Tuition solutions instead of kvetching

amother

Blue

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:06 pm

Schools need to look at their budgets and make CUTS

Schools need to be transparent of their costs.

A committee compromised of donors, parents in every financial bracket, all need to look at the budget and make suggestions.

Especially on older institutions where the buildings are payed for

amother

Gardenia

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:22 pm

That doesn't always work. You want schools to cut? Where should they cut? Repairs? Programming? Teacher bonuses? Supplies? Toilet paper?

At the end of the day it hurts your kids and it hurts your kids' teachers who put everything into your children. I'm not saying the school should be hounding hard working parents who can't afford tuition and are making reasonable choices. That's why schools fundraise and need to have a donor base to offer scholarships and keep their doors open. But I hate hearing "cut the budget". Maybe your school is "spendy" but ours is definitely not.

amother

Honeysuckle

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:29 pm

The greedy heartless school that is pouring money down the drain or enriching its administrators at the expense of parents has got to be the biggest fallacy on Imamother. The vast majority of schools are financially responsible, good hearted, and out for the children and most aren’t making the budget.

amother

Molasses

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:33 pm

Need to figure out how to bring in more income. Husband and I both work. There's not really much space for another job for either of us. Wishing for a small job that will bring in a lot of money. Any suggestions welcome.

amother

Canary

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:34 pm

The shul I grew up in (go GGBH!) has an innovative system to help the community schools, which if implemented in all shuls could have a massive benefit to the local schools. I dont know all the details, but it's something like this:
The initiative is called Chomesh leChinuch, and the rov encourages everyone in the community to give 1/5 of their maaser obligation to the chinuch fund. (so if someone earns $100k, their maaser obligation is 10k, so they would give 2k to the fund) Then twice a year, they ask all the shul members which local moisdos their kids go to, and the money in the chinuch fund gets distributed to the local moisdos, based on how many kids from shul go to each moisad.

So every 6 months the shul sends out a message saying - on xx date, there were (making up numbers here) 167 shul children in local moisdos, we have given:
talmud torah 1: £24,684
cheider 2: $17,056
beis yaacov 1: $47,123
beis yaacov 2: $12,709
special ed school: $3,678
etc

Since its the whole community paying in to the fund, the burden does not fall just on those with school age kids, and the community members feel like their co-shul goers are benefitting from their maaser money, as it goes directly to the schools that the kehilla send to.

mha3484

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:41 pm

I think there is an employment aspect. I live OOT and I look at the kinds of jobs my friends and I have, making very nice salaries. Then I read a lot of threads here from Imas looking for jobs and I get the feeling the kinds of places a lot of us work in and the hours are not appealing to most women on here. I think the Lakewood job market for men is also especially challenging. But I think this makes it much harder to earn enough to pay for even a reasonable level of tuition.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, May 23 2024, 5:56 pm

amother Blue wrote:

An old building with no mortgage can still be a money pit for repairs.
Antiquated heating and cooling systems, roofs that need replacing, rusty pipes, the list goes on and on.

amother

Gladiolus

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:24 pm

You need a wider base, it can't be on the backs of parents alone. Communities need to support their schools regardless of whether you have school aged children at the moment. It's not what most people want to hear. And actually making it happen would not be easy. But it's the only actual practical way.

amother

Hyacinth

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:29 pm

Education is costly. Saving 0.6 cents on copy paper isn’t going to change anything. And it’s 2024. Kids need good air conditioning and nice trips.

Education for 10 kids per family is just not sustainable. Imagine we’d be sending them all off to college as well.

amother

Nasturtium

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:31 pm

We need to better tap into government resources and grants. We need frum government advocacy to start voucher programs in more states.

Each community needs to have a central tzedaka organization that monitors money donated to all local organizations and makes sure schools are prioritized.

Schools need to be more transparent about their finances.

PTA should be encouraging parents to offer services to the school as tzedaka so that school funds are used sparingly. (Ex. Decor for Chumash party, subs for last minute no shows, extra curricular programming etc)

amother

Peach

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:31 pm

amother Honeysuckle wrote:

They exist. As a minority, but they exist.

The closest corollary is the upper middle class family who has plenty of money for winter in Aruba, Sukkos in Israel, Pesach hotels, new cars every year, tons of jewelry and brand name clothing, but gets tuition breaks. They also exist, but are a minority.

If parents can all be penalized for the sins of the minority, the schools can also.

amother

Blonde

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:35 pm

amother Hyacinth wrote:

If the choice is have a lot of kids but can’t send to Jewish school/system collapses vs have less kids what’s the lesser evil?

amother

Hyacinth

Thu, May 23 2024, 6:38 pm

amother Blonde wrote:

Government doesn’t pay for private school for the most part

Thanks for stating the obvious.
I know they don’t but they should. every child deserves an education and healthcare. N.Y. Is known for its diversity and tolerance. It should begin to tolerate people who prefer to be religious and help pay for the appropriate education especially if they’re low income.