[By Yossi Gestetner]
The “Rockland Clergy for Social Justice” wrote an article in the Jewish Week headlined “here is what we know about East Ramapo.” The nine signatories, including many who do not live and nor have children in the District, list fifteen things separately which are intended to paint the ERCSD Board of Education in Rockland County as corrupt, careless and criminal. The writers use the list to call for an abstract “oversight” by the State.
But at closer inspection, those fifteen claims are reduced to nine and are riddled with proven lies, distortion and hyperbole.
I will try to address all claims short and to the point:
Claim 1 is that Public School parents are at odds with the Board and the school administration. Well, this happens in Districts across New York as State Education Commissioner John King learned first hand. (He in fact cut short the remaining four town hall meetings with public school parents after the first of five went terribly wrong for him).
Claim 2 is that State agencies and Courts found the Board in violation of special education placement rules; placements which are beneficial to special needs students and save the district money. Only people with cruel intentions complain when special needs kids get what they need at a discount for tax payers.
Claim 3 is that the Board sold an unused property below market value. Sorry, but no buyer offered to take it at market value even after the District wasted $500K on marketing as instructed by the Department of Education.
Claim 4 is that 400 patents filed a Federal class action lawsuit. Perhaps but the “class” statues plus 8 of the 9 claims were dismissed by a Judge even before trial; an illustration that the anti-Jewish Board forces stand on very weak ground.
Claim 5 is that the District is investigated by certain agencies. Perhaps, but the investigations in itself (which do not prove guilt) are generated by instigators who agitate agencies to persecute the Board. Besides, 90% of those investigations found no wrong doing.
Claim 6 is that cuts to public school programs are damaging to kids. Correct this is why a) detractors should stop wasting District funds on frivolous lawsuits; b) we need formula change and c) responsible forces secured this week the passage of the Budget at first count saving the District $80K.
Claim 7 is that the Board moved public comment to the end of Board meetings. Correct but it was done as a result of reckless operatives who used the public comment period to stop the Board meetings from taking place.
Claim 8 is that the Board didn’t address or respond to an Attorney who used foul language against people at a meeting. Well the fact is “we disassociate ourselves with his actions and his words,” board President Yehuda Weissmandl said at the time, and the Attorney is off this case file.
Claim 9 is that a non-Jewish Board member resigned last year citing intimidation by other members. There is no Police Report of this alleged intimidation. This claim is bogus.
Elected officials, editorial board writers and objective commentators need to ask themselves if anything of the above – half of which takes places at many Districts; worse of which that take place at other Districts in Rockland itsf – lives up to the cloud of controversy that interlopers, agitators, student exploiters and hate mongers have placed on this Jewish-run Board. Anyone who really cares about the peace of this district and the future of its children should push for a change in Formula; a move that will restore the much needed funds to public school children. The voters did the right thing Tuesday; now it’s time for the State to do the same. Those who refuse to embrace formula change – and instead generate misleading claims and offer abstract solutions – are frauds.
Yossi Gestetner is co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council.
NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN.
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13 Responses
fine, but the hiring of PR agency’s by cheridim should of started year’s ago, before the non informed and the malicious joint the bandwagon. Also I would suggest that a competent PR firm should be hired to fend off the daily onslaught of lies and innuendos on the infamous blogs..
Ok, but what is that formula change you talk about?
Well said, Mr. Gestetner. Well said.
Kako,
The formula change has been discussed many times already. You are very late to the discussion.
In very brief it has to do primarily with the number of students that are used to calculate the state share of the districts funding.
New York calculates state aid based on the number of public school kids – 9000 in East Ramapo. However, you are mandated to provide transportation, text books, special ed, computers and software for private schools with that money as well – 21000 in East Ramapo. So, you get money for 9000 kids and have to spend it on 30000 kids. The only way to make that work is to make cuts. Formula change means providing the $$$ to pay for the services that you are mandated to provide to private school kids by changing the formula to include a factor for the number of private school kids.
The cuts come from the public school kids not from the private school kids. Instead of changing the formula, how about everybody pay their fair share. There are over 1200 tax exempt properties in just Monsey and Spring Valley alone, East Ramapo has 3 times as many tax exempt properties as the rest of the county combined. My guess is there is at least 50 million plus out there that could go on the tax roll to restore programs and would reduce taxes.
make that 5 million
The cuts come from the areas that are not mandated. The private schools lost busing on days when public schools are closed so they did experience cuts as well. You can’t cut items that are state mandated.
If they are illegally tax exempt, it is the town that has to go after them. The district has no say in whether a property is tax exempt so this is a red herring.
If they are legally tax exempt, there is no argument unless you want to change state law. Note that MANY of these properties are actually church properties and have absolutely nothing to do with the Orthodox community.
Ramaporesident, I couldnt care less who owns the property, the fact remains their is an absurd amount of tax exempt property in Monsey and Spring Valley. The law should be changed. You are correct, the public school students education could be gutted to the state minimum and it would not effect the private school student one bit. I think in the case of ER, where the current private school students households as a group do not fund the the public students (their taxes dont cover for what is spent on the per private school student) then the law should be changed to allow cuts to funds budgeted to the private school sector , essentially, ER is losing money on every private school household instead of the opposite which happens in most other districts.
ersd – exactly. But you are incorrect as to the cause. Most funding for the education comes from the State based on a very complex formula. In short, you get a certain number of dollars per public school student. However, you must pay for services for all students (this is guaranteed by the State constitution and, quite frankly, is logical – either the state should pay for transportation for all students or none, etc.) The problem is that the State does not provide the finances to cover these services. In a district where the number of private school kids is small, it doesn’t make difference. In ER, however, when the private school kids make up almost 70% of the student population, it is a back breaker. The funding formula has to change to recognize the costs of services to private school kids. That would solve everything. (Note – while I mentioned transportation, which is a big chunk, special ed may be even larger).
I agree with what you are saying about the funding but I am also trying to point out that the private school household is actually depleting public school funds because they are receiving benefits greater than they are paying in taxes. Transportation for everyone comes to around 30 million or around 1,000 per student, special ed is budgeted around 40 million. The budget was 210 million, the private school students make up 23 percent, 49 million dollars, of the budget on these 2 items alone (((30m + 40m)* .70)/210)) Im using your number 70. Using the figure of 22,000 as the number of private school students, it works out to that on these 2 items, ER is budgeting 2227 per a private school pupil. So back to my point, I read a lot of posts from private school parents who say I pay private school tuition for 5 kids, why should my taxes go toward paying the public kids education, my point is, if a family has 4 kids, unless they are paying 10k in school taxes, they are not “funding” the public school they are depleting funds from the public school. The public school kids get the short end of the stick on this deal. Think about, ER is budgeting 4k for busing alone for a household of 4 private school kids. Now if everyone in the public and private had a household with the average of 2 kids enrolled in school, the tax dollars collected would be more in line with the benefits received. IMO this is why ER is going down the death spiral path and they need financial help. The number of students per household by both the private and public is very high which makes the taxes per student collected from these households very low. Because of this, there are budget constraints and by law only the public programs can be slashed.
Ersd – we are very much on the same page. However, you omit a few things. The State constitution guarantees education and the items required for education for every child in the state – private or public, legal or illegal, citizen or non-citizen. That’s why the private school kids get the services they do. Second, the state aid is calculated solely based on the number of public school kids which means that services for 21,000 private school kids has to be paid for by those funds. The inequity in the funding formula is killing the public school kids. The services being provided to the private schools is mandated and can’t be cut – it just have to be financed. And I agree with you that since the private schools receive so many services, they have every right to be sitting at the table and on the board. Third, SED and the board have responsibilities to BOTH private and public school kids. That is written into the law as well. If the state would just finance what is required to be paid out in expenses the problem WOULD go away. Changing board members or state takeover wouldn’t change a thing.