Today's Florida Jewish News carries a long account of a Broward County School Board meeting held last Tuesday to deal with two changes in plans for the Ben Gamla school, a Charter School that will teach Hebrew. The controversial school has already been approved by the Board, despite concerns about church-state issues. (See prior posting.) Tuesday's meeting approved a change in the Hebrew curriculum that will be taught. The school agreed to switch to one that had already been approved for Hebrew language courses in public schools, in order to alleviate concerns that its Hebrew course would have too much religious content in it. The Board also approved a change in location of the school-- out of a synagogue and into a larger building because of the high demand for enrollment in the fall. (Official report, Item I-13).
Responding to church-state concerns, Susan Onori, Broward County coordinator for charter schools, said that a monitoring team would check to make sure that the school did not teach the Jewish religion as part of its Hebrew language, history, and culture offerings. Among those expressing concern about the new school were Eric Stillman, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Broward County, whose Community Relations Committee strongly supports church-state separation. Also raising issues were representatives of two existing Jewish day school, whose enrollments will presumably be threatened by the tuition-free charter school. One of them argued that it is impossible to teach Hebrew and Jewish culture without teaching religion. Supporting the charter school were representatives of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
