Deborah Wortham and Yehuda Weissmandl Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News

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…]

Though no school board election will take place, mail-in ballots on the budget will be counted

A federal appeals court has turned back East Ramapo’s attempt to hold school board elections on Tuesday under an at-large voting system, which a lower court said is unfair to black and Latino voters.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday rejected East Ramapo’s request to stay U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel’s ruling in a voting rights case. The case was filed by the Spring Valley chapter of the NAACP.

The panel set Aug. 17 as the earliest date for when it could hear arguments in the district’s appeal of Seibel’s May 26 ruling. That means a special election to fill four open seats on the nine-member board would likely not happen until September at the earliest. [Read more…]

“A federal judge on Monday rejected East Ramapo’s attempt to hold school board elections as planned June 9, saying the district’s time would be better spent creating a system that’s fair to black and Latino voters.

U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel turned back East Ramapo’s effort to stay her ruling from May 25, which gave the district 30 days to create a ward or neighborhood-based voting system with four districts in which minorities make up the majority of registered voters. [Read more…]

MAY 26, 2020 Press release from NYCLU (ACLU of New York)

EAST RAMAPO – A federal court today ruled that the East Ramapo Central School District’s at-large method for school board elections denies Black and Latinx residents an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates under the federal Voting Rights Act. Judge Cathy Seibel of the Southern District of New York ordered the implementation of a ward system and enjoined the district from holding further elections until this system is in place. [Read more…]

“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. [Read more…]

A letter raises questions about if district lawyers and board president Harry Grossman shared details of the settlement offer with the board’s two black members – Ashley Leveille and Charles-Pierre

“Black members of the East Ramapo school board were effectively shut out of settlement talks that could have headed off a month-long trial over a voting rights challenge by the NAACP and saved the cash-strapped district millions of dollars in legal fees, the New York Civil Liberties Union says.

NYCLU attorney Perry Grossman, in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel, says the district turned down a settlement that would have waived the fees incurred by lawyers representing the NAACP during the two and a half years leading up to the trial.

The offer was rejected despite Seibel’s eleventh-hour attempt to get both sides to come to an agreement by inviting all the board’s members to a settlement conference on Feb. 10, the day the trial started in White Plains federal court. [Read more…]