I am a Life Coach, mentor, student advocate and advocate for victims of abuse. I have worked with At-Risk kids in my neighborhood before people even wanted to acknowledge such a thing existed. I advocated for my own children when they were growing up and navigated them through our yeshiva system. Now they are doing the same for their own children while I help other kids and their parents do their best to make it through.

I joined the PTA and was President in my son’s Yeshiva. I made myself “the PTA” in one that was non existent. I can tell you something that you don’t want to hear. Many mechanichim take that job not because it is what they love to do but it is because they are not qualified or capable of doing anything else and it fits into their daily schedule.

YOU might be very devoted, and there may be many more like you. But there are way more parents and students out here than there are mechanichim and WE have seen both sides of the coin and we have a totally different view than you do. WE have seen the dark and ugly side. We have seen kids stuck because they didn’t get their diplomas from the wonderful schools who taught them even though tuition wasn’t paid. Do you know. Hat happens to those kids who can’t go on to college or get a job? I don’t think you care to know. There is no success in their stories.

Furthermore, are you not aware of the custom if children NOT getting their admission cards if the tuition hasn’t been paid??? If not where have you been and in what world do you live?

Parents that pay full tuition are covering costs for those who can’t pay tuition and everyone who doesn’t know this should. Yeshivas should have the decency to be upfront about it and give them a donation receipt for the difference. Honesty is the key to cooperation.

It is Chodesh Elul. What I wrote about is the truth. If you have a problem with it you should get angry but not at me. You should get angry at the fact that there a re so many children who are sitting at home cut off at the knees wondering what’s wrong. Ith them. If you are a true mechanech eps and truly care about your students you should be crying along with them. No child should be thrown out of yeshiva into the streets for any reason. Every punishment must be geared to fit the crime. Mechanichim need to learn how to deal with issues and catch them early on.

The success of each child rests squarely on the partnership of the yeshiva and the home.

Public schools are clearly NOT a long-term option for frum families wanting to send their children to a yeshiva but do you think its better for young children to sit at home and fall behind their classmates while waiting for a place to open for them. Wouldn’t they be better off in the short-term enrolling in a neighborhood public or charter school to keep up with their peer-group and have their parents or some local rebbe tutor them at home in limudei torah?

Nor did I offer this as the solution now… It is wistful and wishful thinking on my part.

If we would ALL vote as a bloc we wouldn’t even have to resort to doing this. Our school issue should be a deal-breaker in order to have a candidate get our votes. Of course, the day that all the moisdos would be on the same page about anything is the day for Moshiach to come.

As I wrote above, the solution at this time is to make chinuch the primary concern for Klal Yisroel – addressing all the challenges entailed, and most of all, to raise the funds needed to offer a place for every single child.

Rabbi Moshe Sherer ZT”L said it many times that it will not work. The city of NY would love nothing more then to infuse their school system with another 250,000 children (do the math – the orthodox schools combined do not even equal that number of children but I will go with that # to make you happy).

Do you realize how many new jobs it would create? new bus drivers, teachers, janitors, food service, monitors, administrative etc. thousands of new jobs and the state is providing more then $25,000 per child, the federal government will kick in their share and the city will LOVE AND GAIN SO MUCH if we put our kids into public school. It is a home run financially for the city. It is a silly suggestion and something that will NEVER happen so it is not a solution to offer.

Will there be a bottleneck and a bit of chaos if we enroll our kids en-mass? Yes, but the board of ed will have temporary solutions then quickly have permanent solutions and then what? Then all we will have is frum kids going to co-ed public schools. You will accomplish nothing.

Don’t you think that if this idea would work our local politicians and leaders would say to do it? Of course it cannot work and people need to just stop suggesting it already.

Focus on a real solution!

As a member of the board of directors of torah umesorah, the one organization claiming to be the umbrella for hundreds of schools across this great nation, they have the perfect match of strong willed leaders, financial giants, and a vaad roshei yeshiva, that together if all of these great leaders would sit in a room and lead, this problem will be solved. So can the tuition crisis be solved as well.

Accountability from the schools, responsibility to follow orders from our leaders, implementing rules that everyone is accountable for and full transparency is all we need to change the attitude and environment that has degenerated our chinuch system to the lowest level between schools and community members.

If a school has the right to paint and upgrade then the parents do as well.

If a school can arbitrarily decide on how much money to demand from parents then the parents can decide arbitrarily how much they want to pay.

If a school can decide which children to take the parents can decide the system stinks and can hold the schools responsible for the failures in our chinuch system.

Sadly, this article, and all the others that get published on this and other websites and papers will do nothing for a solution other then give people a place to vent.

When leaders lead followers will follow. When leaders hide followers think they can control and that results in chaos.

HKB”H has allowed for an attack on our Chinuch system in eretz yisroel but there at least there is an effort to fight it. Here in America we are orphans with nobody to blame but ourselves that we sit back and accept the abuse from this chinuch system.

Rabbi – you have full access to the leaders. You can make a difference. You can be the hero. It is in your hands.

MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

As someone who is now involved in a new start-up school, I challenge all of you regarding your comments. It is easy to darshen about children being turned away, but the amount of money needed to build or expand a school/yeshiva is enormous.

This applies to the cost of the actual construction, salaries, insurances, food, etc. etc. The tuition paid by parents is just a drop in the bucket of a school’s overhead. The overcrowding in most classes is already now detrimental to the teachers’ ability to focus on the individual student.

When one takes into consideration the natural growth of a school (by enrollment of siblings, i.e.) there is no way that these schools can logistically accept more children without sacrificing the quality of education that the existing pupils are getting.

In the chasidishe schools it is automatic that they have to accept their own. They usually charge the lowest tuition, but they count on the GENEROSITY of private donors to pay for the rest. It is absolutely impossible to exist without this help!!!

It is not a matter of discrimination, it is the reality of the situation. Boruch Hashem our population is exploding, but we just don’t have the means to keep up with the demand.

For the last two decades I have been preaching (to any available ear) that the best way we could get government assistance is to have EVERY frum child enroll in public school at the beginning of the school year. The state would go into panic mode since there is no way they could accommodate us. Perhaps that would get us the money needed to address this desperate situation.

In the interim, we have to make schools and yeshivas our primary focus when it comes to fundraising. Somehow, without knocking the needs of other worthy causes, education is on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to Zedakah.