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Plan For School District To Absorb Religious Special Education School Is Controversial

By Howard M. Friedman

In Rockland County, New York, controversy surrounds a proposal for the East Ramapo Central School District to take over the now private religious Rockland Institute for Special Education ("RISE") that educates 70 bi-lingual Yiddish or Hebrew speaking special education students. Earlier this week, both The Forward and Yeshiva World News reported on the situation in the district where controversy has brewed for months over other issues  in which proponents of public schools claim that the district school board, a majority of whose members are Orthodox Jews, has favored Jewish private schools in the area. The director of RISE has written her staff saying: "The district is trying to protect the program and the staff from the anti-Semites and those who will try to prove this merger is unconstitutional. The district people assure me, they have checked everything with lawyers and it is 100% legal. But there are those who will probably fight it."  Apparently no religious subjects will be taught during the regular school day, but privately-financed religious programs before and after school are planned.Opponents say the proposal is merely a bail-out of a failed religious institution and will segregate students.  A vote originally scheduled for earlier this week has now been postponed until the Feb. 2 school board meeting.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 22, 2011 (boomark / email).