last ditch effort to keep daughter out of PS -meeting today

manhattanmom

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 3:48 pm

I haven't been commenting much but have been following your posts.
I'm so sorry you had a bad experience today.

It does seem like you are going about the whole scenario properly and in the best way for your daughter. And I'm looking forward to following your blog if it is something you end up doing. Please give us the link.

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 3:53 pm

OP
Sometimes , they leave no choice
For years the wonderful yeshiva communities of ny and Maryland treated my son like garbage .
"Let some other school have this mitzva"
He was in several yeshivas that were just dumping grounds for rejects and neb cases. He finally got sick of it and decided on his own to go to PS and went to a charter school that was more like a Ivy League college than a high sch
In a year he went from being very depressed to upbeat and cheerful. He's proud to tell everyone where he went
Now he is going to a top college in the fall, while the choshuva bochurim from his old yeshiva are hanging out on the street .

MaBelleVie

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 4:22 pm

amother wrote:

They kept rejecting him because you couldn't pay?

proudema

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 5:42 pm

Hatzlacha!

SRS

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 6:51 pm

You must feel awful. I bet the school also budgeted on your money and is not running a sound budget themselves. I hope that people who have stiffed a school (and I know my fair share of those people, some of whom are my dear friends) understand that their actions are partially responsible for the future of Jewish education of others, even you who as I recall was still paying big bucks.

The fact that schools operate independently rather than with a more central administration is problematic because each school competes for dollars against another.

I am sad for you and sad for us that we just cannot have engaged in some proactive planning to make schooling more communal. The way of current operation just backfires. It does not work.

imorethanamother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 6:52 pm

This is really awful. I think about your posts at night, wondering if there was some way is could help crowdfund this daughters tuition for you. But now that I see how the school is behaving I'm not sure it's in your best interests.

Two questions:
Are there any other schools willing to work with your child and your ability to pay? Why this school?

CAN you get away with not paying high school for a year or so, considering how much more high school costs than elementary school.

To me, your thoughtful and considerate posts have moved me on the issue. I know a lot of people who send to public school because of finances, but there's always an underlying reason as well. There's an anger at the orthodox community, at their shul, anger at tuition being high which is preventing them from living a more extravagant lifestyle, and anger about the curriculum.

I wish you hatzlachah and please PM me if u feel that the difference in what they're asking and what you can pay is within reach of tzedakah. I'm sure your daughter will be fine either way with a mother like you, but I want you and her to be happy.

mdoif

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:01 pm

Sell you house but not your child! Putting a Yiddish child in a non jewish environment is spiritual murder. I greatly sympathize with the OP and my heart goes out for her. It must be devastating to have such financial difficulties, but please please please do not murder your child! PS is never an option for a Yiddish kind.

sequoia

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:12 pm

mdoif wrote:

Nonsense.

SRS

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:28 pm

Selling a home only works if you are moving from more expensive to less expensive. If you have a kid in high school, that is unlikely. Let's stop with the murder thing. There is so much blame to go around that many, many people have blood on their hands so to speak.

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:35 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Thank you so much for your response. Our intention is just to get out of debt. We don't want to live an extravagant lifestyle, we just want to breathe. My children will still wear hand me downs and I will still shop at consignment stores. We just don't -can't live with an ax hanging over our heads. Too tired to write more now, although I do have many thoughts running through my head right now. Just broke my fast. I have more to add just it's all a jumble right now. Maybe tomorrow...

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:38 pm

mdoif wrote:

What an insane way of expressing your thoughts - you should be embarrassed!

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:38 pm

Well my child is in a secular special needs school - I'd slap you if you told me to my face it was spiritual murder. Is it ok for my son because he "needs" to be there?

Is it ideal? No. I wish we had a frum special needs option but we don't live in a large jewish area. But you're fooling yourself if you think a child's school has this kind of impact on a child. A strong family and home life with great role models has the most impact.

ElTam

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:43 pm

Do you have a rav that can talk to the school on your behalf.

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:43 pm

Why I find the whole tuition crisis tragic, at the end of the day, the school has to pay its bills, teachers have to be paid, etc etc Without families or donors paying up, the school will close. Someone close me is currently paying $1K per kid to her school. Tuition is $9K. Huge gap. She will not be able to send next year but it's amazing the school kept her as long as they did. It's a sad situation but really don't make the school the bad guys. There's only so much they can do.

naturalmom5

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 9:48 pm

mdoif wrote:

Motzi taanis, you write such tripe.
I davern Hashem should give you sechel
I would take a good ps over a school with parents like you any day of the week

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 10:08 pm

Hi,

I just happened to find this thread. And out of complete empathy to you I had to write this. I don't know if it will help, but I hope it will.

My brother and I both went to public school from 1st grade and onward. The reason was because the Jewish schools weren't great, the cost was that of putting a child through an undergrad university, and the curriculum was sub par.

So we went to public school-- part of elementary, all of middle school and all of high school.
Today, my brother who is 23 reads the whole Torah. (As in he is a leiner). And he knows divrei Torah like the back of his hand. (He is "baki" in the Torah-- don't really know how to say that word in English).

At the time we went to public schools, his friends went to yeshivas. . . Needless to mention not one of them reads the Torah or can read. And not one of them has his knowledge in Torah matter.

As for me, I went to public school . . . around a lot of non jews. . . I had a lot of Jewish friends from shul. And I never intermingled with the non jews. (Apart from classmate-classmate interaction). Didn't go to school dances, homecoming, prom. I knew I was Jewish, they were non jews. I was there to study. I never compromised my modesty, my Torah values, kept Kosher, kept Shabbat and kept the holidays.

Yes, it was sometimes a struggle to keep the holidays when you had exams and you didn't have school. But that is life.

I got a lot of flack from the Rabbis around me about how my parents could have imagined putting me in a public school, how my future was doomed, etc, etc. But I never paid attention to the outside noise. Today, I'm religious. If you ask some people, they would probably classify me as charedi. But I like to think of myself as ultra Orthodox with a modern twist.

The reason why it worked for my brother and me was because of my mother. In elementary school and middle school she watched us like a hawk. She taught us Hebrew and to read, write and spell. And she taught us Torah all the way through high school. Every day, day in and day out. (In high school all she taught us was Torah-- we already knew Hebrew by then).

After that I went on to a secular, public University. Where I didn't have a parent telling me to keep Kosher, keep Shabbat, be modest, etc, etc. And I kept everything, remained religious.

My point is this: Going to public school isn't the best option. But it isn't the end of the world. What matters most is the foundation and example you set at home. If it is a very strong one and a consistent one, I don't think you'll have much to worry about. Always have sichot going on in the background at home, always teach them Torah-- when you drive them to school, when you sit down to eat-- and I think going to public school won't be as bad as you think it is. On a tangent, I've seen a lot of students come out of Jewish seminaries and yeshivas-- very few of them have a knowledge in Torah that is something to be jealous of. In other words, they aren't such hot stuff.

The same goes for Jewish kids who go to public schools-- but again, if she comes from a very religious home and you are constantly brainwashing and teaching them, it won't be the end of the world. . .

At least that is my opinion. Feel free to PM me if you'd like.

Aetrsnrady

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 10:13 pm

OP, I'm so sorry for what you are going through. I agree with you. Start a blog. Write a letter to the editor of your local Jewish paper. Call the board members of the school. Can your rav go with you to the next meeting?

mille

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 10:15 pm

mdoif wrote:

What a disgusting thing to say. You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself.

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 11:34 pm

mdoif wrote:

I spent hundreds of thousand dollars for yeshiva education fir my children and guess what several are not frum today Where was the spiritual murder? Oh yes it was in their yeshiva! OP don't listen to the above poster. Her post is worth nothing !

amother

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 11:45 pm

mdoif wrote:

I'm the amother who posted in the other thread about sending my son to public school so he could get the special services he needed there. I heard comments similar to this. But actually my son accomplished so much in public school that after a few years he was ready to be mainstreamed in a Jewish school, where he's now thriving. If I would have tried to force him into a Jewish school, he would probably still be lagging way behind his peers. Probably this would have been worse for his spiritual development than the few years he spent in public school.