Cedarhurst, NY – The Fineberg family moved from Queens to Cedarhurst when their older son was about to enter kindergarten because they had heard the Lawrence school district provided outstanding special education and a commitment to serving even severely disabled children.
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Yehoshua, now 11, is autistic, as is his brother, Raffi, 9.
It was a move that proved beneficial for the boys, a curious and friendly duo. But the Finebergs, who are Orthodox Jews, always envisioned their children attending yeshiva. “It’s not just a religion, it’s an entire lifestyle,” said Suri Fineberg, explaining that her faith guides what she wears, eats and where she educates her children.
“I always felt like I’m put in a funny position,” said Fineberg, 33. “I’m Orthodox, this is where I live. But on the other hand, we’re part of the public school community.”
Fineberg said she held her tongue about the tensions in the district until a board meeting last month, when she spoke against the decision to close Number Six School, which her boys attend.
Her husband, Jeremy, 38, said he wants more transparency from the board and understands why some parents don’t trust it. But he also understands complaints from the Orthodox Jewish community about high property taxes.
The Finebergs see some signs of community healing: board member Asher Mansdorf attending many Lawrence school functions; the outpouring of support from all segments of the community when a mother and three children died in a February fire.
Part of the solution, Jeremy Fineberg said, is more balance on the board. “I think there needs to be an equal amount of representation on both sides,” he said.
Just like the East Ramapo school district…………
This issue has come up in a number of school districts. The public schools can barely afford to maintain special needs education in public schools since the costs are normally a factor of 5x to 10x times the costs they spend on an average student. Ths courts have held that if the school district can properly provide for the needs in the public schools they are not obligated to fund the costs of special ed programs in private schools, even if the parents have other reasons why they prefer a private religous school. Only if the parents can show that a private school program is materially better than the public school will the courts even entertain a hearing on the issue.
Am Har’aotzem like you who talk about “normal children” are as much a part of the problem as the schools……a severely disabled child with special education needs may cost more than a hundred thousand dollars a year to educate…
I don’t get the point of this article. Is it to hi lite the inter racial controversy happening at this local school board before the local election?
How sad that this Frum family becomes the sacrificial lambs offered up so that they don’t appear to be anti-religious. Well I feel very sad for these children who didn’t need any of this ridiculous publicity focused around them!!!!! Shame on ALL the adults, PARENTS INCLUDED, who chose to use them in this fashion.
Anyone who had any reason to have their child tested in the number 6 school can understand how behind in upkeep that building and ALL those old buildings were. FOR SHAME! All those old grand salaries. all those wasted huge budgets and wasted funds, and hidden phony expenditures that these angry parents so conveniently forgot!!!
Please stop blaming the messengers for coming to the logical financial conclusions that they were hard pressed to currently come by. It isn’t economically feasible to repair all these old buildings and bring them up to appropriate codes and environments where children can learn, grow and achieve in a modern technological approach. There just isn’t enough kids to fill these desks to justify it.
Change isn’t easy for anyone, especially not kids. But sometimes it is necessary. But if the sale of half empty buildings will fund the repairs and modernization of the other useful ones;if this consolidation and concentration of funds will build and develop new science and computer labs, necessary gyms and maybe pools and other physical and athletic or other artistic development for the kids I say go for it!
I haven’t had a chance to hear all the good things planned for the kids because they are constantly being shouted down and never given a chance to be heard because all we hear is how the religious Jews are trying to destroy the public school system.
That is so laughable!! The reason the 5 towns was such a desirable neighborhood, and the property values remained so high, was because it had an excellent public school system. WE pay for it, and of course we want to get something in return for our taxes, but we also want to get our monies worth and not want to see our money go down the drain.
Education is important to Jews and we want to make sure that our neighbors children are getting the best our money is paying for, in the safest environment. We don’t want to hear that our neighbor’s child was killed in a stabbing or because a ceiling caved in some where. It hurts if it happens to our child or to yours. We are appalled at the waste of life in the Lawrence fire where the volunteer firefighter started the blaze on the premise he was going to be the hero that would run in and save the family. Well he didn’t save them he killed them and it was a huge loss to our community. WE ARE ALL in shock, we are all grieving and truth be told we didn’t even know you, we didn’t have to. We are all G-d’s children and we feel your pain.
So can we stop making a racial issue out of this and give the school board a chance to undo and recover from the mess they were handed? If the money from the sale of the #6 school will allow expansion of the buildings that are left to accommodate space that you cry you need, that is another issue that can be re-visited on the properties the board would still own or can negotiate in their upgrade and modernization process of the public school system.
I for one would like to see a business plan for the Lawrence public school systems for the next ten years. After all. these kids will also be our future doctors, lawyers, legislatures, educators, etc and we hold their success in our hands.
Sherree Belsky
Director
Kids Count Foundation
I have an autistic child and no private school jewish or not is less then 85000.00 a year they go up to 120000.00
The reality is that society does not have unlimited funds and we are already scraping the bottom of the barrel and laying off teachers and staff in schools because the tax funds are no longer there. Do we further short-change the 99 percent of students without disabilitiies or special needs to provide full-funding (with no caps or limits) for the needs of one percent of children whose educational costs may bankrupt the school system. In an ideal world we could do both, but in the current world, I fear we will need to impose reasonable limits and the parent of these challenged children will have to get used to not having a gold plated education at the school of their choice.
bottom line – we all pay alot to educate our children – unfortuntely it’s become a huge problem in our orthodox world because most people can’t afford to pay $50k or $60k post taxes to educate their kids for at least 15 years in a row.
people walk away from frumkeit because they can’t bear the financial burden, and noone cares. the board of education says come here and we’ll teach your kids for free, but noone does it because it’s unacceptable.
Why is it that the ortodox value their own family education and not ours? Lawrence school distric pays for buses to 100 schools – how many of that are public school? let me answer that for you – 6 – the other 94 schools are private schools so you need to go and check your facts
My child is perfectly normal. He has a great sense of humor,is warm, loving ,sweet & kind. He loves davening , shul & Hashem. By the way the 5 Towns “special needs” frum school won’t take him because he has Down syndrome. That aside, dear #4 , try the terms typical, regular, standard issue.
If schools are reimbursed $100,000 per autistic child, I am opening a new business !!! I will happily open a school with 15 autistic children. I will hire five assistants and I will do great ! I will entertain and educate the kids personally. America is a great country !!!
Sadly enough Jeremy is quite uninformed about the situation in the district. The district board is not a “Public” school district board, but a board for all the children in the community. The current board has done much to improve the situation for all students in the district, fixing neglected buildings, improving education, and keeping the property taxes at a minimum. The occupancy of the district building is at 40%, and therefore logical to close at least two more buildings. The last board neglected the district buildings, and the students, but gave a teachers contract that increased the average teacher salary from $75k to $100k per year. We need to maintain full control of the board, in order to never risk a return of the previous situation. The current board has done a fantastic job and needs our support to go out and Vote ROW A on Tuesday.
Here is an important read:
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=4244
What is interesting, is that even the Nassau Herald has endorsed our candidates this year. Even more proof of the superb job they have performed.