Brooklyn, NY – Orthodox Jewish leaders are set to opt out of a free universal prekindergarten program, the largest of its kind in the country and one created by Mayor Bill de Blasio with the Orthodox community in mind.
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Orthodox activists say the school day hours – six hours and 20 minutes – included the program don’t allow students enough time for religious teachings outside of city-school hours. The timeframe is one hour and 20 minutes longer that state regulations require. The school day would start at 8 a.m. and end at 2:20 p.m. Orthodox day schools, however, typically close earlier on Fridays for the Sabbath. Other restrictions are also swaying the Orthodox community the other way reports The Jewish Daily Forward (http://bit.ly/1pq21Eh).
This puts a dent into de Blasio’s administration’s goals, who was looking to fill 50,000 full-day pre-K vacancies be the start of the school year.
Maury Litwack , director of state political affairs and outreach for the Orthodox Union’s Advocacy Center, said the union did support the pre-K program and supports similar programs in other states, but the NYC plan just isn’t working.
De Blasio has long been known to have close allies in the Orthodox groups, but the new program may strain relationships he’s built over the years.
The full-day universal pre-K funding could increase the public money going to Orthodox educational institutions – the city will pay schools $10,000 per student for a school year, or $7,000 if their teacher does not have a teaching degree – however, de Blasio’s eight-point document listing restrictions on religious schools and strong enforcement of separation of religion and state is a cause of concern for the Orthodox leaders.
The document bans religious instruction during city-funded school hours. Religious symbols both inside and outside the building that can be removed must be removed. Schools are allowed to offer religious instruction before or after the city-funded hours, but they cannot break the city hours into two blocks and provide religious instruction in between city-funded hours. Staff-led blessings over the meals are banned.
However, schools are allowed to teach classes in languages other than English and to give preference in the hiring process to members of their own religion during the hiring process.
In a press conference on June 5, Mayor de Blasio said staff was put in place to strictly enforce the religion-state separation rules.
Agudath Israel of America’s executive director, Rabbi David Zwiebel, said that Agudath Israel is looking into whether Jewish schools located in New York City could apply directly to the state for universal pre-K funding, sidestepping the city’s regulations and falling directly under the state’s, which is possible if the schools have already been rejected for city funding according to NYSED documents.
And Greenfeld is out of the loop!
Wow, the yatzer harrah is so hard at work. He’s trying to get at our Yiddish neshumas at there most formative years. BH the community is opting out.
Ahhh, the proverbial stab in the back. With a communist like de Blasio, I am not surprised.
This is a very good developement. The city, stae and fed are gov are giving more and more handouts, but they ate simultaneously going to control more and more the instotutions they give financial aid to.
Time to stop buying Bugaboo carriages and pay towards your kids education.
The solution would be to have classes on Sunday and off on Friday.
And if the staff can’t make a brocha and bench with the kids you can have a different volunteer mother come each day, so the staff doesn’t do it
Ahhh, the proverbial stab in the back. With a communist like de Blasio, I am not surprised.
What a shame and disgrace. These children barely get a 4th grade secular education and now they have a chance to get an early start on learning basic skills and it is being tossed away because there is not enough time to teach them their brochas. There will be plenty of time to learn that at home and in later grades.