A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 39 - Tuesday, September 28th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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State Education Commissioner Richard Mills has decided not to force the Garrison school district to accept temporarily 20 students from St. Basil Academy, leaving local taxpayers with a break while he reaches a final decision.
School officials
are not sure how much money the decision will save
the district, which has been in a tuition dispute
with St. Basil, a former Greek Orthodox boarding
school. Garrison has accepted one St. Basil
student from Buffalo, as the Buffalo school
district has agreed to pay for the student's
tuition, said Interim Superintendent Gary
Lowenberg. The academy stopped teaching its children in 1997 due to a lack of funds and has been paying for them to attend outside schools since then. St. Basil has claimed that the district failed to follow Mills' decision in April about the tuition dispute. Mills' decision said that children from the academy were not residents of the school district and therefore not entitled to a free education in Garrison. While the academy had said the children have no parents able to care for them and have made the former boarding school their home, Mills said custody of the children had not been transferred by parents or family courts. The decision, though, did require Garrison officials to contact the school districts and social service departments in the St. Basil students' hometowns to arrange for the children to continue their education after the 2003-2004 school year. If the home district could not be identified and determined, the Garrison school district would not have to enroll the students for free, Mills said. St. Basil said the district has not complied with the decision, a claim Garrison denies. Lowenberg, said none of the students' home districts has accepted financial responsibility for the St. Basil children, except for Buffalo. Paying for the St. Basil children would have a major impact on the school budget, Lowenberg said. The district's budget this year is about $7 million.
-The Journal News
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