East Ramapo Families Picket School Superintendent's House

On Sunday, members of the East Ramapo community again picketed the residence of Dr. Joel M. Klein, superintendent of the East Ramapo Central School District.

Their message July 12: “Klein must resign.”

The protest follows in the wake of the board’s dismissal of Albert D’Agostino, its controversial lawyer, as well as two negative reports issued about the administration and school board of the ERCSD, in which the State Education Department criticized, among many issues, Dr. Klein’s “lack of cultural competency.”

“We’re waiting for one of three outcomes. The school board may follow up their dismissal of D’Agostino with Klein’s. The state may take action. Or, Klein may do the honorable thing and simply resign,” said Eric Grossfeld, organizer of the protest and a member of the advocacy group East Ramapo Padres Unidos.

Fiscal monitor Hank Greenberg told the New York Education Department in November 2014 that he believed some form of state intervention was needed to repair school system and reverse bad decisions by the East Ramapo Board of Education.

“The district’s finances teeter on the edge of disaster,” he wrote in his report, East Ramapo: A School District in Crisis.

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