LoHud writer Gary Stern has continuing coverage of the fiscal slow-mo train wreck happening in the East Ramapo School District.
From budget shortfalls and lawsuits to board members preventing public access at school board meetings, the East Ramapo district is under increasing state and federal review.
In Stern’s Sunday, September 9, article he writes about “the single most divisive issue in East Ramapo — and the primary reason that the Orthodox community first sought a majority on the school board in 2005.”
Special education, or rather the dollars involved.
According to Stern:
State law requires public-school districts to provide certain services to private schools, the most important and expensive of which are transportation and special education. When it comes to special education, districts have to review the needs of all students and provide the best possible services in the most appropriate setting.
Federal and state law require that special-education students are served in the “least restrictive” environment, meaning as close as possible to mainstream students in public-school classrooms. But many Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox families in East Ramapo would prefer that their special-needs children be educated with other children and teachers from their communities, so that everyone speaks Yiddish, eats kosher, and shares the same values and points of reference.
Dozens of families want their children placed in private schools at public expense. Such placements, which the East Ramapo school board tries to deliver, sometimes run counter to what the law requires.
The New York Education Department cited East Ramapo school for placing students in private schools when public schools would provide similar services, and spaces were available. The district lost $325,000 in special education reimbursements from the state due to the some 63 state citations related to non-compliance in placing special education students in private schools rather than public.
The gist of the issue for many residents is that the district is cutting programs for public school students while increasing spending for private school placements.
Read more about East Ramapo at SloatsburgVillage.
