New East Ramapo monitor appointed as education commissioner says board ignores kids' needs

East Ramapo has a new fiscal monitor, Shawn Farr, the New York State Department of Education announced Tuesday. The district has been under the watch of a monitor team for several years to address East Ramapo's ongoing financial struggles and educational challenges.

In announcing the appointment, state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa made clear her disappointment with leadership of the district serving the greater Spring Valley area.

“East Ramapo’s Board of Education continues to ignore the needs of the district’s children and families. The district consistently fails to meet its most basic and necessary fiscal and operational tasks," Rosa said in a statement, "like developing and implementing a balanced budget, transporting students, and maintaining an educational environment that is safe and welcoming for all students and staff."

Like current East Ramapo education monitor Shelley Jallow , Farr's roots are in Rochester. Farr is retiring as CFO of Rochester City School District. Jallow joined East Ramapo's monitor team in 2023, after serving as a monitor for Rochester city schools. The two worked together there.

Rosa said of Farr: "I am confident he will help get the district back on track for the sake of the students and their families.”

The previous fiscal monitor, Bruce Singer , left in June.

"I'm delighted that he's coming," said Oscar Cohen, co-chair of the NAACP Spring Valley Chapter's Education Committee. "We're looking forward to working with him." Cohen noted that the district has many open senior administration positions, and Farr's experience as a district CFO could help.

What does it mean to be a fiscal monitor in a NY school?

Farr, like Jallow, will serve as an ex-officio member of the board of education. In New York, four districts are under state monitorship, with monitor duties that include:

• Annually updating the district’s long-term strategic, academic and fiscal improvement plan, in collaboration with the board of education, and reporting to the state education commissioner any violations of those plans.
• Reviewing proposed budgets and recommended to the commissioner any needed changes.
• Recommending cost-saving measures.

East Ramapo's monitors have stronger powers; district monitors can:

• Override proposed or adopted resolutions and submit their resolutions for adoption if the district is in violation of law or not following the approved long-term strategic academic and fiscal improvement plan.
• Reject the appointment of a superintendent; the district currently has an interim superintendent, Anthony DiCarlo , appointed after the school board failed to renew the contract of the former superintendent, Clarence Ellis.
• Mandate training for board members and school district officers.

Strains on East Ramapo

Myriad factors have strained district finances. The last fiscal monitor repeated warned that East Ramapo faces a looming deficit as costs for universal busing and other expenses grow. Meanwhile, East Ramapo's bond rating, one step above junk, has essentially cut off the kind of short-term borrowing that is standard in most governments and school districts.

While costs have grown, including universal busing for some 40,000 kids who live in the district, the local tax share has been stagnant. District voters for the first time in about a decade voted to increase the tax levy this year, after a string or rejected or 0% tax-levy increase budget plans.

Meanwhile, infrastructure in the district is strained; even with a massive building project paid for with $90 million in federal COVID-era funding, district officials have said at least $200 million more would be needed to make repairs to its 14 school buildings.

Conditions were so bad for so long that water fountains have been turned off for eight years, unfixed after high levels of lead were detected. District officials have said the repairs should be done by fall 2024.

The district serves more than 10,000 public-school kids, more than half of whom are English language learners, and more than 30,000 private-school children, most of whom attend yeshivas. Both the public- and private-school student populations are growing fast.

With limited resources, a majority of school board members are often seen by the public school community as favoring the yeshiva community. Meanwhile, the public schools have the highest student homelessness rate in the state and lowest graduation rate in the Lower Hudson Valley.

Rochester city schools, where Farr served as CFO since August 2022, has around 20,700 public school students. About 16% of its student population are English language learners; 51% are Black or African American; 34% are Latino or Hispanic; and 9% are white. The district has a 67% four-year graduation rate.

About 75% of East Ramapo's public school students are Latino or Hispanic, 18% are Black and 4% are white. East Ramapo's four-year graduation rate is 63%.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New East Ramapo monitor appointed as education commissioner says board ignores kids' needs