TLS EXCLUSIVE: In a major victory for Lakewood’s nonpublic school children, 100% of the funds originally diverted by the BOE to public school children for preschools will be restored to their intended beneficiaries for remedial tutoring. Confronted by a firestorm of protest which erupted when this planned diversion was first uncovered on TLS, as reported here and here, the Lakewood Board of Education backed-down, and will return these nonpublic Title 1 funds to nonpublic school children. The entitled public school portion of these funds remains intact, and will not be reduced.
Michelle Doyle, a Washington, DC consultant, confirmed this morning the return to children in our mosdos of all Title 1 Stimulus funds which were previously misallocated.
Ms. Doyle said the return of the funds was based on figures showing that the nonpublic school student population is 72%, while the public school population is 28%, of the total Title 1-eligible low-income student population. By federal law, it is this 72/28 ratio which establishes the proportionate share for allocating Title 1 funds between Lakewood’s Public and NonPublic school populations. Lakewood will receive a total of $13 Million in Title 1 federal grants this year: $7 Million in Regular Title 1, and $6 Million in Stimulus Title 1. The Igud battled to have this 72/28 ratio used for both the Title 1 Regular AND Stimulus programs. The District initially resisted, planning to apply this ratio only for the Regular Title 1 grant, but not for the Stimulus Title 1 grant. As confirmed this morning, the Igud won on the merits of the law. The correct 72/28 ratio will be used for the entire $13 Million Title 1 grant, Regular and Stimulus.
Approximately 50 mosdos attended the 2½ hour Consultation Session this morning, which was held at the BOE offices. An additional 15 Board members, staff, professionals, and consultants attended, representing the Lakewood BOE, the New Jersey Department of Education, and Catapult Learning, a local Title 1 services provider. The meeting was held in a collaborative spirit, with BOE representatives evidently eager to accommodate the needs of Lakewood’s private and parochial schools. This was triggered by the unprecedented large and unified turnout. For the first time in memory, the format included an unhampered Q&A period. Speaker after speaker from the mosdos was allowed to address his or her concerns to the various representatives. Many issues previously unaddressed were brought-up, discussed and clarified—before, during and after the session. For example: are Catapult teachers, aides, and counselors getting adequately paid? Are they getting benefits, and if so which benefits? What is Catapult’s ‘overhead’ percentage relative to instructional costs? Are Catapult’s charges to the Lakewood District, where there is no competition, as competitively priced as their charges in NYC, where there is robust competition? However, numerous other questions posed both at the session and in the Igud’s November 2 letter, remain unanswered at this time. Among these was a request for an explanation for the significant year-to-year fluctuations in both the public and nonpublic proportionate share of Title 1 allocations. Also left unanswered was whether PreKindergarten age children (3 and 4 year olds) are counted in the Title 1-eligible population, public AND nonpublic, especially in view of the fact that the District will now be using public schoolTitle 1 Stimulus funds for preschools. Why there was no ‘Child Find” activity in the District to comprehensively identify and locate children with disabilities, and why the District is showing 15% of the nonpublic school student population as presenting with disabilities, while more than double, 35% is shown as presenting with disabilities in the public school student population. Most importantly, the District did not respond to the Igud’s demand that competition be expanded in the provision of special education services, as is done in NYC, Milwaukee and Chicago. In these Districts there are multiple approved vendors which each school can choose from to service its academically at-risk learners. The District said this issue will be addressed at a later date. The Igud is of the opinion that healthy competition amongst providers will improve teacher salaries and reduce overhead costs, ensuring that more program dollars will go directly towards benefitting the eligible children.
The Igud also conveyed its request to the District that Title 1 programs (Regular and Stimulus) be expanded to include high schools, for both the public and nonpublic schools, beginning next year. The District said this morning that it will go along with this recommendation. TLS
The trend is towards multiple LEA-approved vendors selected by each school. This is already happening in NYC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami and New Orleans. Especially in Lakewood, with its 20,000 nonpublic school students, giving a single vendor the monopoly is a license to overcharge and underpay. Bring on competition and watch the costs plummet and the number of children served skyrocket.
R we Next?
why does he keeping on using deception to take our mosdos money and give it the public school and to catapult .
so whats gonna be with Catapult??? Is lakewood gonna get rid of them??????
Lamah?, Kacha!
so whats gonna be with Catapult???????? is lakewood gonna get rid of them??
to all the capapult teachers who were forced by you know who to do double billing and illegal billing tactics, please go to feds before them come to you. they know whats going on and its only a metter of time. if you come in by yourself nothing will happen , if they come after you its going to be bitter.
nice job, BOE!!! you dug ur own grave
to all the Catapult teachers, all i can say is nebach!!
looks like BOE is finally going down. hopefully it should be to long until we have the cronies replaced. kudos to TLC for exposing all the scams and shams and shenanigans they orchastrated, now that they know every shtick and genevah they do will be publicized its game over.
Please change the picture . This is NOT a picture of todays BOE meeting . It is an old picture of last weeeks IGUD meeting
is it legal for the BOE to give out no bid contract?
how can they be audited to find out of their are kickbacks?
who gets to decide to give it to a no bid contrat if their are other offers?
if it is illegal can the be sued for criminal negiligance for all the services that were not given ?
also why is the IGUD taking such a passive stance ? if you what your saying is correct it looks like at least 6 million dollars per year has been stolen per year for the past 5-6 years. thats 30-40million stolen .this just keeps on dragging on and on. why doent they just get a lawyer and file a class action ?
right on # 8
now maybe they can do something about the 4 days the boe dosent want to give us busing remeber the big trafic jams last year
seems like the TLS editing crew is changing everytime someone writes the MI to the BOE. Vehamavin yavin.
how come in my last comment when i wrote MI, TLS changed it to BOE??????????
BOE= MI
# 7 is right. If you go to the Feds and report how much Catapult is stealing by double-billing, false hours for everything from nursing through IDEA, Title 1, 192/193 etc. YOU are off the hook. They are on for False Claims and conspiracy/RICOH etc. If you wait till the feds come knocking on your door, you’ll be sitting. But don’t ask me, ask your Rov. And do not talk to BOE members. They’re probably already wired as cooperating witnesses to save their skins.
just joshing
It is not fair the change every time someone writes MI, you write BOE. There are some good people like YS who don’t agree with what MI is doing .
this wasnt a win or a loose for the igud or the boe i was there this morning so get your facts straight!!!
Michelle Doyle, a Washington, DC consultant, confirmed this morning the return to children in our mosdos of all Title 1 Stimulus funds which were previously misallocated.
what is going to happen to the “misallocated” funds ? if you do the match and add up the past 6 years your looking at 30-40 million
are they going to give back all the money to the kids that deserve it ?
what about the kids who got stiffed and were told by MI ” there is not enough funds for you ” ?
what about all the money thats already in ” someones” pocket ?
why doesnt the IGUD just finish him off ?
Professional services do not have to go through a bidding process but that does not mean that a BOE can’t involve itself in such a process. It’s up to the BOE! Usually it is the Business Administrator who initiates the RFP process, then makes a recommendation to the Board. The Board then selects the best vendor for the job. In this case, the Board can pick more than one vendor for the job. The BOE does not have to have a monopoly vendor!
Hey TLS can we have the other side of the story. Like why some BOE board members like what they did in the first place. Whty did they divert the money? If the members say speak to Micheal tell them I didn’t vote for Inzelbuch I voted for them. They are responsible for all decisions that happen at BOE not Micheal! He is just the attorney.
Who is left in town who can endorse a BOE member that people will listen?
it depends which BOE members you ask
the honest ones will tell you that he does legal wrangling and manovers the process so that he decides what should be done based on legality
the ones who have their hands in the cookie jsr will tell yopu what a tzadik he is , so of course he knows what is best.
then there are those that are “wired” . not much they can say.
if you know all the facts why didnt the IGUD press the return of all the stolen funds for the past 6-7 years?
did someone in the IGUD have his hands in the cookie jar and now realizes that thing are about to explode and is just protecting himself from the real bycreating a public spectacle ?
no one is saying win or loss, people have questions and deserve answers.
the whole thing is a credit to the TLS for exposing the whole charade and asking the right questions.
we will continue asking or should i say screaming the questions until there is total transparancy and the corruption is done away with . just saying ” i was there and get your facts straight will not keep us quiet . we want answers, we deserve answers , we will get answers.
this is about our children , not about your ego.
Why is the IGUD silent about the Millions being diverted TODAY from nonpublic IDEA budget? Why focus exclusively on Title 1?
In a previous article TLS reported that only 8.4% of eligible nonpublic students with disabilities will receive help, 254 out of 3,011. How can the Board, the Igud, the Vaad and the kehilla abandon 2,757 of our most vulnerable children??? We ask the Board to initiate a review, before the Igud or someone else ‘uncovers” yet another diversion in Regular or Stimulus IDEA funds. The IGUD pointed to shifting allocations from years to year in IDEA just as in Title 1. Yet the Board gave no answers. Why cover-up the problems till the money is misspent? Open-up the books now.
Let’s get some answers.
kudos to tls . we want every move broadcasted on this site . catpult boe , the strand, uez , lpd etc etc etc etc . this is the beginning of a new era of accountibilty, transparency and honesty and then we’ll get lower taxes .
soo what is gonna be with Catapult??? are the feds coming?
why arn’t my posts going through ?
are the MI shick yinglach getting to you ?
for all those who worked for catapult , and filed double-billing, false hours for everything from nursing through IDEA, Title 1, 192/193 etc. its only a matter of time. there are rabbonim who have already told numerous people who we forced into doing these things to go ahead and protect themselves,and i have even seen a written psak by a very prominent local posek . there is 30-40 million missing . Read this article and you will see. its only a matter of time.I am not a posek and i am not telling you what to do. if you have a friend who worked for catapult do them a favor , drag them to a rov who knows what is going on and ask a shaila.if you know anyone who does not have internet access please be modia them , it is mamash pikuch nefesh. no when will protect you . they will hang you out to dry. you better protect protect yourselfs. if you go now and admit nothing will happen , but if you dont they may be sending the bus to your house.
it pains me to have to write this , but i cant bear to see 35 people who did nothing wrong , have to suffer because one person coerced them into doing something.
Unless I see an actual and legitimate transcript I can’t believe the atty bashers on anything they’re trying to take credit for.. They can continue making things up because there’s no way for us to conduct independent verification.
And btw, as far as YS is concerned, I wouldn’t rely depending on him because all this legal and budgetary jargon is apparantly way over his head.. When are the next elections?
As I was present at the meeting today in lkwd I will tell u what happened in short
1)This is not a win for the igud or a loses this was a meeting to explain everything to all the school owners who THOUGHT they knew everything about title one michael inzelbuch the man who discovered title on explain title one to all the owners michael said he would give the money to the owners of non public schools the igud.
i guess you did not get your disabilities covered because obviously you do not know how to read.
please read the article again and if your having trouble im sure catapult will send you someone to help you.
” Michelle Doyle, a Washington, DC consultant, confirmed this morning the return to children in our mosdos of all Title 1 Stimulus funds which were previously misallocated.
Ms. Doyle said the return of the funds was based on figures showing that the nonpublic school student population is 72%, while the public school population is 28%, of the total Title 1-eligible low-income student population”
MI discovered title one ?????????????????
schools and yeshivas have been getting title one long before MI was into education law.
what he did discover is , how to misallocate title 1
Ms doyle said the Title 1 money will be returned based on the 72/28 ratio. What she did not have to say was that the BOE voted to allocate the money in just the opposite ratio, 70 to public 30 to non public, until they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Yes. Our elected, frum, Philadelphia glatt kosher BOE.
If u would think before commenting u would understand and not make a fool out of yourself
1)Michael has been in education law for over 15 years
2)The boe didn’t not know there was a thing called title one before mi became the board att!!!
So learn your facts before commenting!!
assujming some of thses taynos are true ,what is the negius to the Boe for giving less to the Mosdos ? I dont get it . It doesnt make sense
If someone can explaine the story in simple layman terms for all the tamim out there I would app. as I have no clue what these term mean and what Catapult has to do with this. Thank you.
When funds are misalocated it means something not kosher is going on.it usually means that there is double money being billed for the same expeses.when no bid contrats are being given out it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that someone must be getting a kickback
its very nice what the igud is doing, but thay ony represent children in school. No money is being spent on child find so I guess there is no one going to bat for preschool children. When MI tells a preschooler that there is “no private sector money available for you” who is represnting that child ? It is obvious that their money is being misalocated and there is no one fending for them.
The Igud has expressed concern on various troubling issues, This note will examine one issue, others – later.
As per the Igud’s letter posted here on TLS, the BOE voted on an application to the State for Title 1 Stimulus money to be divided 70% to public school children, 30% to nonpublic school children. The true eligibility percentages are in reverse, 72% nonpublic and 28% public. This was uncovered and exposed in TLS through the vigilance and research of thr IGUD. In response to the IGUD’s protest, at yesterday’s consultation session, COnsultant Michelle Doyle confirmed that the correct ratios were re-submitted to the State, and the application has been revised accordingly. As a result, she said our mosdos will receive a total of $3.9 Million in Title 1 Stimulus funds, instead of the $1.8 Million which the BOE originally approved and filed with the State. In simple terms, the BOE was going to shortchange our mosdos by $1.1 Million. The BOE members are still confused on this issue. Regular Title 1 was not at issue here. The BOE seems to have applied the correct percentage ratios from the beginning.
I hope this clarifies the matter. Anyone who thinks this is incorrect is invited to comment.
Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.
Assuming what you write is corrct ,it sounds like they incorrectly transposed the ratios for the Stimulus funds . What reason would they have to do this on porpuse .? Who gains by having the non public get less ?
Close down all the public schools , and then all the funds can go to the mosdos.Problem Solved.
I find it very sad that all you think about is taking from the public schools.When me and my husband work to pay taxes.And all you can think about is money money.Also its our children that are supposed to go to school, college and get a job and pay taxes. That’s how it works we all can’t go to school for the rest of our lives.Or we will be called bums low-lifes living off the system ect.Take time to think about All the children of Lakewood public and private.
I wrote, “Consultant Michelle Doyle confirmed that the correct ratios were re-submitted to the State, and the application has been revised accordingly. As a result, she said our mosdos will receive a total of $3.9 Million in Title 1 Stimulus funds, instead of the $1.8 Million which the BOE originally approved and filed with the State.” the $3.9 Million should have been $2.9 Million. My typographical error. The rest is accurate and correct.
This was not done innocently or inadvertently. They intentionally steered Two Million Dollars to ‘preschools”=Tiny Tots. Where kickbacks are on tap. When a fuss was raised, that Two Million was (a) reduced to “only” $900,000, and (b) taken out of the public school portion, which was at first artificially inflated at the expense of private schools, until the mosdos howled.
It is indeed very sad, but there is an answer. The State DOE has ultimate responsibility. They look out for the public school children. They DO NOT look out for the nonpublic school children. This was proven in 2006 when it was uncovered and widely reported that the Lakewood BOE diverted $11 Million over 8 year (1998-2006) from the nonpublic Title 1 allocation to the public Title 1 allocation, under the nose of the NJDOE.
In short, the State is there as a watchdog for the Public Schools. It is NOT there for the nonpublic schools. That’s why we need our own watchdog. Having said that, the Igud has been pointing out LBOE irregularities if funding for both nonpublic and public school children.
We believe each group should get every dollar they are entitled to, and the monies should not be misappropriated regardless of the source, or the intended beneficiaries. We seek transparency and accountability across the Board. Eligible children, regardless of where they are enrolled, should NOT be pitted against each other, They have a common interest in protecting their rights.
So our mosdos were delibertly ripped off by MI and CO 2.9 million.is that regular title 1 or stimulus title 1 ?
What about the stimulus title one ?
Also whathappened with idea money. Did our mosdos receive the correct amount?
Also what happened with the catpult issue? The no bid contract and the transparency of the way catapult bill?
Seems like the publicity the TLC has given this important cause has already gotten our mosdos over 2 million
When is it coming out?
I can’t wait. Finally someone is exposings this towns scoudrels.
Our Mosdos were supposed to get $2.9M, and ended-up getting $2.9M after all the dust settled. In between, the LBOE filed an application 2 months ago with the State D o Ed for the mosdos to get only $1.8M. That’s a public record shown on the State website. That’s how the Igud discovered it. Our erstwhile BOE members were totally asleep, confused, or otherwise out to lunch. Most still are. So the planned rip-off was $1.1 Million. Kappish?The process is a little bit more complicated with off-the-top set-asides and other factors. But that’s the bottom line.
Interesting, very interesting. According to the NJ DOE website, on 11/10/09, Just One Day Before Mr Inzelbuch’s fateful meeeting with the Igud on Wednsday of last week, the LBOE revised its application, and canceled its planned diversion.
yes, TLS certainly gets the credit for sharing this scandal with the community. And putting an end to it.
You are all very ignorant. Why not find out what the competitors have to offer before you bring them in. Ask the Deal community how happy they are with MOESC services. Do your research first.
You are missing the point. Catapult can stay. They just cannot have a monopoly. We want 4 vendors approved from which we can choose. Competition will solve all the problems.
The Lakewood BOE makes a mockery of citizen involvement and both public and private schools it serves,in the end the district will sef-destruct. Its time for the Board Attorney who is too much to too many to go he can’t deliver.
Why doesn’t Catapult receive any heat? This is why – The board attroney M.Inzelbuch in on the Catapult Learning books. Checks are made to his law firm. He receives THOUSANDS!!!.
Also they perform Hebrew Teachings under the label “Phonemic Awareness” to fly below Title I regulations and bypass audits. Catapult Learning even built classrooms for students. More students in the program equal more money to Catapult. My wife works in the office and she is always telling me of the nonsense that occurs. Catapult Learning and Lakewood BOE should be ashamed.