TLS EXCLUSIVE: Members of Lakewood’s Igud HaMosdos met Thursday night at Bais Rivka Rochel to discuss the upcoming BOE elections and other long-standing concerns. This year’s BOE election is shaping up as a crucial one. The Board’s balance of power can shift because this year 4 seats are on the ballot, not the usual 3. The terms of Board members Ada Gonzales, Tracey Tift, Meir Neumann, and Alan (Akiva) Gonter are up. So far, only Tift and Gonzales have declared their intention to seek another term. Candidates seeking to run in this election have only until 4PM Monday, March 1, (Shushan Purim), to file a petition at the Lakewood BOE Business Administrator’s (Mr. Finger) office.
The election itself will be held 2 weeks after Pesach, on April 20. A heavier-than-usual turnout is expected. The election follows a stormy year. Mosdos joined taxpayers in waging a unified battle against the District to ensure that $1.5 Million in Stimulus funding will not be shifted from Kehilla schools to preschools against the wishes of the mosdos and the taxpayers. That bruising fight was eventually won by the Igud, but took enormous efforts, leaving many unanswered questions about the District’s commitment to the education of Lakewood’s NonPublic School children, and the District’s bidding practices in providing services for the nonpublic school population.
Under the terms of an agreement previously reached between the Igud and the Vaad, and recently reconfirmed, the Vaad will no longer be making BOE candidate endorsements. The Igud will interview and evaluate BOE candidates and make known its endorsements after a decision is reached by majority vote. By the same token, the Igud will not be making Township Committee candidate endorsements, leaving that to the jurisdiction of the Vaad. Both groups have pledged and agreed to fully cooperate and to provide input to each other, with the final decision left to each group in its respective area of concern, expertise, and operation.
Thursday’s Igud meeting began with a roundtable discussion among the mosdos’ representatives and Rabbi Yehoshua Pruzansky, Director of Agudah NJ Office, and Howie Biegelman, OU representative. These 2 askanim and lobbyists, are both recognized for their expertise and experience in NonPublic School (NPS) educational funding issues. They were invited as guests to the meeting. In a lively discussion, valuable input was obtained by them from the mosdos on State funding and other educational concerns. Igud members stressed the importance of direct access to State officials, especially via the newly-formed Governor’s Commission on NPS funding. Numerous NPS funding suggestions were put forward, including, for example, low-interest or no-interest construction loans for NPS facilities, parity (“equitable participation”) with PS children, Tax Credit School Vouchers, increased special ed funding, and restoration of the technology grants. The Agudah and OU askanim promised to take the message back to State officials, and to report back to the Igud.
In other matters, after extensive discussion regarding the various issues confronting Lakewood’s mosdos, the membership voted to form five (5) standing Igud Liaison Committees to address the many concerns of the mosdos. These 5 Committees are as follows:
1) BOE/Grants (Title 1, IDEA, and other federal and State programs, also Holiday busing, review BOE Budget, etc.)
2) Township (Land for Mosdos, Trash Pickup, Zoning/Planning Bds. etc.)
3) State (Vouchers, Liaison with Governor Christie’s office, Senators, Congressmen, etc.)
4) Placements of children out of school, interacting with Mashgiach, Shlita and Askanim;
5) Upcoming BOE Elections, April 20 2010.
More than 20 leaders and representatives of Lakewood mosdos were in attendance, and volunteered to serve on these liaison committees. The Committees remain open for additional volunteers from the mosdos.
Where is the LAC these days?? Weren’t they the ones involved who got silver in last year?
I would not vote for anyone that the iggud puts forth until every child gets into a school. If they are meeting it should be about getting the childreb into schools, not about politics!
The iggud should be discussing the acceptance policies of the schools who want our local and state tax dollars but chooses to accept only who they want
Will the LAC put up some more guys to shake things up at the BOE?
The members who dont show up to most meetings should not be running for reelection
I am still crying for my neighbors child who can’t get into school. This would be a terrible travisty if the Iggud takes over election then our Askonim would have no leverage to squeeze a few more kids into the schools.
I heard the lac is putting up a few people to run.
You guys need to put up a couple more candidates who will together stop breaking the backs of our tax payers!!!
Comment deleted.
sounds like the igud is trying to control the boe.
When is the board president up for reelection??
Trachtglat says:
January 12, 2010 at 2:31 pm
One thing is clear. The time has long passed for there to be some real mechanism for Identification in our Private school system, just like they have in the Public school system.. Anything less should be considered derelict!
I’m not saying the schools have to pay for “fixing” the issue.. (I do believe, and will double-check, that our schools are indeed already receiving federal funding under IDEA Act for a child-find Program) But at the very least they should be professionally trained to recognize and attempt to properly refer a suspected problem.
Sadly, in the bigger schools they can barely cope with basic management – especially in the 7th & 8th grades – that they don’t even have a clue on where to begin and how to properly handle a child experiencing an onset of these difficult challenges.
Perhaps.. Instead of the IGUD getting together only on issues related to how many more tax dollars/land they can each receive or whom to vote into office.. I would expect them to actually collaborate on how best to deal with the universal issue of less-than perfect students (referral, financial and otherwise..)
If the Menahalim/Administrators can scream and kick up dust for more and more $$$$ because they “truly” claim they don’t want to leave any one child behind, then why aren’t we seeing constructive meetings concerning best practice standards related to catching and referring our tayereh neshamos before they fall through the other cracks..
We all understand that “ultimately” the schools cannot replace the parental responsibilities.. But at the same time, if they do make the personal choice to enter the business of educating yiddishe kinder, then they also share in that “ultimate” responsibility!
How many more wake-up calls do we, as a community, need before we begin instituting corrective action??!!
Read the article. It says they formed a committee (#4) to work on children placement. Regardless, does it really make sense to punish the 20,000 children in our mosdos by defying the Igud’s endorsements, for the 50 who could not readily enroll in the school of their parents first choice? Lastly, the BOE members come and go. This election should and must be a referendum on the BOE. But they will just give him another 25% raise as the first order of business. Just like last year.
The comment was in regard to the story headlined >
“Anxiety And Depression Among Youths In The Frum Community”
Jan 12 2010 9:26 am
Before you can think straight, you should get your facts straight. It helps.
It was the Igud, not the Vaad, not LAC, nor anyone else for that matter, that exposed in 2006 that $10 Million was stolen by the BOE from our kehilla’s children with special needs, just in the Title 1 program alone, over the prior 8 years. Another $10 Million in IDEA? How many $Million more in State programs? Our children were receiving only 10 cents of every entitled Title 1 dollar. The District admitted the charges.
AND yes, it was the Igud that showed, time-and-again, that there IS NO Child Find in Lakewood.
So why blame the one group of dedicated mechanchim that has actually accomplished something (true, there is more, much more to do). Is that ‘trachting glat’?
Hershel run for BOE. Forget the township committee. I hear you decided to run finally. Don’t do it. You can get more done on the BOE.
“ALL” are not equally duped by the board attorney….you should know better than that.You of all people are fully aware of any exceptions and who he/she was endorsed by…or better yet…not endorsed by
can anyone at the boe help lower our taxes ? that is our biggest problem in town ,all other problems are about pennies compared to money going to the public schools/boe, which is more than 50 percent of taxes
#17 is correct. Yoni Silver is not “equally duped” by the Board attorney. He sees right through him. The attorney usually has to wait till YS is out of town on a business trip to pull off his shenanigans. If YS is there, he puts up a royal fight. Usually, he is the lonely voice of sanity and integrity. And loses the vote.
I will express my opinions on what we must shape up in the boe.
We must try to lower our taxes by saying to fire the board attorney doesn’t make and sense, 1)he only cost us 250 a hour 2) hands down we will all admit he is a good lawyer
The problem we all have is jealousy so let’s get over it and build a better lkwd
If #15 is correct, where is the outrage? Where is the justice? Where is the indignation that is needed to remedy the situation?
If we believe that the district is being starved for needed funding, then why allow any part of that precious funding to be squandered, misdirected, and/or misappropriated?
Thieves undermind the very soul of the community as they rob our children of the best education possible and rob the taxpayers of a portion of their funding.
He only costs us $250 an hour? Who you trying to fool? Did you ever add up the hours? Do you know that he decides his own hours? Did you forget about his other job, as nonpublic special ed consultant at over $100,000 per year? Did you forget about the Millions he costs Lakewood taxpayers by steering District special ed contracts to his cronies?! And that’s only the financial toll.
What about the human toll on hundreds of Lakewood children whose future was and is robbed daily because there was “no more money left” to address their special needs?!
Change is long overdue. This election can make it happen. Go for it.
meir for captain………… oh wait he is captain, meir for mayor>>>>>>>> that what we want
why are no posts about this story going through ?