Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company  
The New York Times
June 28, 1994, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section D;  Page 21;  Column 1;  National Desk 

LENGTH: 1514 words

HEADLINE: THE SUPREME COURT: THE SCHOOL;
Ruling Leaves Anxiety Among Parents But Perhaps Little Change for Students

BYLINE:  By JOSEPH BERGER 

BODY:
While the Hasidic villagers of Kiryas Joel were left deeply troubled by their legal setback in the ruling yesterday by the United States Supreme Court, the daily lives of the school district's 200 students may not change that much, school officials said.

The district, created primarily for handicapped and learning-disabled Hasidic children, could be administratively absorbed by the adjoining Monroe-Woodbury school district, with its 5,500 children from largely secular backgrounds, yet continue as a largely Hasidic enclave, school officials said.

And officials in Albany were studying whether they could draft legislation that would allow the present set-up to continue without violating the court ruling.

Before 1989 -- when the Kiryas Joel Union Free School District was created by the New York State Legislature -- an effort to merge the Hasidic children into a public school district did not work out because Hasidic parents did not want to have their children ridiculed for their uncommon dress or have them violate religious dietary rules at, say, an outing to a McDonald's.
 
Anxious Parents' Queries

The difference now is that the entirely Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel has its own schoolhouse and its own largely Orthodox staff and four years of experience with the once exotic culture of public-school education. That schoolhouse could remain the Kiryas Joel school, with only a change in its governing structure, Terrence L. Olivo, the superintendent of Monroe-Woodbury, said in an interview yesterday.

Still, black-suited men and bewigged women in long-sleeved dresses milled around the squat brick Kiryas Joel schoolhouse yesterday anxiously questioning Kiryas Joel school district officials in Yiddish about what would happen to their children.

One 20-year-old woman, Miriam Landau, told a reporter how her parents had transplanted themselves and their nine children from Israel so one handicapped child, her 9-year-old sister Batya, could attend the Kiryas Joel school.

"It's like a question mark," she said of the decision. "You don't know what it's going to be."

Chaya Reisman said her 8-year-old son Shaloimy, who was born with Down's syndrome, had learned to speak and write in both Hebrew and English at the school.

"I don't think he will do that well in another surrounding," she said.
 
Keeping Same Experience

One of the chief options officials of Monroe-Woodbury and Kiryas Joel were exploring yesterday was absorbing the Kiryas Joel school and its staff, something which might eventually make the experience of going to school for the Hasidic children essentially the same as it was a month ago.

The vast majority of Kiryas Joel's 5,000 schooldchildren attend the village's private yeshivas, and the public school was created to provide full-time services to handicapped children and part-time classes for those yeshiva children who qualify for federally financed services for bilingual and learning-disabled children.

Such services are more expensive than regular classes. Setting up a public school made it easier for Kiryas Joel to capitalize on the Federal and state money that pay the bulk of such costs in public school systems.

Mr. Olivo said that not only was an annexation of Kiryas Joel being explored but also that such an annexation could be done in a way that would accommodate the needs of both the Satmar Hasidic community and the wishes of the secular communities in Orange County.

"I believe that the attitudes that existed four or five years ago have moderated," he said. "Monroe-Woodbury is better able to recognize that there is a difference in student populations and that some degree of accommodation is appropriate."

Mr. Olivo said a welter of troublesome details would remain -- melding disparate staffs, salary levels and pension obligations and acquiring a leased building. The fate of Kiryas Joel's founding school superintendent, Dr. Stephen Benardo, would also have to be weighed. The State Education Department would have to approve many of the decisions involved in the annexation, Mr. Olivo said.

As local officials were debating how to respond, efforts were under way in the State Legislature to devise new legislation to accommodate the needs of the residents of Kiryas Joel and the larger Satmar community, whose voting patterns have made them a powerful political bloc.
 
Decision Called Clear

In an interview, Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the State Assembly, said lawyers for the Assembly and for the Governor met yesterday and were exploring a bill that would permit villages throughout the state, not just Kiryas Joel, to create their own special districts. With the Legislature scheduled to adjourn on Friday, that would leave little time to draft such legislation in time for the school year starting in September.

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who signed the original legislation creating the special school district, issued a statement saying he was trying "to determine if there is anything further we can do to help them get an appropriate education without violating the Constitution."

But Louis Grumet, executive director of the New York State Schoiol Boards Association who brought the lawsuit challenging the Kiryas Joel school district, warned that he would go back to court. "This decision is crystal clear," he said. "It says you cannot politically gerrymander for religious purposes."

Abraham Wieder, the founding father of the Kiryas Joel school and the president of the school board, was in tears at a news conference as he read a statement responding to the Supreme Court decision.

"Unfortunately, they ruled against the children," he said. "As parents, however, we have no choice but to continue our search for a suitable way to provide a quality education for the most vulnerable of our children. The Supreme Court decision is a setback, not the end of this most important pursuit."

Kiryas Joel -- which means the Village of Joel and is named after the sect's former Grand Rabbi, Joel Teitelbaum -- was created in the mid-1970's to relieve some of the overcrowding in the Satmar's main American base in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

The school district, with a budget of $6 million a year, has made vigorous efforts to avoid violating the church-state wall, eschewing discussions of religion in classrooms and avoiding holiday decorations. The teachers are not from the Satmar community, since the sect discourages college education, but most are from nearby Orthodox Jewish communities like Monsey so they can converse with the children in Yiddish and be sensitive to their religious needs.

But Joseph Waldman, a dissident in the Satmar community, had long argued that the district breached the church-state wall because only those loyal to the Satmar leadership were permitted to run for the school board and those who defied that edict risked ostracism within the community. Yesterday he expressed pleasure in the Supreme Court decision.

"I'm proud to be part of it," he said. "It's a tremendous joy."
 
CHRONOLOGY
Kiryas Joel: a History
 
1975 -- Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum leads members of his Satmar Hasidic sect from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to Orange County. The community is called Kiryas Joel, in Hebrew the "village of Joel."
 
1985 -- The Monroe-Woodbury Central School District, citing court cases on church and state, stops teaching disabled Kiryas Joel children in a village school and places them in the town's public schools.
 
1986 -- The Village of Kiryas Joel sues the Monroe-Woodbury school district to provide male bus drivers to transport village boys to school. Religious law forbids Satmars from riding with female drivers. A federal court rules in favor of the Monroe-Woodbury school district. Boys begin walking to school, or parents drive them.
 
July 12, 1988 -- The New York Court of Appeals rules that the Monroe-Woodbury school district cannot be compelled to teach the village's handicapped children at a site separate from other public schools.
 
July 25, 1989 -- Gov. Mario Cuomo signs a law creating the Kiryas Joel Village Public School District.
 
Jan. 19, 1990 -- The New York State School Boards Association, Executive Director Louis Grumet and President Al Hawk sue the village school district, saying public money should not be used to support religion.
 
Jan. 22, 1992 -- Justice Lawrence Kahn rules that the law creating the Kiryas Joel school district is unconstitutional.;
 
Dec. 31, 1992 -- The Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court upholds Kahn's ruling. The court also decides that the school boards association has no legal standing to bring the suit. Mr. Grumet and Mr. Hawk continue the action as citizen taxpayers.
 
July 6, 1993 -- The state Court of Appeals rules that the Kiryas Joel school district represents an improper endorsement of religion. Justice Clarence Thomas later issues a temporary stay.
 
June 27, 1994 -- The Supreme Court rules New York cannot create a special school district for Kiryas Joel.
 
(Source: The Associated Press)


GRAPHIC: Map of New York State showing location of Kiryas Joel.

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 1994