“Carole Anderson, a longtime public education advocate in East Ramapo, has been appointed an interim member of the school board.
Anderson fills the seat of Bernard Charles, who resigned his position as part of a plea deal with the Rockland District Attorney’s Office. Charles pleaded guilty in February to misdemeanor petty larceny; he was accused of renting out town property to pocket the fee.
Anderson, a retired public-school teacher and assistant principal, was appointed at the April 21 board meeting. The Wesley Hills resident, who is a member of the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals, was chosen from applications submitted from the public.
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Anderson has long been involved in community efforts to ensure East Ramapo’s public schoolchildren, who are mostly black and brown, receive appropriate educational resources from a school board that is dominated by members of the Orthodox Jewish community, which primarily use private schools.
About 11,000 primarily black and Latino students attend East Ramapo schools. Roughly 27,000 other children in the district attend private schools, mostly yeshivas.
Anderson is a member of the Spring Valley NAACP and part of its Education Committee. The local NAACP branch is currently engaged in a federal court case with the school board, seeking to change the voting system in the district.
The interim position lasts until the next school election, which usually takes place in May. However, in response to the coronavirus, the governor has postponed school elections to at least June 1, via executive order. The elections could be further postponed.
Anderson, though, won’t be running in the next electionto fill the seat for the remainder of the term, through June 30, 2022.”
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