Court Temporarily Permits Continuation of Challenged Lease To Jewish School

An Albany County, New York trial court judge last week stayed until at least Oct. 18 a decision by the State Education Commissioner that would have invalidated a lease of a school building by the East Ramapo Central School District to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls' school operated by Congregation Avir Yakov of New Square, NY.  According to Sunday's Lower Hudson Journal News, originally the school building was sold to Avir Yakov for $3.1 million, but that sale was cancelled by the State Education Commissioner after the Attorney General's office charged that Avir Yakov had paid off an appraiser to submit an artificially low appraisal of the building. Since then, East Ramapo has rented the building to Avir Yakov for $19.000 a month plus $2000 per month for the right of first refusal to buy the building. The Education Commissioner, responding to the complaint of the Save Our Schools Coalition, decided that this was an inadequate rental amount.  East Ramapo argued for the stay pending appeal of the Commissioner's decision because  the school district would have had to cut school services to reflect its loss of the $252,000 of income it anticipated this year from the lease.  A cancellation would also have left the Jewish school without a building just as the school year begins.