Joseph:
You wrote: “children with televisions in their home affects the child and carries a very strong possibility of that child negatively affecting classmates. No question about it. And there are other influences that a child can have that will negatively affect his or her classmates that must be accounted for. Sometimes the damage that can be done to multiple classmates is more than the damage of requiring that one child to change yeshivas.”
My previous comment was that the statement about negative effect from television sounds really holy. However, it does not pan out in terms of the consequence. Many of my generation grew up with televisions in the home, and turned out to be successful klai kodesh. Their TV’s had no impact on them, and certainly not on me. I am not defending TV, and feel that no home should have one. I oppose using yeshivos as the enforcers of that, or children as the victims. The labeling of a child by the yeshivos based on some of these “standards” is arbitrary. It sounds noble, not different from Korach pronouncing כל העדה כלם קדושים ובתוכם ה. But it has no factual basis, and has yet to be proven. Rather, the role of the yeshiva is to bring the child to the level of Yir’as Hashem in which the choice of that over the TV will be made. That’s what yeshivos did for a few generations. Are we holier now? Where are the current Gedolim that are being produced from this noble arrangement?
You are correct that there are instances in which a child needs to leave a particular yeshiva. There are “rodfim”. But the burden of proof that a given child is among those is on the yeshiva, and outside of the holy sounding words of “standards”, there is nothing to support the expulsion or rejection. There are situations of a mismatch between a yeshiva and an applicant. If the yeshiva was ever in a position of being responsible for the child, it is incumbent on that yeshiva to participate in the effort to find alternative placement. If the parents fooled the yeshiva with inaccurate information, they bear the responsibility.
You referred to “changing yeshivos”. I would agree. However, my experience with many cases is that the expelling yeshiva does not contribute to the alternative placement. It is fact that they sometimes sabotage efforts for the talmid to go elsewhere. This is not an empty or vicious accusation, but facts on the ground. In such cases, the talmid is being sent to the street. The balance of the two sides is not the same as your statement about “changing yeshivos”.