New York Daily News -
http://www.nydailynews.com
Yeshiva seeks public funds
for sex-segregated pre-K
BY ELIZABETH HAYS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, July 16th, 2004
A Williamsburg yeshiva is hoping to overturn a city ruling that bars single-sex nursery schools from getting public funding for prekindergarten classes.
Rabbi Joseph Lefkowitz of the Yeshiva Yesode Hatorah charges that it is discriminatory to deny public funding for so-called universal pre-K classes at yeshivas and other private schools that separate male and female students.
"It's unfair and it's unjustified, and definitely the children in our community are losing out because of this," said Lefkowitz, who has been fighting for the public funding for four years.
"We aren't serving only boys or only girls. We serve both. It's just segregated," he added. "That's what the parents wanted, and we serve the community."
The yeshiva has joined forces with Councilman David Yassky (D-Williamsburg) to pressure the Department of Education to reconsider its decision to bar separate-sex schools from receiving the public funding.
"We're going to try to make another effort to get the Department of Education to change their mind," said Yassky, who brought the issue before the chancellor at a hearing in May. "These are 4-year-olds that are entitled to the same prekindergarten programs that every other 4-year-old is entitled to."
Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said that according to the department's general counsel, Michael Best, federal law Title IX prohibits the city from funding single-sex preschools.
"The exception in Title IX is for elementary as well as secondary nonvocational, schools that allow single sex for educational purposes," she said. "This exception does not apply to preschool."
Lefkowitz said the controversy dates to spring 2000, when his 800-student Jewish school on Bedford Ave. was invited by the city to apply for public funding for the then-new universal pre-K program, which aims to provide school for impoverished 4-year-olds.
But then, suddenly, after getting initial approval - and spending $50,000 to renovate a new building for the program - the yeshiva was told it did not qualify for public funds because of its segregated classrooms, Lefkowitz said.
Lefkowitz said he was stunned by the news because the school had already been approved for $260,000 by members of the now-defunct Board of Education. Lefkowitz also said the school never hid the fact that it planned to separate sexes in its application, which was approved - and said he was even given a memo by the city Law Department concluding that it was not a problem to fund the separate-sex school.
"I asked them if it was going to be a problem, and they said no," said Lefkowitz, adding that he had already accepted 80 kids he did not want to turn away when the funding fell through.
"We had a major loss. We're still in bad shape since then, because we never caught up."
