March 28, 2015
By Paul Brooks and Jeremiah Horrigan
PINE BUSH – The barbs are sunk deep into the Pine Bush School District, and they sting.
Anti-Semitism. Anti-American insults. Bigotry.
Mention them outside this sprawling collection of 33,000 residents and listen to the murmurs of “What were they thinking?”and “When will it stop?”...
... "We're not a bunch of bigots," said Joanne Keillor, the Town of Crawford historian. "And we're not as controversial as people think. We're really a very sweet place."
But Pine Bush is also a place that has history with the Ku Klux Klan and whose population is overwhelmingly white and English-speaking....
...How the district got to this point is clearer.
First, there was the reaction to a development aimed at Orthodox Jews in the Sullivan County Village of Bloomingburg. Windows were broken. Native residents pushed to dissolve the village. Voter registrations were challenged. Lawsuits blamed the reaction on religious bigotry.
Then, parents of some students in the district said Nazi swastikas were being displayed in the schools. Bigoted insults were hurled at the kids, the parents said. When complaints reached the district administration, the response fell short, the parents claimed in a lawsuit. Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed the district. The federal government weighed in. The district denies it did too little. It is fighting the allegations. It has ramped up diversity education and anti-bullying efforts. The case has yet to come to trial.
The string of bad news might have ended there. Other districts have weathered lawsuits and scandals. Just a few years ago, the former superintendent of Middletown was convicted of sexually abusing a student.
Next came the Pledge of Allegiance being recited in Arabic.
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School read the Pledge in Arabic as part of National Foreign Language Week; it was as if a bomb had exploded in the district.
The story went national. Then international....
It is safe to say the school has an identity crisis. Perhaps it needs to change the name to "The National School of Continuous Stupidity. Sorry no College for You."
By Paul Brooks and Jeremiah Horrigan
PINE BUSH – The barbs are sunk deep into the Pine Bush School District, and they sting.
Anti-Semitism. Anti-American insults. Bigotry.
Mention them outside this sprawling collection of 33,000 residents and listen to the murmurs of “What were they thinking?”and “When will it stop?”...
... "We're not a bunch of bigots," said Joanne Keillor, the Town of Crawford historian. "And we're not as controversial as people think. We're really a very sweet place."
But Pine Bush is also a place that has history with the Ku Klux Klan and whose population is overwhelmingly white and English-speaking....
...How the district got to this point is clearer.
First, there was the reaction to a development aimed at Orthodox Jews in the Sullivan County Village of Bloomingburg. Windows were broken. Native residents pushed to dissolve the village. Voter registrations were challenged. Lawsuits blamed the reaction on religious bigotry.
Then, parents of some students in the district said Nazi swastikas were being displayed in the schools. Bigoted insults were hurled at the kids, the parents said. When complaints reached the district administration, the response fell short, the parents claimed in a lawsuit. Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed the district. The federal government weighed in. The district denies it did too little. It is fighting the allegations. It has ramped up diversity education and anti-bullying efforts. The case has yet to come to trial.
The string of bad news might have ended there. Other districts have weathered lawsuits and scandals. Just a few years ago, the former superintendent of Middletown was convicted of sexually abusing a student.
Next came the Pledge of Allegiance being recited in Arabic.
On March 18, a student at Pine Bush High School read the Pledge in Arabic as part of National Foreign Language Week; it was as if a bomb had exploded in the district.
The story went national. Then international....
It is safe to say the school has an identity crisis. Perhaps it needs to change the name to "The National School of Continuous Stupidity. Sorry no College for You."
