Letter to the Editor: East Ramapo Conversation about Fire Safety

To the Editor:

Following last night’s impromptu East Ramapo school board meeting, superintendent Dr. Joel Klein spent a decent amount of time discussing issues with a concerned group of parents, students and community advocates. (Tellingly, board member Jacob J. Lefkowitz lurked around the group instead of accepting our requests for him to join in on the conversation.)

For nearly a half hour, Dr. Klein both flat out lied and contradicted himself. Notably, he wavered between stating he had no responsibility whatsoever in ensuring that all schools – public and private – have up-to-date fire safety reports to claiming perhaps he just isn’t “aware” of the relevant sections of educational law to this matter.

In essence, here is a superintendent who is either willfully negligent or irresponsibly incompetent. Regardless, both students’ educational careers and lives are at risk with a school board and administration that have demonstrated time after time that neither are a priority to them. If this doesn’t warrant federal intervention, what finally will?

As reported on News12, Dr. Klein stated in this same conversation that he welcomes the monitoring team and - seemingly competing with Richard Nixon’s “I’m not a crook” for “Most Outrageously Unbelievable Statement” – said that “We have nothing to hide.”

Will he stand by his word when we continue to press for a forensic audit? Or will he say he wasn’t “aware” he made that statement?

Eric Grossfeld

Co-Founder: Get Up, Stand Up: East Ramapo