Parents Ask State to Oust 5 Orthodox Jews on School Board

SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. — In the East Ramapo Central School District here, the children of Caribbean and Latin American immigrants have filled the classrooms in recent years. About 85 percent of the students are black or Hispanic, and only 7 percent are white.

But on the school board, seven of the nine seats are held by Orthodox Jews.

Now, after years of increasingly bitter discord between parents and the board, the parents are trying to force the state to intervene.

A public-interest law firm, acting on behalf of 14 residents, filed a petition last week with the State Education Department, seeking the removal of five of the Orthodox Jewish board members and the appointment of a special monitor to oversee the district. The parents say that the five Orthodox Jewish board members have improperly aided private schools, which are mostly Orthodox yeshivas.

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