After receiving over 12,000 calls protesting his private school budget cuts through the TEACH NYS hotline, Governor David Paterson has put back into his budget the CAP mandate for private schools. “This is an important first step in our goal of restoring full funding to the Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP) for private schools,” explained
David Greenfield, director and counsel of TEACH NYS. “Now that the CAP mandate has been restored, the Governor’s office can begin negotiations with the legislature about how much money yeshivas might receive through this mandate.”

CAP is a state mandated program for all schools. It is a security measure that requires that schools take attendance at the start of every period to ensure that students are attending their classes and not leaving the school during class time. While the Governor proposed a 3.3% cut for public school funding in his now one-month old budget, he wanted to cut funding to yeshivas by an astounding 41% primarily by eliminating CAP for private schools.

After an intense lobbying campaign led by TEACH NYS and joined by a coalition of influential Jewish groups including: Agudath Israel, UJO of Williamsburg, the Orthodox Union, the Board of Jewish Education, UJCARE and the Sephardic Community Federation, the Governor agreed to restore the CAP mandate, a pre-condition to eventually restoring the funding for yeshivas.

“The Governor managed to do something that we always struggle to do – bring the Jewish community together,” said Greenfield.  “Every segment of our community is working hand-in-hand to try and restore these unprecedented cuts to our yeshivas. Boruch Hashem, the Governor has so far responded positively to our collective efforts,” Greenfield explained.

To be clear, now the hard work begins. The askanim will now have to convince the Governor that he should restore the money – $55 million – to the CAP program. However, without a restoration of the actual CAP program in the budget, there would have been no way to restore the proposed 41% funding cuts to yeshivas.

As a result, TEACH NYS is still asking parents to call the Governor via their toll free hotline at (888) 720 1961. Parents should now stress the importance of restoring the funding to yeshivas through CAP by saying: “Thank you Governor Paterson for restoring the CAP mandate for private schools, now please restore the $55 million in funding.”

TEACH NYS is the only organization exclusively dedicated to solving the tuition crisis and works each and every day on behalf of the 500,000 private school students in New York State.

(Eli Gefen – YWN)