“It’s really disappointing that our opportunities are being taken away just so that other kids could have the privilege to go to a private school,” says Maria Torres, a  senior at Lakewood High School. “The adults that are managing our money are giving it out to private schools as if they needed it more than the low-income students who go to public schools.” Other district parents and students point to teaching vacancies, overuse of online coursework, and combining classes of students who aren’t studying similar subjects.

What happens when a school district spends 254 percent more on private school tuition than on its public school students?

You get the mess that is Lakewood.

Now, let’s be fair. Lakewood is sui generis for NJ, with 5,000 students, almost all Hispanic and low-income, who attend district schools, and 42,307 private school students, almost all ultra-Orthodox and white, who attend one of the city’s 181 Jewish day schools. Those students are Haredi, whose parents strictly observe Jewish law, reject modern culture, and keep boys and girls separate, even on school buses.  This year the number of K-12 Haredi students will go up by 2,500 and, per state law, the school district, largely run by Haredim, will pay for their transportation and special education costs. Demographic studies say by 2030 Lakewood will be the third largest city in NJ, just behind Newark and Jersey City, with growth driven by Haredi families.

The problem is the special education costs. According to the Asbury Park Press, which managed to get hold of a July report by David Kaschak, a state auditor for the NJ Department of Education, only 18% of all transportation and special education costs were on behalf of district students; everything else goes to private yeshiva students. “Lakewood school district may be considered a district confronted by severe fiscal distress and could benefit from the creation of an additional state aid category,” writes Kaschak. “Despite the assignment of four state monitors with total salaries of $936,667 to provide fiscal oversight, the district continues to experience fiscal issues.”

Meanwhile, the Lakewood School Board is asking the state taxpayers for another loan of $93 million while it pays its attorney close to one million dollars a year and just gave its superintendent an annual salary hike to $238,000.

I’ve written before about the high birth rate of Haredim: 6-7 children per woman compared to the current U.S. average of 1.8. (A pearl of wisdom from my grandmother of blessed memory: “Every Jewish child born is a slap at Hitler’s face.”) Children born to older women have an increased risk of disabilities; you’d expect a higher rate of Down Syndrome and other developmental challenges..

Yet many NJ children with these same disabilities don’t go to the School with Hidden Intelligence (SCHI), a Lakewood private school which, says the Press, is where the district sends most of its Haredi children eligible for special education services. In June I did the math:

• 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 one-on-one 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 NJ DOE, there are nine state-approved private special education schools in Ocean County (where Lakewood is located). After SCHI’s $128K annual tuition, the next highest is Alpha School, which charges $84,315.00 per year. The rest come in between $60-$70K per year. 

Why does SCHI charge so much more than any other state-approved special education school in the state (except for one, which comes in at $141K and only treats children with autism, the highest-cost disability)? After all, Alpha says it specializes in “autism, Down’s syndrome, communication, learning, and social and emotional disabilities,” and has a 33% lower tuition rate.

I’m guessing Alpha doesn’t have a board composed entirely of ultra-Orthodox Jews and doesn’t segregate boys and girls. 

So maybe the “least restrictive environment” for Haredi children with disabilities, whose parents forbid most technology and won’t let their children in the presence of women with their elbows or knees exposed, is a school like SCHI. 

But shouldn’t we talk about it? Maria Torres would like to know why she is attending classrooms that lack teachers and textbooks.

[Side Note: on last month’s Lakewood School Board agenda was this action item:

“Approve Student 919858 (EDS- 00849-23/ Agency Ref: 35264-23) to attend NJDOE approved Higashi School in Boston, in lieu of the inappropriate SCHI program that currently costs no less than $170,734.13 provided the parent of Student 919858 continues to seek residential placement through insurance and all appropriate State agencies, that NJDOE EXAID reimburses the District for no less than 75% for the educational and residential cost of the Higashi School (educational cost $87,050.45 and residential cost $172,642.00), and for only 1 school year, commencing when all state required evaluations are completed and a final determination for residential placement is made by the appropriate State agency. The District had sought day placements at the following NJDOE approved schools: Alpine Learning, Reed Academy, Hawkswood School, Somerset Hills Learning Center, Princeton Child Developmental Institute, Garden Academy and Search Day that have not accepted Student 919858. The only NJDOE approved school that accepted Student 919858 was Children’s Center of Monmouth County that the District’s Case Manager and Parent deemed inappropriate. The District has also sought related services from the following agencies, Positive Pathways and Graham Behavior Services, through the insurance of the parent to no avail. It should be understood that the district’s payments to Higashi shall not exceed the cost of SCHI, to wit $170,734.13.“

Higashi School is not a Jewish school yet someone who attended SCHI can go there. What’s up with that? And just how much does Lakewood pay SCHI per student?]