Power of Ten Update
In This Issue:
1. Teachers ask for State Protection
2. Action Opportunity: Stop Town Tax Ripoff
3. NAACP: Conditional Support for School Bond
1) Teachers ask for State Protection
In a Community View in the Journal News, the president of the Rockland County Teachers Association calls on the state to change rules for funding private-school programs: State must prevent the ‘next’ East Ramapo
This is one of the the most important letters ever published on the subject. It is worth a subscription to the Journal News just to read this one letter!
The letter is on behalf of the Rockland BOCES Staff Association, the Clarkstown Teachers Association, the Nanuet Teachers Association, the Nyack Teachers Association, the North Rockland Teachers Association, the Education Association of South Orangetown, the Pearl River Teachers Association and the Ramapo Teachers Association.
2) Action Opportunity: Stop Town Tax Ripoff
In the last edition of The Power of Ten, I reported that the Town of Ramapo is charging East Ramapo an estimated $1.2 million per year for collecting taxes, a service that other towns provide for free.
The superintendent of Ramapo’s other school district, Ramapo Central, has written a Community View in The Journal News asking readers to tell Cuomo to sign a bill that empowers school districts to collect their own property taxes. This bill has already been passed and is waiting for the governor’s signature.
Action Opportunity: Please go to the following link: www.ramapocentral.net/district/advocacy which has been set up to assist the community in reaching out to the governor.
3) NAACP: Conditional Support for School Bond
Willie Trotman, the president of the Spring Valley NAACP, has written a letter to the Journal News giving conditional support for the upcoming bond vote. His support is conditional because the school board just sold two schools which had been renovated as public schools, and then opposed legislation which would prevent them from doing it again.
No one knows better than Mr. Trotman the terrible impact that dilapidated schools are having on our youth. He is asking the state in this letter to guarantee that they will prevent our public education system from again being the victim of real estate speculators.
The East Ramapo school board is a pariah, a rogue board which has abandoned its mission. They cannot complete the function of “trustees” if they cannot be “trusted”. They haven’t admitted wrongdoing and they haven’t changed their ways. They will have to be watched every second until an alternative governance system is implemented.
The school board could have guaranteed a pass for the bond vote, and extra state aid just by allowing more state oversight. The state could have passed the oversight over the objections of the board.
So the first two “NO” votes for the bond are really coming from the school board and NY State.
The NAACP deserves credit for putting the kids first. They are saying “YES” even if it is conditional. Right now they are down 2-1, but the state could still step up and provide the oversight Mr. Trotman is asking for. That second “YES” from NY could be the deciding factor.