Teach NJS, an organization founded by the Orthodox Union, brought together state coalition partners and individual schools, including the Noor-Ul-Iman School, the Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva and St. Joseph High School, who all gathered on the front lawn of the Noor-Ul-Iman School in South Brunswick to advocate for state security funding. The goal of the event was to draw attention to the immense inequality gap that the state has between public and private school funding for security.
“We are here with one voice, and with a simple belief: All students, regardless of where they attend classes, should be safe at school,” said Nathan Lindenbaum, a founding member of Teach NJS. “We implore Trenton to invest equally in security for all students.”
Lindenbaum noted he celebrated the three-fold increase in school security funding for nonpublic schools, to $2 million, in the 2018/2019 state budget in Florida, and hopes to see the same in New Jersey. “We applaud the example Florida’s state government has set and hope it serves as a model in our own state,” he said.
Most notably, the students who spoke were passionate about the topic and genuinely concerned for their and their classmates’ security. “When I hear about threats to Islamic schools and mosques, it bothers me and it makes me, and my parents, very worried.” said Arafat Ayub, a rising senior at the Noor-Ul-Iman School. “The state of New Jersey should increase its support of security at non-public schools, so our schools can keep us safe in the best ways.”
Joey Ostroff, a seventh grader at the Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva in Edison, a school with over 300 students, shared details of a close call his school recently experienced with a potential threat, and added his thoughts: “Many nonpublic school communities have been subject to threats, vandalism and scares, etc. As all of us have heard, recently, there have been many tragedies in public schools across the nation. Private schools are no less vulnerable to this danger,” he said. “We need the members of our towns and cities who are elected to represent us in Trenton to take our safety, as children, as a first and foremost priority,” he added.
Educators and advocates representing the Muslim, Catholic and Jewish school communities across New Jersey gathered, with elected representatives, to call on the governor and legislative leaders to increase security funding for nonpublic schools to the same levels as public school security. Each speaker shared his or her unique community perspective on the need for equitable security funding.
Josh Caplan, Teach NJS’s executive director, shared that New Jersey has more than 150,000 students studying in nonpublic schools, representing around 10 percent of the state’s school-age population. “They have been allocated $75 per pupil for school security while public schools have been allocated approximately $144 per pupil. And in the governor’s proposed budget, the gap increases to an estimated $190 per pupil for public school security while the allocation for nonpublic school students remains at $75 per pupil. That’s just not fair,” he told the assembled crowd.
The Muslim community, notably represented by Eman Arafa, head of school at the host institution, Noor-Ul-Iman, a pre-K through 12th grade school with 575 students, is concerned about school security set against a backdrop of rising hate crimes. “I am deeply concerned about the threats our schools face and the inequities in support we receive from the state legislature for essential security measures. In late March of this year, NJ.com reported that hate crimes were on the rise in New Jersey and, according to the attorney general, schools were the most frequent location of such crimes—averaging at 27 percent of the total. That is indeed troubling,” she said.
From 14 years of lobbying state governments, Kim Chorba, of the NJ Network of Catholic School Families, said she has witnessed the following gestures from state officials: numerous state proclamations, flag raisings, participation in ethnic and religious parades and festivals and other activities to demonstrate their concern. “We deeply appreciate their presence at our events and their active support. And yet we puzzle at the lack of parity when it comes to NJ state funding for the urgent security needs of our nonpublic schools,” she said.
The coalition was joined by leaders of the New Jersey State Assembly in advocating for equality in security funding regardless of where students attend school. Deputy Assembly Speaker Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) said, “We ask for no more for parochial school children than any other children. We only ask that the state recognize that wherever children go to school in New Jersey, they are indeed New Jersey’s children.”
Deputy Assembly Whip Robert Karabinchak (D-Edison) explained, “The most important issue is our children. It doesn’t get more important than that; all of our lives revolve around our children and there is no amount of money, in my position or my mind, that should be limited to protect them.”
By Max Milstein
Max Milstein is a student at Baruch College and a summer intern at The Jewish Link.
