Shulamith parents asked to sign off on Brooklyn sale

Proposal to apply most of the proceeds to purchase of Inwood campus

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of April 3, 2009 / 9 Nissan 5769

Parents at Shulamith School for Girls are being asked to sign a proposal supporting the sale of the school’s Flatbush campus to buy a new facility in Inwood for Bnot Shulamith. The school is negotiating to lease a school building near the current Brooklyn campus, according to an accompanying letter signed by school president Sam Gross.

Administrators and teachers have toured the space on East 21st Street between Avenues K and L, “and determined that it is adequate to house Shulamith’s student body,” the letter said.

In an apparent show of confidence in the proposed location, Gross said that parents would be contacted to schedule similar tours “to satisfy the parent body that, with this available space, all is in order, and Shulamith is staying in Brooklyn.”

The text of the proposal begins by stating that an audit by an independent accounting firm determined “that the Brooklyn campus has been losing significant amounts of money, approaching one million dollars for the past year.”

In the current economic crisis “in which parents are increasingly unable to meet their tuition commitments,” it says, the Brooklyn campus will be “unable to operate ... unless decisive action is taken immediately.”

The space on East 21st Street includes a gym, auditorium and swimming pool, the proposal states, and would be leased with options to renew for up to 20 years. The pool and the gym are located in the adjoining East Midwood Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue on Ocean Avenue, according to Tova Ovits, a Shulamith parent who toured the facility with members of the board. Ovits is party to a lawsuit challenging the planned sale and the legitimacy of the current board.

“I was not very impressed. It needs a lot of money to renovate and I don’t see why you should waste it on something that somebody else owns,” said Ovits, who said that she would prefer that the school purchase a comparable building large enough to house the entire student body.

There are 16 classrooms, she said the group was told; most were locked during the tour and not available for inspection. One had room for eight desks, Ovits reported. The group was told that the building’s air conditioning is non-functional. The classrooms they saw had ceiling fans, she said.

“There’s not enough room in any way possible,” she added.

One of the board members who toured the facility, Yechiel Bromberg, said in a prepared statement: “The Board is still in the middle of negotiating a lease agreement with the synagogue, and will be better able to provide specific details after the lease is signed.”

Details that remain unclear include the initial term of the lease under negotiation, what criteria would be used to determine if there is sufficient enrollment to continue with the lease, and who would make that determination.

Also, Gross’s letter called the property “adequate” but it is unclear exactly what repairs are needed and if Shulamith is committed to upgrading the building into a facility of the same quality as the future Long Island campus.