New Life For Vouchers?

Implications of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling
remain unclear.

JULIE WIENER STAFF WRITER

I

n a recent 5-4 decision, the tle I federal funding will now be
United States Supreme Court able to provide these services on
overturned one of its own school grounds.
precedents and ruled that
Local Jewish day school ad-
public school systems can send ministrators hope the new ruling
teachers into parochial schools to will enable their students to re-
teach remedial and supplemen- ceive on-site special public in-
tal classes to needy children.
struction. And advocates of school
But the implications for Jew- vouchers have applauded the de-
ish day schools and for larger de- cision, seeing it as a green light
bates over separation of church for programs in which the gov-
and state are unclear at this ernment provides tuition vouch-
point.
ers to parents who choose to
The recent case, Agostini v. enroll their children in private or
Felton, dealt with the New York parochial schools.
City public schools, where chil-
Andrea Liberman, supervisor
dren at religious schools currently for the learning resource center
receive remedial education. in at Akiva Hebrew Day School,
vans parked immediately off hopes the ruling means that
school grounds. Under the new Southfield Public Schools per-
decision, the public school teach- sonnel will be able to provide ser-
ers providing services through Ti- vices on-site to her students.

Currently, Akiva students re-
quiring physical therapy, occu-
pational therapy or speech and
language services must be bussed
to public school buildings. "A big
piece of learning time is missing
for these students because it's not
done within the building," said
Mrs. Liberman, explaining that
students usually spend half an
hour traveling by bus to a half-
hour session.
At Yeshiva Beth Yehudah,
many students receive off-site
services through Oakland
Schools (Oakland County Inter-
mediate School District), said ex-
ecutive director Rabbi Eli
Mayerfeld. He said he hopes the
court ruling will simplify proce-
dures.
The inconvenience of bussing
has led Hillel Day School to for-
go most public services, said Mar-
ianne Bloomberg, development
director. "Instead of taking them
and shuttling them back [for re-
medial services], we do it our-
selves," she said. She was not
certain if the court ruling would
change Hillel's policy.

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But Richard Simonson, Oak-
land Schools' assistant superin-
tendent for legislative affairs,
does not anticipate the decision
will change much for parochial
schools in Oakland County. "The
latest Supreme Court decision is
as cloudy as previous ones," said
Mr. Simonson. "It's a 5-4 decision
reversing a similar 5-4 decision,
and it deals with a very narrow
set of issues: Title I funds used
primarily for handicapped kids
and whether teachers can go into
parochial schools."
According to Mr. Simonson,
the ruling permits, but does not
require, public school teachers
providing special services to en-
ter the parochial schools. There-
fore, parochial school students
will only receive services at their
home schools (as opposed to be-
ing bussed to a public school
building) Wit is deemed more con-
venient for the public school dis-
tricts providing the services.
Because 97 percent of Oakland
County's school budgets come
from state and local sources (and
Title I represents only a small

part of the federal allocations),
said Mr. Simonson, "what D.C.
[District of Columbia] does and
when they do it does not have
much impact."
According to Mr. Simonson,
public scho9ls in Michigan follow
detailed state guidelines which
dictate what services can be pro-
vided, what services must be pro-
vided and what services cannot
be provided to parochial schools,
Just as the impact on school
services remains to be seen, the
impact on the school voucher de-
bate is also unclear.
"[The decision] doesn't impact
directly on vouchers," said Rabbi
E.B."Bunny" Freedman, former
executive director ofYeshiva Beth
Yehudah and a proponent of
school vouchers. "What it does do
is create another example to
demonstrate that courts believe
that a student that happens to be
in a faith-based school environ-
ment shouldn't be deprived of any
of the benefits offered to other
kids."

NEW LIFE page 22

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