I would like to say a few words regarding some forces who ‘Kvetch’ often about the Board of Education of the East Ramapo (NY) Central School District: They are driven by hate!
They – The mid-Hudson and Westchester regions director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) , and the President of the Spring Valley, NY chapter of the NAACP – work officially to fight discrimination and to protect Civil Rights, but it is likely hate that drives them to file complains and publish negative reports against the Orthodox Jewish/Hasidic Board members who have a majority on the nine-seat School District’s BOE.
A sample of a disgraceful anti-Jewish move by the NAACP is the Press Release the Spring Valley chapter published in the afternoon of Monday, April 18, announcing that the US Department of Education’s Civil Right Division opened an investigation against The Board in response to a complaint filed by the NAACP. The problem? Well, the Federal DOE notified the NAACP and The Board in a letter dated ten days earlier – April 8 – about the inquiry. In fact, Wilbur Aldridge, director for the mid-Hudson and Westchester regions of the NAACP, told LoHud.com, the online edition of the Journal News, that news about the investigation came “last week,” (the week of April 10), yet the NAACP produced its Press Release only on Monday the 18′th, hours before the eight-day Passover holiday kicked in. With this deliberate delay, the NAACP limited the ability of The Board to respond to the allegations in a timely fashion, since the Board adjourned for the holiday with its majority Orthodox Jewish/Hasidic members about to fully observe – without cell phone and electronic communications means – five of the following eight days starting with Sun Set of the 18′th.
The shameless act by the NAACP went a step further, including strongly misleading the press as to the will of the U.S. Department of Education. Wilbur Aldridge, the NAACP Mid-Hudson Director was quoted by the Journal News that “We cannot release any information as to what they’re looking at or what they’re looking for, but we do know that they have begun an investigation into the functioning of the East Ramapo School District,” and – reported LoHud – “adding that the U.S. Department of Education has asked [The NAACP] that the particulars of the investigation be withheld.”
The above information is contrary to what the Civil Right Office wrote to the ERCSD Board in its letter informing them about the Investigation. The Letter writes, “Under the Freedom of Information Act, it may be necessary to release this letter and related correspondence, and records upon request.” But again, the NAACP told differently to the press, likely with the goal to paint the Majority Jewish Board members in a dark light at a time when they hat limited-to-no reasonable chance to respond to the allegations.
It is a shame that people working for The NAACP, a group out there to advance the needs of minorities, uses religion and race to undermine members of another minority group while using severely handicapped and developmentally challenged kids as pawns. The disgrace grows even more when considering that the NAACP Spring Valley Chapter is located in one of New York’s most diverse villages whose Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic members shaped history eighteen months ago by making possible to elect New York State’s first Haitian American Mayor!
The Board Members at the ERCSD are using the success of the Private School system (where 2/3 of the local students are enrolled), to enhance multiple parts of the Public School system, most notably the Special Education division. This was done while keeping tax increases to a minimum; a move away from the past and a helpful move for locals in the troubling economic times of recent years. But from local groups and individual mouth-pieces, the Board gets mostly only complaints, fights, arguments and attacks, and at last this shameful act by the NAACP.
I hope the national NAACP will move to denounce its Spring Valley chapter and the Director of its Mid-Hudson and Westchester regions, and instruct them to work hand-in-hand with members of all communities for the good and the education of children in The District.
Contact: yossi@yossigestetner.com
