Steve White of Power of Ten writes the following in their newsletter:
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is taking on “21st Century Jim Crow Education” in East Ramapo.
Last week, together with the Spring Valley NAACP, they delivered a letter with more than 1500 signatures to the State Education Commissioner urging her to take immediate action to stop the ongoing civil rights violations in the East Ramapo Central School District.
June 12, 2019
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer today pleaded with Senate Majority Mitch McConnell to commit to bringing up legislation to fix the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund for a vote in the United States Senate as a stand-alone bill the week after it passes the full House. The Victims Compensation Fund, authorized by Congress in 2010 and again in 2015, provides compensation to firefighters, police officers, construction workers and others who courageously responded to the September 11 attacks. Below are his remarks, which can also be found here.
Mr. President, just now, members of the House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill to address the shortfall in the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, which provides aids to the heroes, and the families of the heroes, who rushed to the towers selflessly on September the 11th, 2001.
Even in a divided Congress, even in a divided country, this is an issue of absolute moral clarity. On that fateful day, men and women of the FDNY, NYPD, EMS and the construction labor unions who rushed to Ground Zero were like our soldiers. Like our soldiers, they rushed towards danger, for our safety, without thinking of their own. And just as we don’t leave our soldiers behind on the battlefield, we must not leave the brave first responders behind when it comes to their health care.
Power of Ten Update
In This Issue:
1. Ashley Leveille Elected!
2. The Budget Passes!
3. Transportation Discrimination
4. Upcoming Community Events
1) Ashley Leveille Elected!
Thanks to all of those who came out and voted, we now have a new school board member!
Ashley has a child who is a student in the district, she is a professional educator, and she has goals and expectations for our district.
Let’s all join in congratulating her!
2) The Budget Passes!
East Ramapo has had more failed budgets than any other district in NY State, including just last year. This is a direct result of having a large voting bloc that doesn’t use public schools.
Public school parents and supporters in East Ramapo have much higher turnout and support for budgets than most other districts, but that is not usually enough to pass the budget in a district where the bloc votes 93% NO.
This year, the bloc vote stayed home for the school budget vote. This is because a deal was made to include $900,000 increase in payments to non-public transportation. A large part of this money is in direct payments to yeshivas that provide their own busing.
3) Transportation Discrimination
It appears that the district is going to go through with the changes to the school schedules. The new schedule will mean more crowded buses and longer transit times. Some students may need to be at the bus stop by 6:15 AM.
While the justification given for this inconvenience is financial, the bottom line has not been made public.
The district says there will be a savings of $4.6 million. However, this is an expense that is reimbursed by the state at about 75%. Therefore, the associated state aid would be reduced by about $3.45 million, leaving only $1.15 million savings to the district. The state says the additional costs for staff will be $732,000 in 2019-20, this is scheduled to increase the next year by 25-33%. The proposed savings is thus barely more than the expected cost of extra staff in the second year.
At the same time the district is inflicting this inconvenience on public school students, it is increasing its payments to non-public schools that provide courtesy busing for their students. The $900,000 included in this year’s budget is not eligible for state reimbursement, it comes entirely at the expense of public school programming.
The school board continues to falsely claim it cannot address the skyrocketing costs of gender-segregated and courtesy busing for non-public schools.
As reported in Power of Ten on May 5, the school district can align busing schedules for non-public schools to save costs.
Why has the school district chosen to create serious problems for public school children and families, and ignore skyrocketing costs associated with paying non-public schools to run their bus system?
The Greenberg report said: “Most disturbing, Board appears to favor the interests of private schools over public schools.” He said there had been “No meaningful effort made to distribute pain of deep budget cuts fairly among private and public schools.”
A group of parents is questioning the motives of a Ramapo Central School District plan to trim transportation offerings next fall to private school students, with some saying it is an attempt to oust the Jewish community from an area that’s seen a growth in the Orthodox and Hasidic population in recent years.
For many years, the district has provided students who attend non-public schools, such as yeshivas, with multiple busing routes in the morning and afternoon. But school officials say rising costs caused by an increase in the number of students who seek busing has prompted them to search for a more cost-effective way to manage the multi-million dollar transportation budget.
“It reeks of something else,” said Andrea Jaffe, whose child attends Bais Yaakov of Ramapo. She added that she suspects there is “a discomfort with changing demographics in neighborhoods” within the Ramapo Central District, which serves Airmont, Hillburn, Sloatsburg, Montebello, Suffern and part of Monsey.
Planned changes to East Ramapo’s busing system for next fall would affect only public schools, but future changes would likely affect the school district’s many private schools, the district’s transportation consultant said at a budget hearing Monday night.
Proposed changes for public schools for the fall include earlier bell times at some schools and the condensing of busing routes.
“We had to start at the one part of the problem that we could control, which was the public school bell times,” said Gus Kakavas, the consultant. “We cannot dictate to the non-public schools what time they start or what time they end.”
Kakavas was hired in February to analyze East Ramapo’s large and expensive transportation system.
New York state legally owes the East Ramapo Central School District $25 million, and now that Democrats control both the legislative and executive branches of government, nothing can excuse a failure to deliver. The money owed is called Foundation Aid.
According to a 2006 decision by our state’s highest court in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York, Foundation Aid represents the minimum amount in supplemental funds needed to ensure our public school students receive the sound, basic education they are guaranteed under the state constitution. For more than a decade, the state’s debt to our public school districts, including East Ramapo, has not been fully paid.
See below the March 4/19 Power of Ten Report on East Ramapo:
Power of Ten Update
In This Issue:
1. Call for Candidates
2. Monitoring the Monitors
1) Call for Candidates – March 14 Forum.
The school board and budget vote will take place on May 21. Strong East Ramapo will be working hard to get the vote out to pass the budget. Power of Ten will work to identify and assist candidates for the school board positions.
There are certainly many people in East Ramapo who are qualified to serve on the board.
The Center for Public Education says an effective school board member should:
Does this sound like someone you know? Or maybe you might be interested yourself?
Those interested in being a candidate should fill in this google form.
We will hold a forum at 7:00 PM on Thursday, March 14 at the MLK Center, 110 Bethune Blvd in Spring Valley for the public to hear from all those who are interested in being candidates.
2) Monitoring the Monitors
We as a community expect a lot from our schools. A job this big requires a plan, and East Ramapo has a plan.
East Ramapo also has a monitor, because the school board has had its own agenda which was not the official plan. The monitors produce reports about the district. The latest report is titled “Continuing Progress“.
Any plan should have goals, and those goals should be measurable. The monitors report describes a plan with four “pillars”. Each pillar has multiple bullet points. The report does not include a checklist as to how well each item has been implemented. Some we already know – for example, full day kindergarten exists. But for the rest there is no “report” in the report. Has the curriculum been “aligned”? Are instructional practices culturally responsive? How many students are and are not participating in the integrated arts?
The report does include a number of accomplishments which have benefited the students over the past three years. These include enhanced services for English language learners, restoration of some special education programs, repairs and improvements to buildings and grounds and restoration of the fund balance. These are areas in which the district had been in violation and has now made improvements to comply with laws and regulations.
While there is no doubt that added and improved programs are improving the lived experiences of the students, there’s still a need for objective measurements of academic achievement to ensure accountability of the district to the community. The monitors note that it’s difficult to assess progress over time due to changes in assessment methods, tests, and graduation requirements. Power of Ten has produced a short video reviewing the assessment measures which goes beyond the methods used by the monitors.
The monitors also reviewed “restorations” of positions which had been eliminated in past years. It is encouraging to know that there has been some increase in essential staff. According to the report, 185.5 out of 506.5 positions that were cut have been restored. There is some fuzzy math, as Music and Art positions are not listed in the cuts, but are counted as restored. The restorations are made possible by increases in state aid. As reported by Power of Ten, state aid increased by $14 million from 2014-2016.
There continues to be inadequate attention by the district and the monitors to the three most vulnerable groups of children. Students with interrupted formal education need wraparound services. There continues to be racial disparity in Pre-Kindergarten enrollment. The biggest non-public schools in the district continue to provide appallingly substandard education. There is no mention in the monitors report of the new state guidelines for non-public schools, how they will be implemented or paid for.
The final section of the report is mildly labelled “concerns”. These include failed budgets, impending financial collapse and massive cuts to essential programs. The monitors plan to address this catastrophe is for the Board and the Superintendent to “reach out to the community to explain how strong public schools can benefit everyone in the community.” This report is titled “Continuing Progress”, but the takeaway for those who read carefully is “Impending Catastrophe”.
There is no mention of the State of New York’s constitutional responsibility to the children. The monitor is the official representative of the State, which is the body that has a legal responsibility. The school board and superintendent’s responsibilities are derivative; their authority and responsibility are delegated to them from the state. Given that the current arrangement is providing so little protection for this vital community resource, it is absolutely necessary for our representatives in Albany to do something NOW, before the next budget fails and the “concerns” of the monitor become reality.
Thousands of children are getting almost no education in many yeshivas in East Ramapo and other parts of NY. In response to the updated guidelines on equivalency of education in non-public schools issued by NY State, East Ramapo School Board President Aaron Wider has effectively “declared war” on the State Board of Education.
See a brief video clip at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88AQJUq4Pcw&feature=youtu.be
YAFFED announced the following on Dec. 4/18:
(see NYS Guidelines here…http://www.nysed.gov/nonpublic-schools/substantial-equivalency
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Outsider is a short documentary that explores how activists are fighting for better education for students of both public schools and private yeshivas, fire officials are fighting the widespread epidemic of illegal housing and over development, and long time residents are reflecting back on how exactly this sudden and drastic change occurred.
It is produced by award-winning New York and Boston based filmmaker Noah Graham, who grew up in Rockland County.
You can be a part of this project by supporting it on Kickstarter. Here is the link…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/noahgraham/outsider-a-short-documentary/description
Advocates for Justice 