Frum-but public school???

SixOfWands

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 6:32 pm

amother wrote:

Anyone here who sends to public school in Brooklyn? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences even if you don't send to public school.

I'm slowing thinking about it. I"m so-so frum, have lost much of my yiddishkeit, but outwardly still keeping. Yes, this is a problem and of course affecting how I feel about everything else, such as yeshivas.

I feel that my kids are getting a horrible education (secular that is). Yes, I know this has been the hot topic..........

I can't afford even our drastically reduced tuition. I'd be able to save a nice amount finally if I wouldn't be giving the yeshivas my income.

My kids would be happy either way. I"ve spoken to them about it and while of course we wont know how it is,or how it will work out until we get there, I'm hoping it would be better.

My son gets bullied in his yeshiva. He loves learning about history, science, math etc. He eats up books......... He would get much more of that in public. He says he wants to go to college later on, he'd be better prepared if he came from public school.

A huge part of why I'm not doing it (or not yet) is because of the opinion of others, and I don't know if my kids would loose their current friends over it..........

OP, you need to do what is right for your family and for your children. And that's not going to be the same for everyone.

There are problems when your kids are younger. They don't necessarily understand kashrut rules, and don't want to be different, so maybe they'll eat the party food. And they're going to want to go to their bestie's party on Saturday afternoon. And many schools have activities on Friday nights.

But you can handle that because you're in control.

The issues get more difficult when your kids get older.

How do you handle school trips that end after sundown on Friday. Or the fact that so many clubs and organizations have events on Shabbat. Or that most of your kids' friends will be going to movies on Friday nights and the mall or the library or museum or anywhere that your kids can't go on Saturday. Or hang out at the local pizza place. What if your kid wants to join the baseball team, that plays on Saturday? Or the band, that plays at Saturday afternoon football games.

I'm not talking relations and drugs and rock and roll. I'm talking about the good, wholesome, normal things that kids do.

Some kids will be fine with the limitations. Others won't. But you do need to think about it.

SixOfWands

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 6:36 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

You make it sound far more problematic than it is in reality. It all really depends on where you are. There are Sunday soccer and basketball leagues, many school activities like robotics etc take place after school. School dances have fallen to the wayside in many districts due to liability and safety concerns. It will only work if a parent wants it to.

Where we live, the public school kids almost exclusively play in Saturday leagues. Sure, they could play in the Sunday league, but that's not where their friends will be.

Many activities are after school. But if you're in high school, debate tournaments and chess tournaments are on Saturday. Football is on Saturday. Sports are often Friday night or Saturday.

It may work. But I don't think its fair to tell the OP that there aren't issues.

tigerwife

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 6:37 pm

I personally would have two main issues:

1. Lack of Jewish education. We just had a few threads crying about the sub-par secular ed in yeshivos because they had only ten hours a week of 'English Studies'. Compare that to one day of Sunday school plus a couple of hours of tutoring a week. Incomparable to being immersed in Yeshiva.

2. Environment. I'm biased from my experience with PS in Brooklyn but your child will probably be exposed to foul language, shady topics of conversation and violent play. Please look into schools carefully since there is a huge range of quality amongst public schools. Public school does not automatically equal better education.

Sure, I myself come from parents who became strong in Yiddishkeit while being one of the only frum Jews around. I still find the argument "but every Yeshiva produces kids who go OTD" to be illogical. The two are incomparable. However, a child who is suffering from bullying will likely have negative associations with whatever school he goes to so that needs to be handled ASAP. Also, I always believe that the most important part is your home environment. What kind of messages do you send about Yiddishkeit from home?

Good luck, op. Sounds like you are dealing with a lot and I pray things look up soon whatever you decide.

amother

Ecru

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 6:44 pm

My husband was sent to public school from about 12 years old, due to a lack of good school options where he lived. He feels that he missed out hugely socially. The school he went to had lots of Jewish kids, but none were from as frum a home as his. He was the only kid going to minyan in the morning. Strangely he doesn't seem to have missed out on the kodesh side (he works as a Rabbi) He did end up going to yeshiva later on, for the last couple of years of high school and beyond. (this was his choice)

There is not much difference in frumkiet between him and his siblings who went to frum schools.

Statistically, a lot of kids 50-75 years ago who went to public school from frum homes are not frum now, but its hard to know how much that had to do with other factors.

I live out of town and my kids go to a community school with mostly not frum kids, it is very difficult socially for them. Obviously it depends on your family. A kid from a M.O home will have an easier time then a kid from a black hat home. Where I live I see a similar outcome to that mentioned by mha3484...other frum families here have some kids come out frum, others not. (we send our kids away for high school; so far all are frum but they are still young.)

Can you look into a Jewish charter school?

MagentaYenta

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 6:49 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

I've not told the op that there aren't issues, I specifically mentioned that a parent must be willing to explore other options. They are available. That's why a parent choosing the public school option should do some in depth research on school districts and the culture of the community. Not all schools schedule extra curricular activities on weekends, due to costs and community culture and faculty availability.

amother

Papaya

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 7:02 pm

iriska_meller wrote:

From all the threads here, it seems that bays yaakov is no protection against girls choosing to dress differently or having boyfriends...

MagentaYenta wrote:

Teens all have secret lives and many choose to push at the sides of the boxes their parents consign them to, whether the are Xtians, Jews, or Muslims. It is all part of them growing up.

My point isn't that these things aren't issues in yeshiva, it's that the claim that Muslim families send their kids to public school without worrying is simply not true. They do have these concerns, they just don't have a robust network of private schools catering to their communities the way we do. Public school comes with a whole slew of issues that are mitigated (though obviously not eliminated) by religious schools. Yeshivas were started for a reason. Yes, many kids have done and do just fine religiously while attending public school, but many more don't.

Also, let's not pretend public schools are necessarily better in terms of education and social issues. If you're not in an excellent district, the education is not going to be much better than those yeshivas that only give 8 hours of secular studies a week. Bullying issues are a coin toss. Yes, theoretically there's a protocol for when bullying gets out of hand, but that protocol is often ignored by apathetic teachers and administrators. Even in cases of special needs, public school is not always better. Lots of public schools ignore IEPs or do the absolute bare minimum they can get away with- and when they do the bare minimum, there's nothing you can do to make them do more because they're technically fulfilling their duty. I'm not saying OP shouldn't send to public school, but that she really needs to do serious, meticulous research to make sure she won't be trading in one set of problems for another.

amother

Burlywood

Thu, Mar 09 2017, 9:58 pm

My kids go to public school, we live in a nice area in Brooklyn.
The school is well equipped, the secular education is amazing and religious education they get plenty at home.
They are happy, no one says anything about kippot( yes they wear it to school too), they bring their lunches, in the afternoon they study Hebrew and everything else. Elementary school, in case you are wondering.
They do not participate in events like school dances nor wear costumes on Halloween, and they understand that it's not what we do.
If the class has a pizza party or something like that, I send the same in their lunch boxes so they won't feel left out.
If you live in a district that has a good public school, you should be fine. Otherwise, there are plenty of nice charter schools that you can look up.

amother

White

Fri, Mar 10 2017, 12:02 am

tichellady wrote:

There are plenty of children who go to yeshiva day school who don't end up frum and plenty who go to public school who remain/become frum. There are no guarantees either way. I think it's really about ensuring that your children has a positive feeling about Judaism (a feeling that they belong) and about ensuring your child has a proper Jewish education. Sometimes a yeshiva can provide that for a child and sometimes it's just not a good fit and a child may actually have a better Jewish experience being in public school and attending Jewish classes and summer camp, etc

You have some valid points - but It doesn't seem like OP is going to ensure positive feelings about Judaism so it looks like her kids only shot at remaining frum is to be in a frum environment. There are definitely issues that need to be cleared up in the current school.
But OP - keep in mind that kids who are being bullied are usually the weaker kids - and it may very well follow him to PS. Personally I'd rather my kid bullied in a frum school than in a PS. Who knows what that is like.
Wishing you and your kids the best. In Livelihood and in Spirituality.

amother

Coral

Fri, Mar 10 2017, 12:04 am

I completely respect your decision but feel like I can give my opinion on this since you're asking. So first off, my step children are in public school because their mother became not religious and took them out of yeshiva. The children have been very affected by public and aren't religious anymore either. So in my opinion, it really depends what kind of home the children Coke from if it's important for the parent to keep their children religious. If this isn't important to you that's up to you.
Secondly my husband and I went to public school and let me tell you it's no walk in the park. Firstly you're with all types and religions and classes of people. Unless you're in a very fancy upscale neighborhood that has all very rich upper class students than that's a different story. But anyways with a typical public, so yes the curriculum may be better than a Jewish religious school. But there's a trade off with who you're kids will be around. When I was in middle school, relations was already a thing that many students engaged in. All you need is for your child to go hang out with friends while their parents aren't home and who knows what's going on there. And it's very easy to get mixed into a bad crowd. Most of my husbands friends from high school were such druggies that they ended up committing suicide or dying before they were 25. Just sharing my 2 cents because if you never were in public school, you may not realize what goes on there.

MagentaYenta

Fri, Mar 10 2017, 12:40 am

amother wrote:

You mention that your steps biological mother became not religious. It would be safe to assume that contributed mightily to the reason why the children aren't religious. If she wasn't religious, it is reasonable to assume she did not take their religious education seriously. That is quite different than parents who choose to send their frum children to PS and work actively to continue a childs religious education in the home and supplement it with additional more formal instruction.

As to kids in PS being subject to many classes of children, I cannot argue with that. It's true, they get to meet and work with people outside their religious community. This is rather helpful when they go out into the world of higher education or in the workforce at large. And like Frum Jews there are good and bad individuals that aren't frum. That is a fact of human nature.

Frum boys who hang out at pizza parlors are no different than those that are not frum. Hanging out is the issue, not the secular education. And in public schools there are those parents who are not frum and still don't let their kids hang out at malls, theaters or pizza parlors and are very concerned about the families that their children visit with.

I quite understand that you may have a bad taste in your mouth, but blaming someones drug addiction on public schooling is a stretch. We have sufficient overdoses, and deaths by addiction in our community. No one talks about it nor is it publicized, unhappy troubled people self medicate with the poison of their choice. It happens across society. One of the jobs of being a parent is recognizing whether your kid is at risk and being able to discuss making good choices with them.

As to all the druggies your husband had as friends, I'm not even going to go there. Either you husband went to a school where drug use was endemic or he made friends with the wrong crowd.

I'm speaking as a public schooled parent whose children went to public schools and grandchildren have as well. PS doesn't work for every frum Jew, but it is possible to raise good Jewish kids while attending public school. It's up to the parents to do their own evaluations of a public school, the district and the system before deciding where to place their children. It's called making an informed choice.

amother

Chartreuse

Fri, Mar 10 2017, 1:04 am

I'll share my personal experience. I grew up in a reform Jewish household and went to PS, but went to reform Jewish after school program twice a week growing up.

I went to a good PS in the suburbs (upper middle class area), but there were few (if any) Jewish kids in my class every year. For me, I always felt slightly out of place, esp with the xmas holidays. It's hard being the kid that doesn't fit in & knowing few other Jewish kids.

For high school, I was very mature for my age. I found the high school boys annoying to deal with, they were mostly immature & hormonal. And many of the girls in my school were trying to dress too trendy or s-xy to get the boys attention & were often obsessed with getting or having a boyfriend. I honestly think for me, I would have been so much happier in an all girls school.

As to the bullying your child is dealing with in Jewish school, that's something you need to address ASAP. It can definitely turn a child away from Judaism. That happened to me at my reform Jewish school program. I was in a class of mostly boys. There were maybe 2-4 girls max each year in the program. When I was in middle & high school, I came to really resent Jewish school and became very very turned off to Jewish life. A large part of it was due to the behavior of my male classmates. They were wild, immature, mean and so unpleasant to be around. Half of the class time was wasted with the teachers disciplining or settling the disrespectful boys.

It honestly wasn't until college that I came to value my Jewish heritage and eventually became frum. I finally met nice, normal and kind Jewish people through my college Hillel and Chabad.

From all these personal experiences, I'm doing my best to ensure my child goes to a Jewish school, so he doesn't feel left out like I did at PS. But I'm also making sure my child is happy at his Jewish school, which he is. And my child is BH going to a good Jewish school and getting a good education. Now if my child was unhappy at his Jewish school (like due to bullying) and/or if the education was not up to par, I would consider PS, but only as a last resort if I couldn't work something out.

Ultimately you should do whatever is best for your family. You can always try PS and see how it works out. If it's not a good fit, you can always put them back in a Jewish school again. Or if it's an option for you, what about homeschooling?