This wasn’t always the case even after the population of this suburb became heavily Orthodox. But apparently the Orthodox residents of Monsey felt that they were somehow being discriminated by the previous board. So community activists there asked some Orthodox members to run for that office and urged the usually apathetic voters (with respect to the East Ramapo School board) to vote for them. That board now consists mostly of religious Jews (If I understand correctly).
During their tenure, controversy erupted. There was an appearance of bias by the Orthodox Board members against the public schools. However it seems that this was not actually the case. The accusations were unfounded. Because of a New York State funding formula that did not work for this district the East Ramapo public schools were grossly underfunded… and programs had to be cut by the board. There was no prejudice. Just no money, through no fault of their own.
Nevertheless, there was the appearance of prejudice. That’s how it was reported in the media. Private religious schools where these board members sent their own children seemed to be thriving, while public schools seemed to be suffering at the hands of religious Jews.
I tend to agree that the board is not at fault here. And that they were unfairly blamed. That seems finally to be corroborated by a new coalition of Monsey residents. From an article by Rabbi Avi Shafran in Cross Currents:
At a press conference in Monsey, some 75 people gathered to speak, hear or report on a new initiative, “Community United for Formula Change,” launched by a group of local charedi, black and Latino activists, who are working together to address the problem of the East Ramapo school district’s inadequate funding. Among those involved in the initiative are Chasidic rabbis, pastors of Latino and Haitian churches, and American-born black community members…. I was struck by the friendship, unified spirit and determination among the multi-ethnic backers of the initiative.
One black speaker at the press conference, Brendel Charles (a councilwoman for the town of Ramapo, but who attended as a parent of two public school children), told Tablet magazine that “she originally believed the problem was that the ultra-Orthodox members of the board were making decisions without regard to others in the community.” “I thought that there could be a possibility that there was something wrong,” she said, “that there could be a prejudice of [their] thinking, ‘We don’t have to give them that [they felt], because it doesn’t really matter’.”… But when Ms. Charles’ husband joined the East Ramapo school board, she recounted, he quickly “realized that… the school board members weren’t trying to hurt the public school kids,” but rather that “we don’t have the money” to provide the services needed.
That seems to be a vindication of the board’s actions. But I have to ask whether a school board should consist almost exclusively of people that do not send their children to those schools. I’m not sure what the exact nature of the problem was that motivated the community to pack the board with religious members. I suspect that their reasons were legitimate. But even so was it worth the acrimony that has been built up?
There was an obvious appearance of prejudice – even if there wasn’t any in actuality. There was an appearance of protecting our interests at the expense of the minority. It just plain looks bad when seemingly wealthy Orthodox Jews whose children are in private schools determine the fate of poor non Jewish parents whose children are in the public schools. Especially when things go as badly as they did in East Ramapo.