Putting a child in public school

Posting anonymously because people know me and I'm not really ready to have people know I am considering this at the moment.

We just received the tuition letter from the school with the amount of subsidy we will be receiving and how much we owe. We are unable to pay the amount they have asked for. My husband and I both work and have sat down numerous times to try and figure out where we could possibly pull money from and theres just nothing there.

I have called the school to see if this is the final say or if something else can be arranged. If this is it then the only way of keeping our kids in school is to send them to public school. I am not capable of homeschooling my kids but have thought about it.

Is there anyone here who sends their kids to public school and then arranges for supplementary Jewish education? This is not an easy decision at all but I am not sure what else we are supposed to do if we can't afford the tuition?

where are you located? there might be other schools more willing to work with you.

I might be putting my daughter into a public school due to her special needs. I will find out in about 2 weeks if she is accepted to their program. I'm also interested in learning how people supplement the jewish education.

I looked at room613.net, but from what I saw, the classes won't work around a public school schedule. there is also a talmud torah in my neighborhood twice a week for 2 hours which will catch my daughter up on parsha and chagim, but I'm sure it's gonna be beneath her level.

Have put 2 kids in public school due to special learning needs not adequately addressed in day school. The first kid I did this with & did not do any formal supplementing. Child was in public school K-2ond grade. She knew brachots & basic davening. We taught her how to read the kashrut symbols on packaged foods so she could buy a snack at school. We read parsha every night at the dinner table & included her in a normal way in all home based observance & holidays, as well as sending to Chabad summer camp. Did not supplement with ivrit or kodesh. Was difficult to transition this child back into day school learning, but the school worked with us. Maybe next year I can tell you if that was successful.

Second child will be starting public school this fall for similar reasons. Will be having a young rabbi who is good with kids learn with the child 3x per week for 30-45 min per session. Will have the focus on kria, davening, learning chumash that would be covered in the child's grade level.

I will add that we are in an expensive suburb & the public schools here are really excellent. As well as the kids attending the schools are very refined and come from homes with parents that are concerned about what their children are exposed to. Many public school kids in these schools who are not allowed TV, restricted or minimal internet access etc. & the parents are very on top of how the kids treat each other etc.

We also asked das torah about enrolling in public school & our rav advised us. Not sure what the advice would have been if it was just based on finances.

If you are going to do some instruction yourself, or need some idea of what can be done with specific topics & want prepared materials, chinuch.org has a lot of great resources. If you can get a curriculum from the school & know what they expect to be covered each year you can try to keep your child up w. what they need until your child returns to day school, or goes on to yeshiva/high school etc.

Thank you so much for your responses!

So from what I understand the subsidy money comes from UJA and is allotted by them to all schools affiliated with the Jewish Board of Education so it wouldnt matter which school I went to.

I am concerned about her having friends and what kind of issues she might run into in a public school - that being said she is still young and I hope we would be able to switch her back into the Jewish school soon. Hopefully we can save the money this year and put it towards that for the coming years.

A lot probably DOES depend on the district the school is in as someone mentioned. I am familiar with chinuch.org - maybe I would need to hire someone to work with her - I am not sure when I would be able to as I get home and its close to her bedtime - unless we did Sundays.

I guess after reading so much on here about stigmas and all kinds of crazy things ppl research into with shidduchim I worry about how this will effect things for our family....especially as it is not for her educational needs - I think if it were that I wouldnt be feeling this hesitation or uncertainty. I would fel I was trying to give her the best education to meet with success in life.

I really dont know how people can afford school...it makes me so uncomfortable and embarrassed to have had to ask for the subsidy in the first place.

I am not suggesting this for you, but this is the exact situation that lead us to reconsider and make aliya. Tuition for two kids was more than our mortgage. When they refused to give us a real tuition break our mortgage, tuition and car payment were more than our income which wasn't changing.

We asked grandparents to help for a couple months but that wasn't a good long term solution.

FWIW once the school found out we were making aliya because of tuition they offered us a discount which we took them up on for the rest of that school year, but we had already bought our new home in E"Y...
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Liba, mommy to Zlata Tova 5/6/98, Tziporah Faiga 1/12/01, Esther Rivka 7/13/04 and Avraham Chaim 7/2/2006

from the amother w. 2 kids in public schools:

Regarding shidducim, stigmas etc. B'H' for people who do that! Get it out there in the open! We definitely do not want to marry in with the kind of people who are into such mishagas.

I am raising my children to be aidle, normal, frum yiddnen with their own personalities & individual strengths. I trust H'shme that the parents of their b'sherts are doing the same.

I know family who did this. They were in an OOT community and the options available were very much not suitable to their hashkafa. They sent their kids to public schools.

They are grown now (in their 20s), and are the most aidel, intelligent, wonderful kids you could ever meet. And no, they did not go OTD at all. I daven that my children will turn out as well as these children did. One was even my children's babysitter for a while until she went off to university.

I know another family who did this, and their kids went very much OTD. Not drugs or anything like that, but they are definitely not shomer mitzvot.

I think it depends on the children. If they are grounded and confident, it may be fine.

It also depends on how the parents present the situation, and how they transmit yiddishkeit in their homes.

Senior Member Joined: Sep 20 2011 Posts: 117

Can you try a different yeshiva in your area that will work with you?
Or maybe a yeahiva that's a bit of a travel but with more reasonable prices?