Panel Wants Tighter Oversight of Orthodox New York School Board
A New York State panel recommended tighter control over an Orthodox-majority public school board in Rockland County whose budget cuts have provoked ire among public-school parents.
The state-appointed monitors of the East Ramapo Central School District recommended in a report released Monday that the state authorize a monitor of the school board empowered veto board decisions. The report also recommended that one board seat per election cycle be reserved for a public school parent and that an independent election monitor oversee the integrity of the school board election process.
Six of the board’s nine members are Orthodox and do not send their children to public schools. Critics have charged that they have used their board positions to benefit their yeshiva community at the expense of the public schools. Of the 32,000 school-aged children in the district, approximately 8,500 attend public schools and 24,000 attend private schools, mostly Orthodox yeshivas, according to the report, “Opportunity Deferred: A report on the East Ramapo Central School District.”
The report was the work of a team of monitors appointed this summer by the state education commission to review the district’s actions. Its members included former New York City schools chancellor Dennis Walcott, education expert Monica George-Fields and school finance expert John Sipple.
“As illuminated by the Monitors’ work since August 2015, as reported in Henry M. Greenberg’s November 2014 report to the Regents, as documented in the press, and as experienced and voiced by public school families, educators, and community members, the East Ramapo Board of Education has persistently failed to act in the best interests of public school students,” the report said.
Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox organization, panned the report for undermining “the integrity of the democratic process” and expressed dismay that it “rekindles the highly charged atmosphere that pits groups against each other in East Ramapo on the basis of religion and race.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!