Bais Rochel, a secondary school, is located in the same facility as Seminary, with the same administrator overseeing both institutions. Seminary timely requested a hearing. A program review was conducted at Seminary by ED's Regional Office in New York from February 4-7, 1992. It is common to find students beginning their religious training at a time when they are enrolled in secular studies equivalent to the 7th or 8th grade. By the time they ordinarily begin secular high school, these same students already have had two years of religious high school studies.
Students then go on to postsecondary religious studies with no secular component.
Judaic High Schools do make allowance for the cultural expectations of some high school students wanting to continue secular studies by allowing them to continue studies leading to graduation and a secular high school diploma. Yet, this in no way is required for admission into the postsecondary religious studies program. Rabbi Rosenbaum testified that Seminary administrators were first aware that they had misread the student eligibility criteria after receiving notice of the initiation of an emergency action. They were told that the policy of accepting students for postsecondary instruction and Pell eligibility based on the students' religious high school diploma was in error as long as such students continued in the secular portion of high school. Seminary now admits to having erroneously disbursed Pell funds to those students for postsecondary instruction and Pell eligibility based on their attainment of a religious high school diploma, and offers to repay ED for those grants.