N.Y. Leaders Move to Save Hasidic School Rejected by Supreme Court

The governor and legislative leaders agreed Friday on new laws aimed at keeping open a public school for disabled Hasidic students that was ruled unconstitutional this week.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that the 1989 state law creating a special public school district for the handicapped youngsters of an Orthodox Jewish village in the Catskills violated the separation of church and state.

The Satmar Hasidic sect, which follows strict religious rules, operates its own parochial schools in the village of Kiryas Joel. But it wants the state to handle the more expensive job of instructing about 200 handicapped students.

Lawmakers agreed Friday on a bill to allow that schooling to continue until a new district could be formed. Aides to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and legislative leaders said a second bill could be passed soon to allow villages meeting specific criteria to create their own school districts.

Louis Grumet, executive director of the state School Boards Assn., said he believed that the criteria were so specific that only a handful of municipalities would apply--and perhaps only Kiryas Joel. Grumet sued to have the 1989 law declared unconstitutional and said he would do so again.

“This statute is a sham, just like the last statute was a sham, the one that the Supreme Court struck down,” he said. “I guess you could call it a son of sham.”

Anne Crowley, Cuomo’s press secretary, said state leaders believe that the bill passes constitutional muster. It is based on an approach suggested by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in the high court’s ruling, Crowley said.