Tomorrow Lakewood Public Schools will have its monthly public meeting and on the agenda is Exhibit A for why the district is in litigation with the Murphy Administration. Acting Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan continues to insist our school funding formula works for a district that sends over 35,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish school students to private yeshivas while only 5,241 students, almost all Hispanic and low-income, attend district schools. In March an Appellate Court ruled against Murphy’s argument; Politico called the decision “a blow to the Murphy administration that could cost it millions of dollars” and “a rebuke to Allen-McMillan.” 

The June 21st agenda lays out the issue for taxpayers—and, increasingly, surrounding districts like Jackson, Toms River, Brick, and Howell —as Lakewood runs out of room to house its exploding Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) population.

Here’s how it works: If a parent chooses to send his or her child to a private school—Haredi or not—the home district is required to provide either a bus or “aid in lieu of transportation,” which is $1,022 a year for neuro-typical kids. But if a child is classified as eligible for special education, the district, according to state and federal law, must provide the students with a “free and appropriate” education in the “least restrictive environment.” For Lakewood’s Haredim, district schools are by definition inappropriate: they don’t segregate students by gender, they don’t include Jewish studies, they don’t follow Jewish laws like requiring married women to wear wigs over their hair and cover their arms and legs.  (Let’s not even touch LGBTQ issues, birth control, women’s rights, and so on.)

So Lakewood continues to send more and more Haredi students to private special education schools that conform to ultra-Orthodox rules. If you look at the agenda (items 107-109) listing agreements for private school tuition, the school that will jump out at you is “SCHI,” or the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence, which has been recently in the news because its founder,  Rabbi Osher Eisemann, was convicted in 2019 for money laundering and corporate misconduct and may get a new trial. (Ignore the children of color on the website. They’re just for show.)

Lakewood historically sends lots of money to SCHI. I did the math for next year, although this is one agenda and there will be other SCHI approvals meted out month by month.

• SCHI’s base tuition is $128,139.90 per year (including summer camp), an increase from last year of $5K.  This agenda lists 253 students who Lakewood will enroll there next year. 

• This comes to $32,419,420 in tuition.

• But some students require a one-on-one aide, which the district also pays for. The aide gets paid $180 a day. For the 126 students who have aides, that comes to $4,762,800.

The grand total to SCHI, not including transportation and other sundries, is $37,182,220.

According to the state Department of Education database, next year Lakewood will spend 50,766,692 for tuition to private schools. At least 70% of that money will go to SCHI.

(Lakewood does place some non-Jewish students in private special education schools. Also, there  is another private school for students with disabilities that serves Lakewood students, the Special Children’s Center, which features students with yarmulkes on its website— a bargain at $77,361.90 a year. Some yeshivas say they provide special education services too, as well as adequate secular studies, although I’m not sure that’s true.)

Now here’s an oddity: the budget says transportation costs will only be $29 million next year, almost $4 million less than this year. Maybe the School Board will give district attorney Michael Inzelbuch a raise.

(Photo credit: Flickr.)