“I feel it’s incumbent on every school board member to care about the education of the kids  that’s why we’re there,” said Mimi Calhoun, who first came on the school board when the Orthodox members took control six years ago. “We don’t talk about it. We talk about money, about bids, budgets, contracts. We don’t talk about education. It’s shocking, and it’s becoming demoralizing for the district.”

WHAT set things off was a vote to hire a Long Island lawyer, Albert D’Agostino. His main appeal to the board was that he represents the Lawrence School District on Long Island, which also is controlled by Orthodox Jews, and has been enterprising in finding lawful ways to provide special education services at shared expense to private school students. It is a complicated issue involving cost, services and guidelines about providing services in the least restrictive environment that the board majority says can be handled more effectively and less expensively in Ramapo.

It might have been a tough sell even if Mr. D’Agostino’s fees and expenses were not four times what the current lawyers get paid when the board is desperately pruning costs everywhere else and if he had not been part of an investigation by the state attorney general’s office questioning the legality of public pensions being awarded to him and other lawyers.

Mr. Wieder and Mr. Rothschild, who is not Hasidic and tends to be a moderator between the two sides, say it is inaccurate and unfair to insinuate that the board cares about issues other than education. They point out that the board has expanded full-day kindergarten and opened a new early education center. They say that a well-run district means more resources, not less, for education. Still, it’s painful to watch, whether it’s Mr. Wieder referring to improving “the services we are required to provide for the unfortunate special-needs children” or much of the audience hooting when he concluded with “God bless America.”

You can say it’s a lot more benign than other culture clashes around the world, and it probably is. But at the very least, you could draw the conclusion that if you want to make decisions for children and communities with which you have little in common, you better listen well, reach out far and do everything in as transparent a way as possible. Few people seem to think that’s the way things have worked in East Ramapo.