Central Valley, NY – The race for three Monroe-Woodbury school board seats next week has veered in an unlikely direction, with one board member contending in a widely distributed email that three candidates support Kiryas Joel residents who want special-education services for their kids at Monroe-Woodbury’s expense.
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Board member Jen Trumper, who isn’t up for election but backs two incumbents and their running mate, warns that three other candidates “will be sympathetic” to dissident Hasidic families who want services from providers other than Kiryas Joel’s public school for disabled children.
The background issue is that Kiryas Joel’s dissidents — a minority faction in the divided Satmar Hasidic community — want Monroe-Woodbury to offer other special-ed providers to parents with children in two private schools just outside Kiryas Joel. Monroe-Woodbury, which makes the call because the schools are in its district, contracts with Kiryas Joel School District for those services and doesn’t want to switch.
“It doesn’t cost Monroe-Woodbury a cent,” said Jacob Ferencz, former administrator of Sheri Torah school on Larkin Drive.
“a minority faction in the divided Satmar Hasidic community “
I wonder what the need was to mention the division of the Satmar community in the context of this article. After all, both satmars, when a child with special needs is born -and they live in the KJ district, will utilize the services of the KJ public school.
there is no risk for any politician to speak out in favor of the dissidents since they own 45% of the block vote in KJ.
The dissents in KJ have always had around 40 percent and there are not 200.000 votes up for grab in KJ so every normal politician tries to get the endorsement of the village of kiryas joel because they are the majority voting block in kiryas yoel