The majority of NYC Council Members have signed a letter to the NYS Education Department to raise concern about their guidelines for private schools.
Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools (PEARLS), has sent a statement about the City Council Letter to the State Education Commissioner:
Today, 28 New York City Council members – a majority of the Council – criticized State Education Department’s new guidelines governing New York’s non-public schools, including the state’s yeshivas.
In a letter spearheaded by Brooklyn Councilman Chaim Deutsch to the State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia, the group criticized SED’s “unprecedented incursion into private schools’ curricula” and the “process with which these guidelines have been put forward.”
This letter is signed by members of all faiths and who represent a diverse set of communities. We applaud them for standing up to tell the truth about SED’s misguided efforts.
The evidence is clear that SED mishandled these guidelines, which affect the fundamental parental and religious rights of tens of thousands of families.
We call upon the Commissioner to acknowledge the reality that these guidelines do not work for any sector of the private school community.
#16 and 17 are right. We don’t have the right to say seatbelts squash my kid. She’s my child and I can put her and others at risk cause I feel like it. A law is a law. And if you take government funds you can’t decide what you want to do or not. I’m grateful for every vaccine Innocent chicken pox? I got in my 30s and was deathly Ill for months. A close friend is deaf cause of german measles. Too many young men are off the derach because they are uneducated. Yes we have lawyers and others… Read more »
Every conversation turns into the vaccine debate? C’mon folks….And all our yeshivos need a better secular curriculum, especially for boys. Now I’m not saying we need to go as far as the proposed plan, but I’m certainly not happy with the current state either.
You don’t see a difference between a law that already exists – where it may take a long time, if at all, before it’s repealed, and meanwhile Jewish children need a school – and a law that’s been proposed but not yet enacted, where it can be fought?
As it clearly states in the excerpt you quoted, ” the only exception to this is what was done …in the United States..UNDER MY FATHER-IN-LAW…
The schools that were started by the F”R (lubavitch yeshiva, achei tmimim etc.) are the ones that teach secular studies.
The school that was started by the Rebbe, Ohelai Torah, does not teach any secular studies. Obviously, it is clear what the Rebbe’s view was.
Regarding the new “Substantial Equivalency Guidelines” for “Religious and Independent schools”, is it mandatory to have a certain amount of hours for them to solely be teaching math or any other subject, or is there not really such a requirement and what is mandatory is that all students be at a certain level in math or any other subject? So for example, can math be taught in the integrative method and spelling in the accumulative method. Meaning that as there is a allot of high level math in the book titled Rambam, among many other subjects there in the Rambam… Read more »
If you take funding from the government they can always hold it above your head to swing you to do what they want. If you truly believe in the right chinuch path, don’t take their money. You can’t have best of both worlds
There is a religious exemption to vaccination. But when you send your kids to a religious school that doesn’t recognize any religious requirement not to vaccinate, you’re sort of stuck there. The whole religious exemption works in public schools, where since the public school has no shita in religious practices, you can make such a claim. Anyway, there is no religious exemption for not vaccinating because there is no such psak from any of the big poskim nowadays to support this. Also, if you have a kid with a medical issue that can’t be vaccinated just get a letter from… Read more »
This became about vaccination? Wow. HAHAHAHA I give my kids vaccines, but not all of them. I speak to people in medicine and pharmaceuticals and my wife and I decide the safest ones and give them (ie. PDT, MMR, Polio). I have never taken or given my kids flu shots or chicken pox or any of these other newfandangled vaccines. I agree that every parent has the right to choose not to vaccinate their children. And as much as that is true, every private school has the right to say that we’re not going to accept your kid without a… Read more »
The below excerpt of a letter from the Rebbe reads like a nevuah for our times. The Freirdiker Rebbe was moiser nefesh against the soviets for chinuch, yet in America, a medina shel chesed, the Rebbe clearly took the approach to be in compliance with the law (when the alternative is closure). It is beyond me how chasidim are turning this into a yaarog vlo yaavor when the Rebbe clearly says otherwise. …It is not the role of Chabad to found schools for the learning of secular studies, not even when [this learning] is secondary. The exception to this –… Read more »
Now where does the Rebbe say that?? Sounds like you are getting your ideas from ‘outside sources’…
#6: yes, I’m aware of that claim. But even if we suppose it’s correct (and there are enough counterexamples to call it into question), that’s at most an indirect harm. So it’s more like saying that I can’t swing my arm even nowhere near your nose, because it sets up a breeze that eventually may feed into a tornado that will destroy your home. #9: that’s fine, we don’t have the right to make medical choices for your child. But we do have the right to tell you to bear the consequences of your choices – in this case, not… Read more »
You also have no right to send your children to schools to possibly infect other children with G-D forbid something they caught because they were not vaccinated
Vaccines are not something the aibishter needs us to fight for. Its something that SOME people decide they want to fight for/against. That is all true. But If SOME of those people include Yeshiva personal who decide if school admittance for my children is contingent on them being vaccinated then it does by default become a cause worth fighting for as the chinuch is tied to this! What if I live out of town and there’s only ONE Chabad educational institution that has C’VS this policy? Which is illegal in most instances of that accept federal funding and state grants… Read more »
I don’t agree. NOBODY had the right to decide my child’s medical choices when they will NOT be the ones who will bear the responsibility of that decision! Many parents of children who have experienced serious and life altering adverse reactions from vaccines have lamented ‘where are they now” in reference to the medical personal who gave the injection! Where would YOU be in MY child’s life if such a terrible but preventable event transpired? This is a point that NO-ONE can counter!
And also the gemara. We follow medical consensus because Hashem gave them the power to heal, not Gwyneth Paltrow
It’s actually the liberals who mandated vaccines in the democratic state of California. Republicans believe in letting people make their own decisions.
You write “Whereas a parent deciding what sort of education their child should have is not thereby affecting anyone else’s education.” The claim is that communities without education will ultimately rely on government assistance which means more tax on the general population. Thus, indirectly no English and math does affect other people. Living in a free country means people have the right to make decisions that don’t please everyone.
With the all due respect, making such a statement is very foolish. How can you compare what the Rebbe said about a specific vaccine in a time where that disease was very prevalent to the present situation where it’s standard that kids get exponentially more vaccines for much less serious things.
We dont choose to send our kids to yeshiva because america gave us a “right” to. We send our kids to yeshiva bc thats what the aibishter wants. Luckily it also happens to be that america isnt against yeshivas. And when they are, we use means bederech hateva and derech of al pi teve to fight it. Vaccinating/not vaccinating your kids is not something the aibishter needs us to fight for. Its something that SOME people decide they want to fight for/against. Many thousands of yidden through the ages died gruesome deaths in order to give their kids a torah… Read more »
Have you ever heard the expression, “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins”? Sure, you have the right to decide what substances your child should and shouldn’t be exposed to, but not where that impinges on others’ health and safety, as when you don’t vaccinate and thus allow other children to be exposed to harmful diseases. Whereas a parent deciding what sort of education their child should have is not thereby affecting anyone else’s education.
To #1: stop pushing your liberal anti-vaxxer agenda on chassidim. The Rebbe said to vaccinate – we vaccinate. No questions asked.
Parental rights are incumbent in all ALL areas of our children’s lives NOT just educationally. What I inject in MY child’s body is is just my right as to where he or she attends school and which curriculum is most appropriate! People are rightfully up in arms over this government interference of chinuch yet many of these same people quote the government and stand by them when they attempt illegically to strong arm the Orthodox Jewish mosdos not to accept unvaccinated firm children even through NYS has a provision for this via the religious exemptions which practically every private school… Read more »