Archives for March 2021

“State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa is backing legislation that would give state monitors the power to veto decisions by East Ramapo’s school board.

The move offers critical support for a measure long sought by public school advocates.

The education department has been working behind the scenes with state lawmakers to craft a law “to ensure that all East Ramapo students have access to the high quality education that they deserve and that adult/governance problems of this district do not impact the students,” department officials say. [Read more…]

This editorial appeared in the Journal News on Feb 26, 2021. The authors are Donna Lieberman (Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union) and Willie Trotman (President of the Spring Valley NAACP).

“Last week, the East Ramapo Central School District announced draconian cuts to its public schools, citing a budget emergency. The district plans to wipe out dozens of staff positions and combine classrooms despite the pandemic, when distancing matters. Public school students — almost all Black and Brown — will suffer.

This is the latest outrage in a long, sordid saga of 21st-century Jim Crow education in a broken district, and it is past time for the state to truly intervene.

The school board has presided over widening systemic racism. Beginning more than a decade ago, the board began devastating cuts to the public schools, which the districts’ Black and Brown students overwhelmingly attend. It did so while siphoning funds to private schools, attended almost entirely by white students. [Read more…]

“In a move to strengthen state oversight of the troubled East Ramapo school district, Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski planned to introduce a bill Thursday that would give state-appointed monitors broad powers to reign in misguided school board decisions and ensure that the needs of children in the district’s public schools are represented.

Among those powers: the ability for monitors to override certain board decisions; scrap school board proposals and introduce their own resolutions for a board vote; and weigh in on decisions about hiring a new superintendent.

The monitor would also review the district’s budget and have the power to amend the spending plan to align with long-term academic and fiscal goals. [Read more…]