How Ectomorph picks schools for her children

TravelHearter

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:47 am

[quote="ectomorph"](

Things I care about, A TINY BIT:

1. Smartphone culture among the children

2. Uniform vs no uniform.

3. Food

(I prefer a school that serves food, because my children are social eaters and their behavior is much better when they're not hungry. I also don't like the trading lunch or snacks culture I remember from my childhood.)

4. Clear healthcare documentation and transparency in school policy and operations.

The important things to me:

Does the school teach Yiras Shamayim and a Judaic studies curriculum?

Are they wanted and valued by the school, as kids?

Can I work with the school when there are social or emotional things going on?

I live OOT, and the school here meets the above criteria BH. Although not the food one- I haven’t found many schools out of NY/NJ who offer hot lunch programs (or if they do it’s very expensive and many students don’t get).

amother

Topaz

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:53 am

ectomorph wrote:

The truth is, I would have been very upset at the idea of my children becoming chabad only a few years ago. We are very yeshivish, affiliated with a specific yeshiva, and Torah is extremely important to us.

Then real life hit, with real children, who have real needs, and it was obvious that we'd end up in public school if we couldn't find a frum school that worked.

And our kids are bright and social, they just cannot do the sitting still all day, and they have strong personalities that need something to bounce off of. For some reason this school is able to provide that. There's a little bit of magic too, by which I mean even I don't understand why these kids are thriving in this environment.

At this point, the priority is that they are happy, healthy, and part of a Jewish school system. This is what we found. Maybe they will end up more modern or Chabad, but if they have Yiras Shamayim and good middos, I'll try very hard to not mind it.

At any rate, when they're teenagers they can all rebel by becoming meshichist or whatever, and I'll genuinely be annoyed by it and fight them about it, and it will be emotionally satisfying to them.

I love your attitude! Your kids are lucky, they've got a great mom.

the world's best mom

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 5:15 pm

ectomorph wrote:

1. I assume you're from a chassidish background. A lot of kids in my kids school speak Hebrew, that wouldn't bother you, right?

2. Honestly I'm okay with my kids being a little behind in Judaics, but also I'm qualified to teach them myself. But I can see that would not work for other families.

3. I guess I'll see. I send to a kiruv school, but frankly I feel like my family needs kiruv!!

So far my kids seem to have absorbed the chabad hashkafah of teaching others about Torah rather than being influenced by them, but I acknowledge my oldest is only in 3rd.

6. I have mixed feelings about this. I feel like it's making a culture of hiding and lying.

1-LOL no. I am not chassidish, but my in-laws are. And whenever there are any issues with schools, dh jokingly says we should send them to Satmar. My kids and I do not actually know Yiddish.

6- I don't see hiding or lying. My dd's high school says they know the girls have smart phones. When the girls come to school each morning, they have to put their phones in the office. They get it back when they leave. Just because they are allowed to have it and use it, doesn't mean they should be using it in school and showing things to the other girls.

And ds dorms in high school. If kids would have smartphones in the dorm, there is so much bad stuff that can and would probably happen because of it.