially troubled East Ramapo School District in New York’s Rockland County, passed both houses of the legislature Thursday and will now go to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk for signature, the Journal News reported.
Introduced earlier this week, the bill represents a compromise between lawmakers and activists who wanted stricter oversight, including state veto power over the district’s operations, and those who opposed the oversight. The bill does not give veto power, but it empowers the state education commissioner to keep a team of state monitors in the district and requires the school board to submit its entire budget to the commissioner, who has the authority to demand changes.
Two state reports in recent years have called for greater state intervention in the district, whose Orthodox-majority board has been accused of financial mismanagement and of diverting funds from public schools to area yeshivas.
According to the Journal News, only 25 percent of the district’s 32,000 students attend public schools; the majority of children are enrolled in Orthodox yeshivas. The public school students are predominantly black and Hispanic.
“This is a very positive outcome indeed. We will now be able to make a series of investments in academic programs and services. Our students will benefit greatly,” Yehuda Weissmandl, the school board president, said in a statement, according to the Journal News.
Related:
Buoyed by haredi growth, Jewish school enrollment in NY up by 4 percent in one year
4 NY yeshivas sued for failing to provide adequate secular education
In Rockland County, non-Orthodox try to create alternative to Hasidic dominance
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
