Large Orthodox Jewish families are an unfair burden for school districts

The dysfunctrional Lakewood School Board meets: left to right, Orthodox Jewish President Barry Iann (just quit); Jewish board attorney Marc Zitomer (now replaced); Vice-president Ada Gonzalez (status unknown).

By Carolyn Yeager

AND WHEN YOU GET HUNDREDS OF THESE FAMILIES in one school district, as is the case in Lakewood NJ, the burden is unsupportable. Further, the city government projects that its current population of more than 100,700 will reach 220,000 by 2030, an increase made up entirely of ultra-orthodox Jews.

The biggest problem that comes with ultra-orthodox Jewish families that have 5 to 10 children each is the higher incidence of “special needs” individuals among them. Lakewood women have the highest birth rate in the state with 4,000 births per year. A higher than normal percentage of these births are children with disabilities that occur more commonly among the Jewish Orthodox than among the non-Jewish population. I previously wrote about this most specifically in my July 30 post; please read or reread it.

In that article, I quoted David Shafter, the Jewish state-appointed monitor of Lakewood schools as admitting:

“We have a high number of children who have special medical needs that arose from genetic disease. A lot of children in the Orthodox community have this. In some cases, it requires special environmental conditions. We also have a number of children who need one-on-one nurses.’’

Thus, in the past year the Lakewood school budget spent $33.8 million on 1,254 special needs students, not including out-of-district busing for 346 children of that group to private schools in surrounding towns. The continuing growth of the already burgeoning number of young orthodox Jewish men attending the local yeshivas, with their growing families, along with their high incidence of disabled offspring caused by marrying within a close-knit group, plus a racial susceptibility to certain genetic diseases, is the reason for the skyrocketing special education costs that are bankrupting the Lakewood school district.

On top of this is the growth of “progressive” decisions by liberal judges and court systems to mandate generous students' and parents' rights in the area of public education at the taxpayer's expense. Jews, better than anybody else, know how to take advantage of this.

Special ed litigation drives up Lakewood district legal costs

When (((parents))) and school districts have different ideas about the services that special education students should receive, disagreements often lead to mediation or legal action – frequent occurrences in Lakewood, where litigation costs helped drive total district legal costs to $1.5 million last year, the seventh-highest out of 103 K-12 districts with enrollments greater than 3,500 students.

"We note that the Lakewood district is in dire fiscal distress, facing chronic budgetary deficits and an inability to provide a thorough and efficient education,'' David Sciarra, executive director of the Newark-based Education Law Center, wrote in a complaint.

To counter this unsustainable growth in costs, the school board has hired the very attorney who has since 2013 been representing cases against them for the Jewish parents of “special needs” students. (((Michael Inzelbuch))) shown at right, successfully sued Lakewood schools in at least 80 cases. Records show over the past year he personally collected $722,376 in payments from  Lakewood from so-called “fee shifting” (payments that occur when courts declare families the prevailing party and order the school district to pay attorney’s fees and costs to the parents). Since 2013, the payments to Inzelbuch have totaled $1.2 million.

Although, back in 2002 – 2012 he was a school board attorney.

Now, he has once again agreed to work for the school board for a retainer of $600,000 – which is twice the $300,000 retainer Lakewood agreed to pay to the firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King a year ago. Some have criticized the decision and even filed a complaint (Sciarra above) saying it doesn't comply with state regulations curbing high legal services costs.

The deal also gives Inzelbuch, 52, a $29,000 reimbursement for a health insurance plan, an additional $350 an hour for litigation services, and reimbursements for "billed expenses'' such as filing fees, travel, parking and photocopying.

District officials conceded that Inzelbuch's retainer is high, but they also said it's expected the move will bring down legal bills, which have exceeded or come close to $1 million annually over the last five years. Part of the expected savings was attributed to having Inzelbuch working for the district instead of against the district. The day before school started in September, Inzelbuch arranged an in-service training session for the Special Services Department, complete with tips on how to help the district stay out of the hearing room or courtroom. “It’s pro-active education,’’ Inzelbuch said of the workshop. “More and more districts and lawyers are trying to do it.’’

The session included an overview of what teachers and staff need to know about maintaining proper special education records. Inzelbuch said federal and state law affords all students legal rights that can trigger liability for school districts if not honored.

Yep, the rights of students in FREE public education has dominated since 1970, and has only gotten worse with the increase of so-called “minority” students in the system. Of course, it is also ENFORCED education. Is there some misreading of the Constitution at the bottom of all this? That is possible, yet one thing is clear: it takes a Jew to successfully do battle with Jews. Where does that leave the rest of us?

Opinion: Ultra-orthodox Jews should not be allowed citizenship rights in the USA

I base this on the grounds that they are not in accord with the spirit of freedom this country stands for; they impose disgenic rules on their own people and become a burden on society. The freedom they want is for themselves only. I believe that people whose own religiously-held beliefs and strictures put the surrounding community at harm, whether intended or not, should be banned from living here … period.

The only right place for ultra-orthodox Jews is Israel, or in some little-inhabited place where they are on their own. Instead, they congregate in the most highly populated and advanced cities and nations, where they “reach out” for all the financial benefits they can find while in all other ways isolate themselves from the surrounding community. The only outsiders they support are politicians. Their disgusting practices keep others away from them and they are always disliked by the non-Kosher folks around them. But it is their desire/need/taught ability to steal from their non-Jewish neighbors and community, without remorse or let-up, that makes them unfit to be citizens of this nation.

'Live And Let Live' doesn't work with Jews.

[This article was based on news stories from here and here]