"East Ramapo Board President Daniel Schwartz moved the Students Corner [a time when East Ramapo students can make statements to or ask questions of the school board] to
after an Executive Session instead of at the beginning of the meeting.
After an hour the board comes back and then Schwartz moves the Student
Corner to the end of the meeting. [On a school night, no less.] Students demand to be heard only to
have the School Board walk out on them! Total lack of respect towards
the students."
What I see when watching this video, aside from the description of it on YouTube that I posted above, is President Daniel Schwartz and the school board violating the civil rights of minority students.
I believe the board's and Schwartz's actions over the past several years shows a pattern of discrimination against Black and Latino students and a disregard for the rights of local citizens.
What we see on this video and others like it looks alarmingly like what we saw in Selma, Alabama and other southern cities before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.
Do you remember the video that shows Schwartz motioning for a haredi school board member to leave so the quorum would be broken and public comment cut off? Or the video showing Schwartz and the board trying to stop a citizen from videoing an open board meeting?
This is standard practice for Schwartz and his board, which now has seven members – all haredi or Orthodox, none of whom have students in the public schools. The two non-Jewish board members resigned a couple months ago, citing harassment from fellow board members, Schwartz's behavior and backroom deals made the board that excluded them.
Schwartz and his Orthodox and haredi board members will soon appoint two replacements who will serve until elections are held in May. One of the handful of possible appointees is Yossi Gestetner, the haredi PR flack who has repeatedly defended accused pedophiles and the massive haredi community support for those accused pedophiles. Gestetner also called his local political opponents, some of who were the non-Jewish members of the East Ramapo school board and many of the district's students' parents, "Hitler's grandchildren." Nonetheless, Schwartz and his Orthodox and haredi fellow board members selected Gestetner and put him on the short list of possible school board appointments.
When you add in the financial irregularities and the sweetheart deals for vacant school buildings sold to yeshivas, you have a criminal conspiracy, I think, to loot the district.
All this calls for federal civil intervention – and, I would hope, federal criminal prosecution: