Long Island, NY – A Long Island student and her father have filed a lawsuit against the New York State Assembly, charging that exempting non-public schools from the same child protection laws that are mandatory in New York’s public schools is a violation of those students’ constitutional rights.
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The lawsuit, Levi versus New York State, was filed on January 18th in Manhattan federal court and names the State Assembly, Speaker Sheldon Silver, Dean Skelos, Jeffrey D. Klein and the State of New York as defendants. Both Skelos and Klein are presidents pro tempore of the New York State Senate as well as senate conference leaders of their respective parties.
The student, who is legally considered a minor, attends a Nassau County yeshiva.
“No one was attacked or assaulted here,” Elliot Pasik, attorney for the plaintiff and president and founder of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, told VIN News. “This lawsuit has nothing to do with curriculums. It is limited to child safety and health laws and about making our religious schools safer for our children.”
As described in the thirty page complaint, by not subjecting religious schools to the same child safety and health regulations as public schools, the plaintiff’s constitutional rights under both the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clause have been violated, forcing her to receive her education in a potentially hazardous environment in order to be able to attend a school that allows her to freely practice her religion.
The complaint suggests that in the wake of the Leiby Kletzky murder, much attention has been focused on improving child safety legislation, particularly in non-public schools. Some of the legislation being suggested in the lawsuit, which is already mandatory in public schools, includes requiring schools to educate students in abduction prevention, to fingerprint and run criminal background checks of all employees and to report any and all child abuse that takes place in an educational setting.
Pasik, himself the parent of non-public school children, expressed optimism that safer schools for nearly half million New York State children who attend non-public schools, will soon become a reality.
“We hope there are mature, sober voices, among our state officials, who can closely examine this situation,” said Pasik. “Firm, decisive action is needed. 400,000 nonpublic school children deserve the best legal protection our state can give them.”
they should have school safety police at yeshivas too. not only in public schools.
parents of children who go to private schools pay taxes too. why not give them this protection
How much is he suing for?
Do you know how many yeshivas have guidance counselors that do not keep confidentiality? Do you know how many yeshivas do not even have guidance counselors? Do you know how many yeshivas don’t even follow guidelines from divorce agreements? Do you know how many yeshivas ignore court orders? Do you know how many yeshivas don’t offer English and Math (oh that was already reported). Do you know how many Yeshivas still don’t have any glass openings on their classroom or office doors, or do nothing if the glass is covered up? Do you know how many yeshivas have no video cameras? Do you know how little our children are protected in a Torah environment?
great idea…put in metal detectors and armed guards in Yeshivas …that’ll help kids grow up innocent and normal
what a major overreaction
if you are invoking the kletzky case ..make a law that only people of certain ages and gender can give directions to certain ages and gender ..just keep making laws to protect against 1 in a million chance of something happening..nuts
When do we get to the patching issue.
At some point it will come up and it will be a big deal.
Good! Anyone working with or near children should have to undergo a criminal background check and fingerprinting, for the safety of our children.
No one is forcing u to go to yeshiva. Please dont make a ruckus. This is exactly the wrong publicity for the jewish comunity.
If u dont like it then dont send ur kids to yeshiva. Either home school them or go to public school.
My kids go to yeshiva in Nassau County. The preschool campus has a full-time guard (has had it for years) and the middle school, I believe, has instituted child safety measures since the shooting at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. Such a terrible world we live in – when I was in yeshiva in the 1970’s, we were allowed to walk around the neighborhood or play football in the street during recess and nobody was ever frightened.
I admire Mr Passik’s persistance and perseverence in trying to improve safety in the yeshivos. However, what does any of this have to do with the Levi Aron/Leiby Kletzky Tragedy? If you want to start from that case then how about starting from the beginning when Levi Aron was a student in various yeshivos in Brooklyn including a prominent one. He apparently slid through the system with all his various learning disabilities and mental problems never having been dealt with properly. How many more Levi Arons are there out there that we have not discovered yet? How is it that Aron was in possession of heavy duty psychotropic medication which he fed to Leiby Kletzky and yet was not being monitored to make sure he was not a threat to himself or others. If you want to address the problem of safety whether it is with pedophilia or other mental disorders, then the number one issue which must be addressed is mentaly ill people and how to deal with them. They are not going away unless we want to adopt the European Euthanasia approach.
To all the nay-sayers: The fact that the NY public schools are mandated to have certain security measures but there is no legislation mandating the same security measures in private schools (where in my opinion are more likely to be targets of terror attacks), means that the Jewish schools are by default not as safe as the public schools . Yes, they MAY implement them if they want, but there is nothing forcing them. If you have kids in a private school, wouldn’t you want them to be as safe as sending them to public school? the reason you send them to a private school is BECAUSE you want to protect them from certain things in public school ( religious education/environment), and not because you want them in a less safe place to be, or being taught by people who have had no background checks.
The child protection laws should be mandated for all schools, irrespective of public / private.
The private schools are usually better at imposing their own discipline long before it gets to the point where armed guards are necessary. The reality is that public schools HAVE to accept anyone child who applies, subject only to district residency requirements. Yeshivos/Catholic schools, etc. are generally able to weed out the trouble makers long before there is an issue. Posting security guards at such schools at taxpayer expense is likely a huge waste of money.
he should have included Agudath Israel and the church the major forces who are opposed to finger printing and background checks in religious schools
“Some of the legislation being suggested in the lawsuit, which is already mandatory in public schools, includes requiring schools to educate students in abduction prevention, to fingerprint and run criminal background checks of all employees and to report any and all child abuse that takes place in an educational setting.”
I see no mention of security guards at all. I believe the reason Shelly avoided the private schools is because some of his constituency did not want “… criminal background checks of all employees and to report any and all child abuse that takes place in an educational setting…” mandated in their schools. Heck, look at the outpouring of outrage at the Markey bill, a bill designed to protect children but it never passed due to private school pressure.
When a community cares not for its children, its future is doomed. Sad. Luke.
Sad that we need Elliot Pasik to force our community to do what’s right. Rebbeim and Morahs getting background checks and fingerprinting costs money and feels insulting so our mosdos are not interested in doing this. But even one child is saved isn’t it worth it?