Court Of Appeals Finds State Education Department Not Authorized To Close Schools, Parents Must Decide Where Their Children Attend

Earlier this morning, the New York Court of Appeals issued its decision in our litigation challenging the State Education Department regulations. While PEARLS believes that the Appellate Division’s decision should have been reversed, the Court of Appeals’ affirmance was based on an interpretation of the regulations that severely limits the State Education Department’s authority over yeshivas and yeshiva parents. 

That is because the Court of Appeals found that SED is not authorized to close schools and is also not authorized to direct parents to unenroll their children from the schools they chose for them. The Court of Appeals also confirmed that “parents . . . must determine how then to ensure their compliance with the Education Law.” PEARLS  have been fighting SED for ten years to make that very point:  that parents and not the State have control over the upbringing and education of their children.

These holdings of the Court of Appeals are especially significant because at oral argument SED conceded for the first time that parents can combine educational sources to satisfy the compulsory education obligation. Since schools can’t be closed by SED and children can’t be forced to unenroll, the practical effect is that parents can supplement any missing instruction through home-schooling or at an after-school program. That is what we have been advocating since the outset of this litigation.  

The Court of Appeals decision also has important implications for the six schools that SED has directed to close, and to the dozens of parents whose children were denied special education services at those schools for the coming year.

SED based that on its determination that those yeshivas “are no longer schools.” But today the Court of Appeals said that SED does not have the authority to make that determination. 

The NYC Department of Education rejected the PNIs (Parental Notifications of Intent) submitted by parents on the belief that children can no longer attend those schools. But today the Court of Appeals said that those children can continue to attend their yeshivas.

The Court of Appeals also refused to credit SED’s argument that the six yeshivas deemed non-equivalent cannot become equivalent by using the new pathways created by the recent amendments to the Education Law.  

We hope that the State Education Department and the Department of Education will now do the right thing.  If they don’t, we will continue to fight for our mosdos and our mesorah.