[poweroften] Party Monday, Vote Tuesday

Power of Ten Update

In This Issue:

1. Vote This Tuesday
2. ELECTION EVE BLOCK PARTY
3. Petition: No Confidence in Commissioner

1) Vote This Tuesday

• Who: Everyone who is eligible to vote.
• What: Vote for our team of public school parents - Alexandra Manigo, Eric Goodwin, and Chevon DosReis. Vote NO on proposition 1.
• Where: Find your polling place at: http://poweroften.us/poll-lookup/
• When: Tuesday, May 16 from 7 AM to 10 PM

2) ELECTION EVE BLOCK PARTY

Please share with your friends that Monday at 6:30 p.m. is our fun-filled event in Spring Valley's Memorial Park to build excitement and energy for Election Day. We will have an information booth to visit so that you can sign up to volunteer on Election Night (and get one of our T-shirts!), even if you missed today's meeting.

If you can't wait until Monday to feel passion about improving our schools, however, look no further than this two-minute video clip from George Farran, one of our outstanding volunteers who addressed the board POWERFULLY this past week, saying "it is an insult to the community to continue to misappropriate funds."

3) Petition: No Confidence in Commissioner

It is unacceptable and irresponsible to approve a budget based on quid-pro-quo deal and misrepresentations. Commissioner Elia should have known better. She must be held responsible.

Please sign this petition calling on the NY State Board of Regents to cast a vote of no-confidence in Commissioner Elia, and for her to step down as Commissioner of Education.

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[poweroften] Budget Blackmail and Betrayal

Power of Ten Update

In This Issue:

1. Budget Blackmail and Betrayal
2. NO Confidence
3. NO on the Budget
4. The Final Stretch

1) Budget Blackmail and Betrayal

There is no other way to say it. The superintendent, the monitors, and the commissioner were given an ultimatum: "Put $1.4 million into the budget for ultra-orthodox yeshivas, or we will vote the budget down."

It was a test, and they failed.

Elia fails East Ramapo: View

East Ramapo's tax-cap busting calculation: Editorial

The correct answer was given by Assembly member Ellen Jaffee, who said "While on the surface overriding the tax cap appears to be a long-term strategy, the board's proposal will reverse the positive direction the district has taken and undermine the trust that together we have worked so hard to establish."

We can longer have confidence that Commissioner Elia will act with integrity and sensitivity. We must hold her accountable for this betrayal of our trust.

 2) NO Confidence

It is unacceptable and irresponsible to approve a budget based on quid-pro-quo deal and misrepresentations. Commissioner Elia should have known better. She must be held responsible.

Please sign this petition calling on the NY State Board of Regents to cast a vote of no-confidence in Commissioner Elia, and for her to step down as Commissioner of Education.

3) NO on the budget

How can we adequately express our outrage over the deceptive and prejudicial budget deal? We are only given two choices: YES or NO. We were not included in the backroom deal-making. Even our one representative on the board was left out. One writer to The Power of Ten expressed sadness over the decision she felt forced to make:

I am an educator as well as a taxpayer in the East Ramapo Central School District. I am extremely displeased and frustrated in the way the school board has been disenfranchising the public school children in this district. Since the time in which my own children have attended the public schools in the district, I have been witnessing a steady decline in the services, materials, etc. to which these students should be entitled.

Please do NOT approve any budget for East Ramapo that includes funding for non-mandated busing for non-public schools. All public school programs should be fully restored and adequately funded before considering expanding non-mandated services for non-public schools.

For the first time in over the thirty years that my husband and I have lived in the East Ramapo Central School District, we will not vote in favor of such a budget!!

4) The Final Stretch

ONE WEEK LEFT -- We have just SEVEN DAYS before the Election! It's not too late to be part of the action:

• This Saturday -- Get Prepared (4:30, New Hillcrest Fire House, 374 N. Main
• Next Monday (5/15) -- Get Pumped (6:30, Spring Valley's Memorial Park)
• Next Tuesday (5/16) -- Get Political (7 a.m. to 10 p.m.) at the polls

Sign up for all these events at www.StrongEastRamapo.org

 

 

[poweroften] Tonight's Budget Hearing

The below message is from Andrew of Strong East Ramapo.

Please make every effort to be there tonight. 

You can also let us know if you are going by setting your status to "going"on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/events/297671243977731/

Hi there,

Please make every effort to attend and raise your voice at the East Ramapo Budget Hearing tonight (Monday, May 8) at the district headquarters (105 S. Madison), where the board and superintendent NEED to hear your feelings about the proposed tax-cap override and 14 days of non-mandated non-public busing. Friends and supporters of district residents are encouraged to join as well!  Arrive at 7 p.m. so you can get yourself on the speakers' list.

While we know that everyone is entitled to make their own decision about the budget, our candidates will be voting NO for the following reasons:

-- This is NOT the time to prioritize non-public non-mandated transportation over the educational necessities of public school families. Our students lack MANY basics after years of dramatic cuts, and agreeing to pay for extra busing at a time like this shortchanges the children who have no other option but public school.

-- It is never appropriate to create a budget without the involvement of public school advocates. 

-- People who are scared to vote NO on the budget should know that the law allows the superintendent and the school board to create a second budget to put in front of voters in June. If the budget fails, the district needs to go back to the drawing board -- with public school advocates -- in order to restore critical educational services before focusing on non-mandated non-public wishes. 

-- This unreasonable budget is another reason why we MUST elect public school parents -- Allie, Chevon and Eric -- to the board. 

Thanks, everyone,

Andrew

[poweroften] Petition is fixed

Power of Ten Update

Special Edition:

Once again, apologies for the technical difficulties with the Power of Ten website over the past few days.

The site is now up and running again, and the petition is live.

Please sign and share.

All of East Ramapo's State representatives (Assembly Members Ellen Jaffee and Ken Zebrowski, Senator David Carlucci) have now come out calling on NYSED to block any budget that includes funding non-mandated busing for non-public schools. Perhaps Assembly Member Zebrowski said it most succinctly: "The district must ensure that all public school programs are fully restored and adequately funded before considering expanding non-mandated services".

Also in opposition to the proposed budget are the Journal News and the NAACP.

Steven White - editor of The Power of Ten

[poweroften] Technical difficulties

This morning I sent a link to a petition asking Commissioner Elia not to approve a budget with extra tax for non-mandated busing for non-public schools.

There is a technical problem with the website and the petition is not working.

Please write Commissioner Elia directly at commissioner@nysed.gov, and call her at 518-474-5844.

Thank you!

Steven White, editor

www.poweroften.us

[poweroften] East Ramapo Protection Racket

Power of Ten Update

In This Issue:

1. East Ramapo Protection Racket
2. School Board Candidates Forum

1) East Ramapo Protection Racket

The East Ramapo school board is attempting to hold the students education budget hostage to providing money for non-mandated busing to non-public schools.

However, Commissioner Elia has been charged by law with ensuring the budget, "to the greatest extent possible, expands educational programming for students".

The budget contains several important increases for education, including hiring 20 teachers, an increase in support for English language learners, an increase in special education collaborative classes and increases in summer learning and the arts. These are all now in danger because the school board's extortion tactics.

Read more on LoHud: East Ramapo seeks tax cap override for budget

Your action needed:

Sign this petition to Commissioner Elia, asking her to tell East Ramapo to ensure that all public school programs are fully restored and adequately funded before considering expanding non-mandated services.

2) School Board Candidates Forum

Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 6:30 PM
Louis Kurtz Civic Center, 9 North Main Street Spring Valley

Presented by The Spring Valley NAACP and JAMCCAR, Inc.
Get Involved, Be Engaged, Make a Difference!

For additional information, Contact Co-Chairs -Vivian Street 845-891-3919 or Sonia Tracey 845-222-5973
Spring Valley NAACP Branch Office 845-362-6227

 

[poweroften] Legal Notice; Funding Explained

Power of Ten Update

In This Issue:

1. Lakewood School Cuts Driven by Yeshiva Costs
2. School Board Loses Appeal
3. Notice of Proposed Voluntary Discontinuance of Class Action with Prejudice
4. Senator Carlucci at Center of Budget Controversy

1) Lakewood School Cuts Driven by Yeshiva Costs

The Lakewood NJ school system this year is facing cuts to education similar to what happened to East Ramapo from 2008 to 2014. Then, East Ramapo cut hundreds of teachers and support staff, resulting in overcrowded classrooms, deletion of entire programs of education, and being designated a "focus" district by NY State.

According to a new article by Leslie Brody in the Wall Street Journal, the Lakewood school board is dominated by ultra-Orthodox men who don't have children in public schools and is proposing a budget that will decimate those schools. Protected in the budget are busing for yeshivas and payments to special education programs that serve only ultra-Orthodox students.

These are the same factors that are driving the continuing problems in East Ramapo. Increasing costs are being driven by increasing numbers of students enrolled in yeshivas, but ultra-Orthodox voters have no incentive to increase school tax to cover these costs.

Adding insult to injury, most of the children attending yeshivas aren't being educated as required by law. There have been repeated scandals involving public funding of out-of-district special education, including the recent indictment of one Lakewood Rabbi on charges of stealing $630,000.

All of the advances of the last year could be wiped away unless we change the way schools are governed and funded. If we as a society value education, then we must make our laws support and protect it.

2) School Board Loses Appeal

Before the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), students with disabilities were often kept out of classrooms with their peers for no good reason. They were given a second-class education and otherwise abused and mistreated. The IDEA mandated school districts to provide education for students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. It said that districts couldn't get out of providing education just by saying they didn't have specialty resources; they would have to pay for out-of-district placements if they couldn't do it in house. The East Ramapo school board found their own way to twist this law which was meant to protect disabled students from discrimination. They started approving using public funds to make out-of-district placements that were not in the least restrictive environment.

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) does audits of these kinds of things. They found that the districts placements were not consistent with the IDEA law. The district sued NYSED to block them from telling the district how to do out-of-district placements. They lost that lawsuit. Then they appealed. On March 28 they lost the appeal too.

3) Notice of Proposed Voluntary Discontinuance of Class Action with Prejudice

The following link is to a legal notice regarding a potential class action lawsuit. The suit was filed by parents and taxpayers, including myself, regarding the legal fees incurred by the district.

Readers are strongly encouraged to read this notice in full.

Class Action Notice

4) Senator Carlucci at Center of Budget Controversy

Our own Senator Carlucci is increasingly in the center of the controversy about education funding in this year's NY State budget. The Democratic controlled Assembly has proposed spending more than the Republican controlled Senate. At stake for East Ramapo is the $20.6 million in foundation aid that we are owed from the CFE lawsuit.

The issue has been debated on the opinion page of the Journal News:

Carlucci and IDC broke promises to Ossining, East Ramapo kids: View

Carlucci responds: Fix the broken school aid formula

Readers react to Sen. David Carlucci's school aid stand

There will be a rally on Friday, April 7, at 12:30 pm across the street from Senator Carlucci's office, 20 South Main Street, New City, asking Senator Carlucci to work with the Democrats on a number of issues, including funding for foundation aid.

About Foundation Aid:

The State Aid Formula is designed to address unequal financial abilities of local districts. The State of NY has a constitutional responsibility to children. The formula is how the state measures where the help is most needed. It takes into account the income and property value of the local district, as well as special needs such as poverty and services to non-public schools. Without some objective measure, state aid could be influenced by politics.

The formula provides East Ramapo with the largest amount of state aid of any district in Rockland County. However, from 2008 to 2014, state funds were reduced. Other districts increased local revenue so the children would not be harmed. But in East Ramapo board members chose not to compensate, claiming voters wouldn't approve.

There are three factors that caused the cuts to programs in East Ramapo. The largest is the reduction in local contribution, caused by lack of support for public education in areas with heavy concentration of ultra-Orthodox voters. This results in East Ramapo having what is called a low "local revenue effort rate".

Another impact is spending on non-public schools. Because these expenses are guaranteed, ultra-Orthodox voters can vote down school budgets without worrying about it affecting yeshivas. By electing a school board dominated by ultra-Orthodox members, they can even guarantee they won't ever even be asked to pass a budget based on public needs.

The third factor is the state budget. If the formula was fully funded by the NY Senate, there would be a lot more state aid for East Ramapo. Calculations by the Alliance for Quality Education are that East Ramapo is owed $20.6 million.

Beyond all of this there is still the issue of governance. Bad governance has a negative impact on the budget through property sales at below market value, out-of-district placements; and over-priced lawyers. Efforts to change the problem with governance include the annual school board elections, monitors supplied by NYSED, and legislation for a monitor with veto power.

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