Lead In East Ramapo School Water Echoes Racism In Flint: NYCLU

RAMAPO, NY — There's so much lead in the water coming into the East Ramapo schools that water fountains have been turned off for years and there are warning signs in the bathrooms about not drinking from the taps.

Now the New York Civil Liberties Union has called on the state to fix the "deplorable, dangerous conditions" — and take over the school district.

In response to a new Building Conditions Survey that found nonfunctional taps in every school building in the district, the New York Civil Liberties Union — along with 24 partner organizations — sent an urgent letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie calling on Albany to not only remediate the lead but also take over the district immediately.

The condition of the district's buildings is so bad that the survey gave 14 of them overall "failing" grades, ranking the other six as "unsatisfactory." All the 14 buildings had a "failing" health rating for water outlets/taps for drinking and cooking.

"It is unthinkable for New York to tolerate such deplorable, dangerous conditions for the students in East Ramapo schools," said Johanna Miller, Director of the Education Policy Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "The District has clearly demonstrated that it cannot provide a safe environment for its 10,000 public school children — the state must take over and establish an immediate plan for improving conditions."

Local staff have been forced to turn off several drinking taps across the district and high school students have reported that there is no longer bottled water available in their buildings, NYCLU officials said. Water fountains have been cut off in the buildings for seven or more years. Children as young as Pre-K are still using lead contaminated water to wash their hands in school bathrooms where signs are posted to warn students that the water isn't safe to drink, they said.

"This situation in East Ramapo schools is frighteningly reminiscent of the environmental racism seen in Flint, Michigan. 96 percent of students attending public schools in the district are Black, Latinx, or Asian, and over 80 percent come from economically disadvantaged households," NYCLU officials said. "It is simply beyond belief that New York State is tolerating this outrageous public health hazard."

No solution has been implemented, and NYCLU officials blame that on the school board and the local private-school voting majority’s "unending quest" to cut funding for the district.

The district, which includes parts of the communities of New City, Pearl River, Nanuet, Spring Valley, Suffern, New Hempstead, Chestnut Ridge, Monsey and Wesley Hills, where three times as many children go to private schools—mostly yeshivas — as to the public schools.

Public-school parents have fought the district over funding for years, often in court. There have been numerous state and federal investigations and reports documenting a continuing pattern of fiscal mismanagement and neglect by the East Ramapo Board of Education.

Over the past two decades, the school board, controlled by Orthodox Jewish men, has slashed district spending on everything else but increased spending on out-of-district special-education classes and busing to private schools. They have also spent the district’s resources to aggressively fight lawsuits. SEE: East Ramapo’s Legal Fees Excessive, Court Rules

The district's own insurance company refused to pay its legal fees in the first lawsuit brought by parents after the trustees sold or rented district facilities to yeshivas at below-market rates; paid for religious textbooks for yeshiva students; and provided preferential special-education services for yeshiva students. The insurance company said its contract with the district had an exclusion for fraudulent, dishonest, malicious, criminal and intentional acts.

A State Education Department investigation found the school board had unfairly prioritized the needs of Orthodox Jewish students who attend private and religious schools at the expense of the Black and Latino students who attend the district’s public schools.

In 2016, a bizarre tale of East Ramapo's male school trustees forgetting to swear in a newly-elected black woman to the Board of Education spurred another challenge from the NYCLU.

In 2021, a judge ruled that the district owed the NAACP $4.3 million for its successful voting-rights challenge to the East Ramapo school board. "The District chose to expend substantial resources, as it has done in connection with past lawsuits, to procure expensive counsel," U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith McCarthy pointed out. The district asked the NAACP to accept a $1 payment and threatened to lay off teachers to cover the fees.

Also in 2021, the community found out that in 2020 the district not only overspent the legal budget by millions of dollars, but also failed to correct the budget to account for a cut in state funding announced at the height of the pandemic. State officials had said they were cutting an amount equal to federal COVID relief funds, and cut $15 million from East Ramapo that had been earmarked for private schools.

And every year, the community votes down the district's budget, forcing administrators to bare-bones spending.

The independent monitors appointed by the State Education Commissioner to oversee the district have been largely ineffective, supporters of the public schools feel.

"NY State has abandoned its responsibility to the children of East Ramapo for too long," Spring Valley resident Steve White told Patch. "I agree with the NYCLU and all the other signers of this letter that the time for half measures is long past. I join them in calling for new systems of governance and funding for this school system. The children deserve no less."

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