Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
is provided through entirely private schooling. But though the Satmars could afford to educate most of their children, educating the handicapped is a difficult and expensive business. Moreover, it is a business that the government generally funds, with tax moneys that come from the Satmars as well as from everyone else. In 1984, therefore, the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District began providing handicapped education services to the Satmar children at an annex to the Satmar religious school. The curriculum and the environment of the services were entirely secular. They were the same sort of services available to handicapped students at secular public and private schools throughout the country.
In 1985, however, we held that publicly funded classes on religious school premises violate the Establishment Clause. School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373; Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402. Based on these decisions, the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District stopped providing services at the Kiryas Joel site, and required the Satmar children to attend public schools outside the village. This, however, was not a satisfactory arrangement for the Satmars, in part because the Satmar children had a hard time dealing with immersion in the non-Satmar world. By 1989, only one handicapped Kiryas Joel child was going to the public school—the others were getting either privately funded services or no special education at all. Though the Satmars tried to reach some other arrangement with the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District, the problem was not resolved.
In response to these difficulties came the third accommodation. In 1989, the New York Legislature passed a statute to create a special school district covering only the village of Kiryas Joel. This school district could, of course, only operate secular schools, and the Satmars therefore wanted to use it only to provide education for the handicapped. But because the district provides this education in the village, Satmar children could take advantage of the district's serv-
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