Supervised vote sought for Shulamith

Reprieve for high school from plan for shutdown

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Nov. 14, 2008 / 17 Cheshvan 5769

Urgent decisions about the purchase of a new building for Bnot Shulamith of Long Island, whether or not the campus of Shulamith School for Girls in Brooklyn should be sold, and related matters could soon be in the hands of a new board of directors, elected by the parents of both schools.

Shulamith’s bylaws call for an election on January 2, 2009. With the appointed date approaching, an attorney for the 90 or so parents who sued to block the planned shutdown of the Brooklyn school “preemptively” asked a judge to appoint a special master to supervise the vote.

The judge responded with an order that by Dec. 3 the Shulamith administration should explain why a supervised election ought not be held.

The goal was to prevent the current administration from holding a vote on its own.

“I can imagine that [the school] might give notice to those whom they wish to,” said Robert Tolchin, attorney for the parents. “I would, in all fairness, give notice to every single parent” of both schools.

The bylaws, which state that parents of currently enrolled students are eligible to vote, have been at the heart of Tolchin’s legal arguments that the current board and administration of the school are illegitimate. New York State Supreme Court Justice James Starkey has ruled that the parents have standing to sue, though Tolchin said he does not expect that the case will ever go to trial.

An attorney for the school, Edward Rubin, alternately argued that the bylaws did not exist, or were defunct. Both claims have been proven to be untrue.

“Of necessity it’s going to have to be nominations from the floor,” Tolchin said of the election process. “You don’t actually have a single member of the board who is duly elected.” Jan. 2 is a Friday – highly inconvenient at this time of year, he noted.

Immediately after a new board is constituted, Tolchin said he would expect its members to “come together and determine the best way to proceed in the interests of the school.”

Buying and selling properties, a financial audit, and the school’s future relationship with its executive director, Rabbi Moshe Zwick, whom, he noted, has served the school for more than 30 years, would all be at the top of the agenda, he predicted. Rabbi Zwick did not return a call requesting his views.

A meeting of parents from the two schools is likely to be contentious.

Tolchin notes that among his clients “there’s a camp out there that says that the creation of the school on Long Island was never valid.”

A Bnot Shulamith parent who didn’t want to be named in print “questioning other people’s motives” admitted he has “strong feelings about what’s going on.” Long Island parents might attend the meeting “with pitchforks,” he predicted.

“I find this process very frustrating. For years we have been patiently waiting while our daughters have been sitting in small, sometimes makeshift, classrooms with inadequate resources strewn across the Five Towns,” he said. Meanwhile, in his view, “the building in Brooklyn is underutilized and is not serving the needs of that population.”

Another Bnot Shulamith parent told The Jewish Star, “Many Long Island parents like myself are scared to go on the record for fear of retribution from Rabbi Zwick,” Shulamith’s executive director. “Bnot Shulamith of Long Island does not appear to have a set of bylaws of any kind; little parent body representation on the board; a board without financial or educational oversight. I’m hopeful that this court decision will be a step in the right direction but nonetheless I’m not willing to risk an on the record comment at the risk of my daughter’s future.”

A plan to close Shulamith High School has been abandoned, along with a contingency plan to fast track this year’s tenth graders with an eye toward graduating them next year. An open house for prospective ninth graders is scheduled for Tues. Nov. 25, between 7:30 and 9:00 p.m. Rabbi Saul Chill, the menahel, told The Jewish Star “the plan is to continue to have a four year school.”