Lakewood's SCHI 99 percent white, despite minority school district Check out our interactive graphic on the school's race make-up below.

Payton Guion | Asbury Park Press

LAKEWOOD - A Lakewood special-education school, which has been under fire since its director was indicted earlier this year, caters almost exclusively to white students, despite receiving millions of tax dollars from a mostly minority school district, an Asbury Park Press investigation has found.

Of the 202 New Jersey public school students sent to the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence during the 2016-2017 school year, just one is non-white, public school documents obtained by the Press show.

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These findings are reminiscent of years-old allegations of segregation at the school, commonly called SCHI (pronounced "shy"), which were part of a report by the state Department of Education in 2006, but that report was later withdrawn.

'Like the numbers haven't changed at all'

The Press found that little has changed in the school's enrollment of minorities in the decade since that report came out, even as it continues to grow and collect tens of millions of dollars every year in taxpayer money. In the 2016-2017 school year, the impoverished Lakewood Public Schools with mostly minority children paid SCHI $22.9 million in tuition, district officials said.

Lakewood School Board President Barry Iann said that mostly Orthodox Jewish students attend the school. The township of 100,000 has mostly Orthodox residents.

There appears to be little oversight of enrollment at special-education schools like SCHI. District officials say placement decisions are done by individual child study teams that work in private. State Department of Education spokesman David Saenz said he was unaware of racial enrollment data for SCHI.

"It seems like the numbers haven't changed at all," said Edward Barocas, legal director of the New Jersey office of the American Civil Liberties Union, who worked on a 2005 lawsuit regarding the race of students Lakewood sent to SCHI. "We were concerned about this a decade ago and our concerns have not been allayed over time."

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Lakewood refers the vast majority of New Jersey public school students attending SCHI, sending 193 of the 202 students this school year, according to the district. Records show that 192 of those are white and one is Hispanic. Seven other districts in the area send students to SCHI, according to a DOE report, all of whom are white. See the chart below for a breakdown of those students.

West Long Branch also sent one student to SCHI this school year, but the district refused to disclose the student's race, citing privacy laws. None of the other districts withheld that information.

SCHI's website says it provides care for more than 600 children and adults with various disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. Records from the state education department and local school districts show that 202 of those students are from New Jersey school districts.

It's unclear where the remaining students are from, as SCHI, a private nonprofit company, has repeatedly declined to provide even basic information about enrollment to the Press. It also has steadfastly refused numerous interview requests and access to its Oak Street campus.

Through intermediaries, including requests to local and state politicians who appear there for photo-ops, the Press has repeatedly sought access to the campus and its officials over the years, to no avail.

The school also declined to provide comment for this story. Earlier this year, SCHI's founder and director, Osher Eisemann, was charged with stealing more than $600,000 in public funds. He has pleaded not guilty.

State law requires public school districts to provide special education services to all students living within a district who require such care. If the schools cannot provide proper services inside the school, the district must pay tuition for students to attend private facilities, like SCHI, that can accommodate them.

This school year, Lakewood sent 377 special education students out of district. For comparison, Toms River sent 130 students out of district in the 2016-2017 school year. Lakewood has about 6,000 public school students and 30,000 students who attend private, mostly religious-based, schools. Toms River has 15,600 students.

Of those 377 students from Lakewood, 284 were white, around 75 percent of the total. Nearly 17 percent were Hispanic, 6.9 percent were black and about 1 percent were multi-racial, the district's data show.

EXCLUSIVE: SCHI overcharged Lakewood, others by $340K

These figures seem to conflict with the fact that Lakewood's public school students are 85 percent Hispanic, 8.3 percent black and 4.5 percent white. But Lakewood is a unique district. State law requires that the district provides special education services for any of the 36,000 students – public or private – who need care.

In a typical case, a school district uses child study teams to place special-needs students in schools that can meet their needs. The study teams develop individualized education programs – or IEPs – for each special-needs student. Based on that IEP, children are placed into schools, with parents often given a few choices.

History of controversy

But Lakewood's placements have come under scrutiny in the past. A 2012 Press investigation reported how the Lakewood public schools actively kept minority children in need of special-education services from being enrolled in SCHI and other private schools.

A lawsuit from the ACLU of New Jersey prompted the 2006 report from the state DOE, which found a clear pattern of racial discrimination in Lakewood's special-education placements and called for sweeping changes. The district sued over the findings and the state eventually withdrew the report.

This school year, minorities made up nearly a quarter of Lakewood's out-of-district placements, according to district data. They were sent to a variety of schools across the region, both private schools and public schools in other districts, including in Jackson. Annual tuition at those schools ranged from $16,600 for Bnos Yaakov Elementary School in Lakewood to $97,427 for SCHI, school board records show.

But only one minority student was sent to SCHI, less than 1 percent of Lakewood students attending the highly regarded school.

More: Indicted Lakewood rabbi won't leave school and NJ is staying silent

Iann, the school board president, said the school district is not to blame for the overwhelming white majority at SCHI.

"It's outside the control of the board, the superintendent and the school monitors," Iann said about which children are sent to SCHI. "It's forbidden for me to stick my nose into the child study team."

The only way to question the child study team is for parents to appeal the study team's decision, said Michael Inzelbuch, a Lakewood attorney who for years has fought school districts over special-education placements. Inzelbuch was offered the position of Lakewood school board attorney on Wednesday, after several years away from the board.

Inzelbuch said even when minority students are referred to SCHI, parents are often hesitant for their children to attend, because they don't feel their children belong at the school.

According to Inzelbuch, between 2010 and 2012 there were 22 Lakewood special-needs students referred to SCHI that declined to attend the school. Of those, 19 were black or Hispanic, Inzelbuch said.

Knowing your rights

But even if a child is recommended to SCHI and wants to attend, the private school has the right to accept or deny students, court documents show. No information was available on how many students SCHI denied admission.

"I'm not defending it, it's a problem," Inzelbuch said about SCHI's enrollment. "It goes to a culture of fear and the school districts not providing proper information to minority parents that they can challenge the system.

"It's also a problem of the state. The state is equally the culprit" for not doing more to ensure parents understand their rights.

But the state didn't comment beyond saying that the school district's themselves are responsible for placements and many questions to the district were left unanswered. Superintendent Laura Winters, who is leaving at the end of the school year, did not respond to questions about students sent to SCHI.

Inzelbuch said no one in Lakewood's school district is responsible for answering public questions about special education placement.

More: Lakewood rabbi stole more than $630,000 from special-needs education fund

"There seems to be a big black hole in Lakewood where no one will speak to the public," he said.

Ray Dorso, Lakewood's director of special services, defended the district's placements.

"There is no concerted effort to limit who can go to SCHI," he said, but added that there is little oversight for special-education placements.

Other SCHI controversies

The 22-year-old school has faced heavy scrutiny since its founder and director, Rabbi Osher Eisemann, was charged with stealing more than $600,000 in public money earlier this year. Eisemann has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is expected back in court on July 3. He has said, through his lawyer, that he plans to keep leading the school.

Since the indictment, the Press reported that the SCHI overcharged Lakewood and other school districts by more than $340,000 in one year, according to a state audit of the 2011-12 school year. SCHI is appealing the findings. Audits in 2002 and 2012, found that the school did not conduct background checks on employees, as required by state law, and often uses public money to pay teachers in positions for which they aren't qualified.

Last month, a Press investigation found that a charity used to raise money for SCHI had not been registered with the state for at least seven years, as required by state law, despite raising millions of dollars for the school.

State education officials have declined comment on whether the ongoing controversy at SCHI will affect the millions of dollars it gets from taxpayers.

More: Indicted rabbi to keep leading special-needs school

SCHI: Before indictment, school was no stranger to controversy

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Payton Guion: 732-643-4245; pguion@app.com