Like parents, friends and family trying to get a loved one to consent to
a stint in rehab, New York State education officials are taking the
much more rare step of requesting a face-to-face meeting with a troubled
school district’s leaders.
East Ramapo school board president Daniel Schwartz
State Asks Scandal-Plagued Haredi-Controlled School District For A Face-To-Face Meeting
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
It’s time for an intervention.
Like parents, friends and family trying to get a loved one to consent to a stint in rehab, New York State education officials are taking the much more rare step of requesting a face-to-face meeting with a troubled school district’s leaders.
“This sort of circumstance is really so rare, if not unprecedented,” Jonathan Burman, the spokesman for New York State’s Department of Education, told The Journal News yesterday.
The East Ramapo district is facing a $9 million budget deficit, deep program cuts, and the potential for even more, deeper program cuts in the near future.
The state proposed the meeting in a letter from Deputy Education Commissioner Ken Slentz to the district’s schools superintendent Joel Klein dated February 14. The letter was given to The Journal News yesterday by the state in response to the newspaper’s request.
“I share your concern regarding the anticipated deficit for the 2013-14 school year and would like to meet with you, the board president and your interim business official to discuss the steps the district plans on taking to address the deficit and provide an adequate educational program,” the letter says.
“We will certainly work with the district. However, we expect the district to come to us with a set of proposed solutions from which we can work,” Burman told the Journal News.
Klein was reportedly encouraged by the letter.
“I think it’s a very positive response. He wants to work with us, and we’ve been reviewing [the letter] this last week and we’re drafting up a response,” Klein said.
In his letter to Klein, Slentz asked for more financial data and noted that the district’s submission to the state in January was incomplete in several areas. He also noted his concern about the district’s ability to repay millions of borrowed dollars.
The haredi-controlled district has about 20,000 students enrolled in private religious schools, almost all of them ahredi yeshivas and haredi seminaries. The public schools have about 9,000 students enrolled, many of them poor Latinos and blacks.
The school board has nine member slots. Seven are held by haredim and Orthodox Jews. The only non-haredi non-Orthodox school board members recently resigned, citing haredi threats and intimidation, along with alleged dirty tricks against them by the haredi-Orthodox majority as reasons for resigning.
[Hat Tip: Devorah.]