Shulamith audit planned; second parent group seeks compromise
By Michael Orbach
Issue of Dec. 26, 2008 / 29 Kislev 5769
An independent auditor has been retained to examine the books of Shulamith School for Girls and its local branch, Bnot Shulamith of Long Island.
A complete examination of the school’s finances would fulfill the primary demand of a group of parents that is currently suing to block the planned shutdown of the Brooklyn school and the sale of its campus. The group also plans to hold elections for a new board on Jan. 2, whether or not a judge agrees to provide an overseer.
Ironically, the audit, and the progress it represents, was announced by a second group of Brooklyn parents that says it is devoted to negotiating a peaceful solution to the dispute. A letter to parents dated Dec. 14 was also signed by the school’s executive director, Rabbi Moshe Zwick, its president, Sam Gross, who is a resident of the Five Towns, and by several members of the existing board.
Heshy Katz, a partner in Roth & Company LLP, a Brooklyn firm with 30 accountants, confirmed to The Jewish Star Tuesday that the letter announcing that his firm had been named was correct.
The current Shulamith board, referred by a business acquaintance that Katz declined to name, hired the firm. Neither he nor any of the auditors who will work on the project under his supervision are Shulamith parents, he said.
According to the Dec. 14 letter, the results of the audit will be used to prepare proposals for “state of the art facilities, one in Brooklyn and one in Long Island, adequate to meet the needs of each community.”
“Both campuses will remain under the Shulamith umbrella,” the letter stressed, “with adherence to the Hashkafa and educational excellence which has sustained the school for the last eighty years.”
The audit arguably is the most important development yet in months of bitter wrangling over the future of Shulamith. The school has claimed that changing demographics in Brooklyn have caused the school to no longer be financially viable. The parents who sued have noted that the school has failed to cast a wider net for recruiting –– or any net for recruiting –– and runs few meaningful fundraising events. The school’s dinner, planned for early January, and held every year at the Marriott in Midtown Manhattan, reportedly will not take place.
In Bet Din and in the civil courts, the first group generally succeeded in stymieing a quick sale; it produced in court a set of bylaws that the school claimed was defunct but that had been used in recent years to secure a mortgage.
Steve Ebbin, a Brooklyn attorney and Shulamith parent who signed the letter stressed that the second group of parents shares the first group’s goals and is simply taking a slightly different approach to the problem.
“We’re saying that if the administration is willing to talk, we’re willing to listen [and] if they’re willing to verify their claim, we’re definitely willing to listen,” Ebbin told the Jewish Star. “The ultimate goal of everyone is that we have a place to send our kids in Brooklyn, of at least comparable or better quality than the [current] Shulamith school in Brooklyn.”
The second group began its effort to find a peaceful solution a little less than six months ago. Its existence throws into question whether the 90 or so parents who launched the civil lawsuit against the school represent the entire Brooklyn parent body.
“The very fact alone that a number of parents are willing to sign on [to the second group] would in and of itself lead someone to believe that the parents pursuing litigation do not necessarily represent the entire parent body,” said Dr. Eli Weinstein, also a parent and signatory of the letter.
Tova Ovits, one of the parents who brought the lawsuit, doesn’t believe that talk of a compromise will lead anywhere. The small second group is still part of the lawsuit, not a breakaway faction, she claimed, although none of the parents who signed the Dec. 14 letter are listed as plaintiffs.
Tolchin, the attorney for the first group, scoffed at the developments and asked, “Why is it important for anyone to compromise with the current board?”
“Does that mean there shouldn’t be elections for the board of directors as the certificate of corporation and the bylaws require?” he added. “I really just don’t understand the position.”
“We have asked independent counsel to advice us in drafting a settlement that each side can live with,” said Weinstein. “This is a yeshiva. It is something we are supposed to honor and respect, not play with like a commodity.”
Related:
