What cuts would YOU be ok with in schools

amother

Poppy

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:16 am

amother Purple wrote:

I think many of the ideas here are interesting but wouldn't actually do anything.

Cutting down on supplies, papers, projects, arts and crafts are al good. But the budget for many of these larger schools is well into the millions. Saving 10k is great but won't save a school that is c'vs going under.

Unfortunately the way for schools to significantly help their budget is by forcing those applying for financial aid to send in their bank and credit card statements.

Yes, it's terribly invasive. Yes, their are extremely personal things there that the schools have no business seeing. But....it would solve the problem.

I agree there are 2 bad choices.

If the school sees my statements.. which indicate that I am truly not making or spending differently than what I share on the financial aid application.. they will suddenly have more money?

amother

Apricot

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:17 am

amother Carnation wrote:

I remember the barebones Lakewood cheder. Leaks in the classrooms every time it rained. Mold all over the lowest floor. Cracked dangerous steps. Not enough principals, assistant principals, and staff meant unsafe supervision with kids roaming among the grownups outside unwatched. A concrete parking lot instead of a playground. It was so unmotivating to go to school. Some of my siblings skipped whoever they wanted. There wasn’t enough staff or office personnel to really notice. Are we going back to that?

Is there no medium between the 2 extremes? Notice how I'm not talking about cutting back on the safety or security of the kids and I want school to be an enjoyable place for my kids, I want then to be excited to attend.
But is doing all these outlandishly expensive projects and trips a must?

momX4

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:18 am

amother Coffee wrote:

Prizes, nosh, and in general any kind of bribery. If I can figure out how to parent my children without bribery, schools can do it too.

Then they would have to hire teachers with a degree in education. This will result in higher salaries.

I find that the more inexperienced the teacher is, the more bribes (and threats) they use.

amother

Sienna

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:19 am

amother Burntblack wrote:

My sister works in a company who creates the merch. Every single school and camp out there orders and everyone of them wants something different something unique that no other school/camp has. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars!

Yes this applies to camps too. Enough already.

amother

Purple

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:22 am

amother Poppy wrote:

If the school sees my statements.. which indicate that I am truly not making or spending differently than what I share on the financial aid application.. they will suddenly have more money?

No. If the school would make it known that they will require families asking for financial aid to give their financial statement, many of those families will not bother applying for aid.

They will not want the school to see the quick weekend vacation they took, the fancy restaurants, and the expensive clothing.

I agree it's awfully invasive. But it would work.

amother

Purple

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:23 am

amother Sienna wrote:

I so totally disagree.

I totally don't see your logic because you didn't express it.

amother

Silver

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:24 am

Yes to the swag! When I was a kid we had nothing with the school logo on it except senior sweatshirts that we paid for separately. My kids school just announced a massive tuition hike and then sent home custom bags for the kids to bring on their lag baomer trip Banging head

And I also went to school in an old dumpy building and moved to a nicer new one halfway through my school years. Guess which one we liked better?

amother

Sienna

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:30 am

amother Purple wrote:

I totally don't see your logic because you didn't express it.

I don’t really have more to say.
I think the shabbatons are top priority.
Maybe they can find ways to slash the shabaton budget. I am sure they can.
But to cut it out is a bad idea in my opinion.
I think it’s crucial and should be prioritized even at expense just like good teachers.

amother

Zinnia

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:32 am

amother Purple wrote:

I totally don't see your logic because you didn't express it.

I can answer as a former teacher, now hanhala member and a mother.

Shabbatons are an integral part in building student relationships between themselves and with teachers who can be an influence in their lives. Interacting for an extended period of time outside of the school setting gives them a chance to see new sides of their peers and start friendships that would not have started otherwise. It also gives students the chance to get comfortable talking to teachers in a new environment and opens the door for them to seek the guidance of those teachers later down the line when they need it.

In my experience, shabbatons are always pretty basic with the money allocated spent in a reasonable way. But judging from some of the responses here, there are likely schools that do expensive, over the top trips and extras which makes parents wish shabbatons didn't exist.

amother

Purple

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:33 am

amother Sienna wrote:

How will cutting a few thousand off a shabbaton weekend rescue a school that is not surviving fanacially?

amother

Sienna

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:35 am

amother Purple wrote:

How will cutting a few thousand off a shabbaton weekend rescue a school that is not surviving fanacially?

I am just responding that I think cutting out Shabbatons is a bad idea.
If we’re talking about slashing budgets, then it’s all about a few thousand here a few thousand there. I don’t think there’s any one idea here on the entire thread that will save a school from going under.
This isn’t a practical thread it’s a kvetch thread, an opinion thread.

amother

Lightcyan

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:36 am

amother Purple wrote:

Oh please. We discussed this as nauseam a few weeks ago.

The vast majority of people who ask for breaks are struggling. The people spending on luxuries consider it demeaning and beneath them to even fill out the scholarship application form. So they're obviously not getting a break.

Is it possible there are a few fakers? Yes but not enough to make a dent. And those fakers will figure out other ways to trick the schools

There will be less applications because some people simply have things that are too private to show the school. So they will have no choice but to dig themselves into an even deeper finical hole.

The scariest part of this whole tuition disaster is that there really are no solutions. It's a crisis that was brewing for years and is about to implode

amother

Birch

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:41 am

mummiedearest wrote:

School psychologists who have regular workshops with students but are not available to counsel kids who need it. Total waste and stupid cost.

Multiple school nurses who do nothing but give out ice and band-aids. You can hire one person to do that.

I don’t mind projects or bound/laminated things. I have a binding machine at home as well as a laminator. They’re really cheap, honestly.

I do get upset when schools send home Shaimos. I think the school needs to have an option to send all the shaimos back a few times a year. They can reuse it if they want or bury it, but I don’t need it.

Online programs that the kids could do without. I like the programs, but I think the kids benefit from practicing without constant reward and using pen and paper.

New math and English textbooks. Math doesn’t change, why change a curriculum that worked well? Spoken language may shift, but written grammar is pretty stagnant.

Silent dance parties. Yuck. Stupidest school event ever. I don’t need my kids dancing with headphones on parallel to her friends. She’s in school to interact.

Constant nosh parties- most of the nosh is sent in by parents, but do we need printed cupcakes? Yes, they’re nice. I don’t think everything needs to be a feast. Stop bribing the kids with food.

Not a fan of school merch, but my kids school don’t go overboard with those. They’re available for purchase, so they’re mostly used as fundraisers.

All this being said, I suspect a lot of this is based on grants. I don’t know that cutting these things will reduce tuition at all.

Most of these are impractical and if you you have never worked behind the scenes in a school (as opposed to being a classroom teacher) you really don't know what goes into running everything.

The school that I work in, the guidance counselors are invaluable. They are absolutely working with the kids who need it, and in a school of over 1000 students, you wouldn't believe the number of kids who need it. Bh that we have multiple counselors. FYI, public schools are known for having 1:500 guidance counselor to student ratios, and we can see how well that's working out for them.

Nurses are actually often one of the few positions that can be covered by grants. How many you need will depend on number of students. Again, 1000+ in my school, one nurse does NOT cut it. It's not just about ice packs, band aids, and calling a parent to pick up a vomiting child. We have students who are diabetic, epileptic, have heart conditions, deadly allergies, etc etc etc. To say nothing of all the adhd and other related issues that require medication management during the day. And you're not going to know who has what condition unless you know them and they shared that with you. There are way more students who require the school nurses than you think.

Shaimos I agree with, but also, you need to learn the halachos well. A lot of what people think counts as shaimos isn't. And at my school, teachers are informed of our va'ad's guidelines on shaimos and are strongly discouraged from doing anything that produces actual shaimos. There isn't nearly as much shaimos happening as you'd think.

Online programs, mostly agree, although there are a few real gems that are worth it. This a popular topic on those professional development days that parents love to kvetch about, BTW. Which programs are worth it and how to make the best use of them. There are also good things out there that are free or one-time purchase (so not an ongoing expense).

Textbooks are another thing that often gets some amount of government grants. And they do need to get updated from time to time. For one thing, they get worn out quicker than you'd think. No, kids don't need brand new, but they shouldn't be forced to use books that are practically disintegrating. Standards change, and curricula change. For all that parents like to complain that they don't like the new way of doing math, it actually is a lot better than the old way. We started hosting workshops at the beginning of the year for parents to learn a more about the new methods and how they work, and once they get the hang of it, they see why most schools have switched to the new methods.

I do agree with the silent dance parties and a few other things (like the game show things. Seriously, we can make something similar ourselves and have a teacher run it lol).

The one thing you don't seem to mind, the laminating and binding, is actually pretty expensive. The machinery is a one time expense plus occasional maintenance, but the laminating film is very expensive and the spirals can add up in a large school. We had to put strict limits on the usage of both because it was getting crazy. Basically, laminating only for chagim projects, end of year, and stuff that's going to be reused in the classroom. No more laminating parsha projects and seasons projects etc. Spiraling for haggadahs, end of year, plus one additional major project per class.

It's really hard. A lot of things people are mentioning are not a chiddush and are already being done. Many suggestions would also really compromise the quality of education. There's more to education than sitting in lectures and filling out worksheets. There are definitely some things to be done, but this is a community issue and will take community problem solving. Not just the parents and not just the schools.

amother

Cobalt

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:43 am

No trip should cost more than $100. Shabbaton should be in the neighborhood with meals in the school. No bussing to a hotel upstate. (I personally didn’t enjoy, not sure about my girls, they would probably be fine either way). It’s not fair to the parents to have to pay so much. In my boy’s school the Shabbatons were in the school building or in parents’ homes.

I’m also a fan of using technology and computer games to teach secular subjects.

amother

Yarrow

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:44 am

A lot of the extras mentioned here are already sponsored. It’s not coming out of the parent’s tuition. You have to get a break down of where the money is going to understand how to budget it and what to cut. The most spending is probably going to one or two members of the administration that make an exceptionally high salary. Sometimes building renovations, technology, educational materials, and supplies come from government grants. Just cutting something that from the outside seems excessive won’t necessarily save the school any costs.

amother

Birch

Fri, May 24 2024, 9:55 am

Another thing people don't always realize if they're not in the know: YOU see the school doing some sort of renovation project and think why are they spending money on renovation. What you don't know is some law changed and now something needs to be fixed in order to be in compliance. We had to spend thousands a number of years ago creating a new space to be a designated pumping room in order to comply with new state laws.

amother

Zinnia

Fri, May 24 2024, 10:13 am

amother Birch wrote:

And we've gotten funding that had to be used for renovations and couldn't be allocated anywhere else so we did a really nice renovation because the funding covered it.

amother

Carnation

Fri, May 24 2024, 10:15 am

Same goes for fencing, cameras, and guard booths. It’s all security grant funds.

amother

Mint

Fri, May 24 2024, 10:18 am

amother Burntblack wrote:

What's merch? Have had nine kids in school, never heard it.

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, May 24 2024, 10:47 am

Binding machines are pretty cheap and I don't recall ever needing maintenance help on those as they're not reliant on technology. It's cheaper to use that than to get a 3 ring binder...

The idea about less staffing for high school sounds nice in theory. I'm sure schools would love to have teachers give a lot of hours but they patch it together because they can find this graphic artist with an hour to teach an art class, and this psychologist who can schedule appointments around teaching a period or two of navi and that computer programmer who will take a lunch break to teach a math class...

Schools for the most part are trying their best.