Ward 1 Ashley Leveille |
Ward 2 Sabrina Charles-Pierre |
Ward 3 Sherry McGill |
Ward 9 Brenda Carole Anderson |
Linda Valentine Ward 4 (Please Write in Linda’s name)
Robert Romanowski in Ward 6 [Read more…]
www.preserve-ramapo.com
Ward 1 Ashley Leveille |
Ward 2 Sabrina Charles-Pierre |
Ward 3 Sherry McGill |
Ward 9 Brenda Carole Anderson |
Linda Valentine Ward 4 (Please Write in Linda’s name)
Robert Romanowski in Ward 6 [Read more…]
“NAACP lawyers say the East Ramapo school district owes them $4.3 million for winning a voting rights lawsuit decided in May.
The district says the tab should be $1.
If forced to pay the full award, the district might have to fire some 50 teachers, administrators, psychologists and others in a mostly-minority district already facing $5.4 million in unanticipated costs from the Covid-19 pandemic, interim district superintendent Raymond Giamartino says. [Read more…]
“A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a lower court decision declaring East Ramapo’s method for electing its school board violated the Voting Rights Act.
The lower court decision handed a victory to the NAACP in its decade-long battle to wrest board control away from a white, Orthodox Jewish voting bloc.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the East Ramapo school district’s claim that policy preferences like lower taxes – not race – had led to school boards dominated by Orthodox Jewish candidates.
They noted the nine-member board has pursued policies contrary to the interests of the the district’s 11,000 public-school students, nearly all of whom are Black or Latino. [Read more…]
“Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to sentence six Ramapo residents to prison for their involvement in stealing millions of dollars from a federal program designed to provide computer technology to underprivileged students.
Peretz Klein and his wife, Susan Klein, both of Spring Valley; and Monsey residents Simon Goldbrenner, Moshe Schwartz, Ben Klein, Sholem Steinberg and Aron Melber all entered guilty pleas to conspiracy charges in February.
Sentencing had been delayed from June due to the coronavirus pandemic and is expected in mid-January, according to a memorandum submitted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. A hearing is likely after defense attorneys file their sentencing memorandums with the court. [Read more…]
“The New York State Education Department is again looking at how to enforce state law requiring that academic instruction in private schools be “substantially equivalent” to public schools, holding virtual meetings this week that focused on the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn.
Those are the places where the issue of education in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas has fueled bitter disputes, with leaders of large Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish populations fighting to preserve what they see as educational freedom as activists say some yeshivas fail to prepare boys for a productive future and civic involvement.
Earlier proposed guidelines were struck down in court and proposed regulations were put on the backburner by the state after intense opposition.
A state education official said this week that such guidelines would be issued in 2021.
“A federal judge today called an East Ramapo school board election for Feb. 2 using a ward system for the first time that would include three districts out of nine comprised mostly of minority voters.
The ward or single-member system would replace East Ramapo’s current at-large voting setup, which U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel declared in May violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [Read more…]
“The East Ramapo school board has appointed an interim superintendent to step in when Deborah Wortham leaves in October to head up the Roosevelt school district on Long Island.
Raymond Giamartino, most recently a top administrator for the Rochester City Schools, was chosen as interim superintendent for the 2020-2021 school year. His appointment was announced at the tail end of an Aug. 18 school board meeting via Zoom. [Read more…]
East Ramapo might have to fire dozens of teachers if the school district can’t find $9 million to pay the legal fees of NAACP attorneys for winning a voting rights challenge of the district in May, Superintendent Deborah Wortham said.
Wortham said “political, financial and practical” hurdles would need to be cleared to fund an award district attorneys say would be the largest ever in a voting rights case.
And if the money can’t be secured, Wortham said the district would be forced to consider cutting kindergarten, English, math and social studies teachers. [Read more…]
“East Ramapo schools Superintendent Deborah Wortham has announced that she will be leaving the district after being named superintendent of Roosevelt Union Free School District.
Wortham, who first became East Ramapo’s interim superintendent in 2015, had previously served as superintendent in the Long Island district from 2013 to 2015.
Her appointment was announced Tuesday night by Roosevelt. Around the same time, East Ramapo school district was holding its board meeting.
Wortham sent a letter of resignation to East Ramapo school board President Harry Grossman on Wednesday afternoon. [Read more…]
“East Ramapo voters rejected a $247 million school budget plan by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, the school board announced late Thursday, the latest setback in a struggling district riven by race and the competing interests of public and private school parents.
The 6,917-to-3,850 vote represented the only budget rejection among 53 school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley counties of Rockland, Westchester and Putnam, and was one of 10 budget defeats among 658 school districts statewide.
The district will decide in the coming days whether to hold another budget vote or adopt a contingency budget, which would require freezing the district’s tax levy and cutting spending. [Read more…]