East Ramapo, NY - Meeting Tonight on School Issues

East Ramapo, NY - A citizens group will host a town meeting tonight on what they consider urgent issues in the East Ramapo schools.

"The East Ramapo school district is in a state of emergency and we need to address quite a few of the issues that are going on," said community activist Cassandra Edwards, a mother of four who resides in Spring Valley.
"What we're really concerned about (is) the survival of public schools," said Susan Gordon, a former long-serving East Ramapo Board of Education member who is also helping organize the meeting.

Edwards said that issues likely to be discussed tonight include providing better services for East Ramapo's public school children, the school board's recent creation of a paid treasurer's position, and the need for more people in the public school community to attend school board meetings and vote in school board elections. "We need to be visible in order to hold the board accountable for all the things that are happening," Edwards said.
Roughly two-thirds of children living within the East Ramapo school district - about 16,000 - attend private schools. Edwards said that the board's private school majority - seven of the board's nine members are from the district's religious Jewish community, which sends most of its children to yeshivas - may have a "level of insensitivity" when making decisions that affect public school children.

But board of Education President Nathan Rothschild said that such criticism was unproductive and could prove detrimental to the school district. "What this district needs is positive input by all citizens of this district. It's sad that the undertone of many of these meetings are really not about education but are about what and who control the school board, what the face of the school board is, what community they live in, where they send their children, and from what social circles they come from," he said.