Rockland County, NY – Members of the East Ramapo school district board appeared stunned as they were hit with legal papers demanding their removal in front of a packed scheduled meeting on Tuesday night.
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LOHUD.com (http://lohud.us/1M4JRSj) reports that, accompanied by reps from the law firm Advocates for Justice, parents and community members approached and served each school board member in attendance along with superintendent Joe Klein.
At the heart of the lawsuit are charges that the predominantly ultra-Orthodox school board has violated its fiduciary responsibilities by running up excessive legal bills on the backs of taxpayers in mounting its defense in a federal case brought by local parents who charge that members purposely misdirected public funds to benefit the ultra-Orthodox community.
Steven White, a plaintiff who took part in serving the board, said the tactic was necessary because board members have a history of avoiding the process.
The East Ramapo situation is an embarrassment…and I’ll wager that the plaintiffs are going to be successful on the fiduciary question…bringing more embarrassment to us. A court won’t run with its tail between its legs due to the power of Chassidishe voting blocs…unlike certain legislators.
They are going through exactly what District 15 (the Five Towns school district) in Nassau County went through about 7-8 years ago. The “public school parents” sued in federal court to have the democratically elected school board thrown out simply because most of the members did not have children in the District 15 public schools and therefore, they claimed, could not represent the children. Worse yet, the school board was accused, quite without any evidence, of hatching a plan to close the public schools and open yeshivas in their place. Each case was almost immediately thrown out of court, as the judge found in each case that if a board member is a taxpaying member of the District and there is no other evidence of unsuitability to serve, they have the right to be on the school board if they are elected. The mere fact that the member does not have a child in the public schools does not disqualify that member. If any parent without a child in the public school system was exempt from paying the school tax, that would be a much different story.
By the looks of the faces in the audience, they don’t look like big taxpayers to me.
What a dream it would be. Don’t permit anyone without a child in public school to serve on the school board. Then the schools will once again be flush with money so all the public school students will receive all the services they need and deserve without the private school parents (ie Ultra Orthodox JEWS) deviously bleeding the system dry.
Of course, that same law will also make it very clear that anyone paying tuition for a child to attend a private school would not be liable for property taxes!
75% of the audience are here illegally and pay 0 taxes.
It shows very bad political sense to have an all frum, or majority frum, board of a public school district. There is no possible way this can end well. I understand that the boards in these situations are democratically elected and I also understand the logic of having a frum board to control spending but it is still a terrible idea. Just because a given frum community can win a school board election doesn’t mean they should. For the frum community, the issue is about property taxes, to the parents of the children it is about the much more emotionally charged topic of their children’s education.
this is what Israel can look forward to when the Haredim (and Arabs) take over power due to sheer demographics not competence.
The real culprits are the leaders of the Mosdos that sold the future years ago when Jason Friedman was the superintendent. They allowed huge salary increases for the teachers so they would get an extra bus or a textbook. The teachers contracts are online for all to see. Take a look at the year on year increases in salaries and benefits.
The choice of channeling discretionary funds to a particular area is fully within the rights of the duly elected board.That others would prefer to see the $spent differently is irrelevant. The only responsibility of the board is to assure that those monies are spent equitably and with no discrimination.Presumably the Haitian and
Dominican special ed. services are being funded along with those of the private school communities. Has anyone claimed otherwise?
The board paid 2 million dollars for legal fees and the state declared that was excessive, so the board is being sued personally for the return of the money. Many items purchased by the board such as an 8 thousand dollar swing for the private school kids taking classes in the public school is unethical. The board paid for kosher kitchens in the public school—brand new, yet won’t fix the mold in the ceiling which is black and falling down. This black mold causes cancer. The board laughs at requests to remove the mold. Now that they have to pay for this suit out of their own pockets, let’s see what happens.
There was around a handful of residents around two hundred Aliens ( that are driven with wrong information )and mr. McWilliams that said that he represents the black African community. but for some reason he was the only one there from that community that means that he has no support within his community
It would be ironic if have to sell a few public schools to pay for this second frivolous lawsuit.
I don’t know why they want to be on the school board if they don’t have kids in the system. Power complexes? It seems like the Chassidim (I am a chasid but BH not in Rockland County!) want to control everything so they get all the funding. This wasn’t a nice tactic, but it seems it was effective. I would love to have seen their faces! What was the lawsuit they spent so much money on?
It is all in the way that they conduct themselves. The board members lack the social skills to interact with others not from their culture. If they were receptive and respectful to those in the community the situation would be very different. However, they handle themselves with an elitist all knowing attitude that has rubbed many the wrong way.