• Document Cloud
  • FOIL–Your Right to Know
  • See Through NY
  • Tax Exempt
  • Environmental Justice
  • Campaign Finance Reports

Preserve Ramapo

www.preserve-ramapo.com

  • Home
  • Join our email
  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • The Archive
You are here: Home / East Ramapo Central School District / NY Senate Leader: We’re Not Doing Ramapo Oversight

NY Senate Leader: We’re Not Doing Ramapo Oversight

December 20, 2015 by Michael Castelluccio

Flanagan-in-Lawrence_thumb

By Yochonon Donn on Hamodia.com

Efforts to impose a state override on an Orthodox- majority school district has anti-Semitic overtones and we’re not doing it, the leader of the New York State Senate told an Agudath Israel of America gathering.
John Flanagan, the upper chamber’s majority leader, said at the Lawrence event Thursday night that installing a veto-empowered monitor at the East Ramapo school board was both unconstitutional and unprecedented in the state.
The Long Island Republican spoke days after a panel appointed by the state education department submitted a report recommending the oversight. The 19 proposals, which stunned the school board that represents Monsey, Spring Valley and New Square, since it cooperated fully with the commission calls on the state legislature to approve funding for the overseer.
Flanagan told the approximately dozen leaders of the local Jewish community in the home of Yoel Edelstein, an Agudath Israel of America trustee, that he had met with Dennis Walcott, who headed the panel, and told him he cannot see how his ideas would pass constitutional muster.
I had more meetings on East Ramapo than any other legislator, he noted, recalling his five years as chairman of the Senate’s education committee.
He particularly took issue with the plan to set aside three of the nine school-board seats to be voted on solely by public-school parents. The district  and the school board it voted in  is overwhelmingly comprised of Orthodox Jews, who send their children to private school.
“You all live in your communities because that’s what you love, Flanagan said. “I call school boards the local board of directors.” All of them are duly elected by the constituents in that community. … How is [reserving seats] constitutional? I mean, that violates every precept of due process and constitutionality and things like that.”
“Really, what they want to do is overtake that school district,” he said. “And we’re not doing it.”
Flanagan, who ascended to the leadership post about 10 months ago, said he recalled last year’s vote to impose state oversight. The bill, which passed the Assembly by an unusually close vote of 80 to 60, was killed in the Senate.
“The internal conversations that I heard, and more importantly, what transpired on the floor, were very unsettling,” Flanagan recalled. “And I think it should be very unsettling for everyone. I think there were racial overtones, I think there was anti-Semitism, and I find that important. And that was just one of the reasons why we didn’t pass the legislation in the state Senate.”
He added that Walcott’s complaint of misappropriation of funds was insufficient to override a popularly elected school board since there were institutions and processes in place to investigate it, such as the state education department and the Comptroller’s office.
“We don’t need any new legislation on that,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan noted that Sen. David Carlucci, an independent Democrat whose small breakaway faction is part of the Senate’s majority coalition, introduced a new bill to impose the oversight.
“I am supremely confident that it will not pass the New York state Senate,” Flanagan said. “Rabbi [Shmuel] Lefkowitz [Agudath Israel’s Vice President for Community Affairs] and I spoke about this earlier today in my opinion, it’s basically a fool’s errand and it is undermining the integrity of local management, home rule and local control.”
Printed from Hamodia.com

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: East Ramapo Central School District, East Ramapo School Board, John Flanagan, Monitor, Uncategorized

Preserve Ramapo tree no border

Preserve Ramapo online since 2003

Recent Posts

  • What’s Ahead for Northeast Ramapo? Town Board Unanimously Approves Moving Forward to Change Code
  • VOTE! Special Election–East Ramapo School Board
  • East Ramapo wants to cut NAACP legal fees to $1, if not teachers could be fired
  • Appeals court backs NAACP in East Ramapo voting rights challenge
  • Airmont, Central UTA settle lawsuit, dropping discrimination claims as school can expand

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015

Calendar listing for Posts

January 2021
M T W T F S S
« Dec    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Facebook

Other Links

Airmont,

Pomona,

Montebello,

Suffern,

Sloatsburg,

Hillburn,

Spring Valley,

Chestnut Ridge,

New Hempstead,

Wesley Hills,

Town of Ramapo,

Town of Clarkstown,

Rosa4Rockland,

Rockland Water Coalition

East Ramapo Central School District

Power of Ten -- East Ramapo for the Children,

Strong East Ramapo,

East Ramapo Videos,

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in