What school did you go to?

↑ wondergirl

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 6:30 pm

debsey wrote:

Let me make myself clear. I am HAPPY that I graduated with a Regents diploma and the ability to learn Chumash/Rashi "invainik" I am not happy that I didn't learn Yiddish, since it's a language that would come in handy nowadays (actually, any foreign language that has a practical use would have been nice. Russian. Spanish. SOMETHING....)

I found my HS secular education spectacularly lacking in terms of breadth and scope, but adequate in terms of practical skills. But I send my kids to a similar TYPE of school, because I believe the socialization aspects are more important. I have one kid who is an intellectual, and who plans on pursuing a very ambitious course of higher education, and she will be free to do so, as an adult.

The Satmar girls, or most of us anyway, actually learn English in school as our second language, yiddish is our first language. But you learned in Hebrew so you should be able to understand that as a second language, right?

↑ Maya ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 6:31 pm

sequoia wrote:

They are NOT suing their schools. They are suing the DOE and the BOE.

Yes. Which brings us back to placing the blame on the governments agencies that are supposed to regulate this.

amother

↑ Mint ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 6:46 pm

debsey wrote:

Irrelevant speculation is not really something that carries the day in a court of law. There's no NYS vs. Yoel Klein case that is comparable. I believe there was a coalition of formerly frum kids who attempted to sue their educational institutions, but nothing came of it. (of course, to be fair, the courts move slowly, so even if this group is pursuing their case, we might not hear a result for 20 years!)

Here's the case you are looking for which means that its not speculative that Yoder/the Amish only won because they were self-supporting and did not accept govt funding.

https://supreme.justia.com/cas......html

amother

↑ Cerise ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 7:12 pm

amother wrote:

If I'm understanding correctly the KJ school district was actually given the right to do whatever they want.
Also this case is regarding special ed.

Disclaimer; it's possible I'm wrong because I only read the first half....not the whole thing.

↑ amother ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 7:40 pm

amother wrote:

I don't see how the issue of self-sufficiency is the connection between these two cases.

Please explain.

↑ debsey ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:42 pm

wondergirl wrote:

I am fluent in Modern Hebrew, it just hasn't been that useful to me. Spanish or Russian would have been much more useful and I wish I had learned more Yiddish every time I do HW with my sons.

↑ debsey ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:52 pm

amother wrote:

I don't see how the issue of self-sufficiency is the connection between these two cases.

Please explain.

the cases are unrelated. The issue in the KJ case is the issue of federal funding for a special ed school that essentially is serving only one community, which could violate the establishment clause - no connection to Yoder, completely different issues.

↑ Maya ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:57 pm

debsey wrote:

(Did you read the new book on this, The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel? Fascinating stuff.)

dancingqueen ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:57 pm

Wait, really? A woman is upset because she had to get a ged despite going to high school, since there a systemic lack of accreditation in her sects schools, and everyone is telling her to get over it? I think she has a valid point.

↑ happybeingamom ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 9:18 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

She has a valid point but her valid point doesn't take away a parents right to educate their child in the values they believe in.

Now as an adult she is able to go for the education she wants without her parents input. No one wants parents rights taken away.

↑ Coffee Addict ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:06 pm

Maya wrote:

(Did you read the new book on this, The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel? Fascinating stuff.)

I have the book. DH reads it. He loves history , culture and religion. I think he enjoys it.

↑ Coffee Addict ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:09 pm

This was a light, informative and fun thread.

Why did it become nasty? Guys, next time create spinoffs!!

mfb

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:32 pm

Coffee Addict wrote:

This was a light, informative and fun thread.

Why did it become nasty? Guys, next time create spinoffs!!

As I clicked in to see the newest posts I was just thinking the same thing!

↑ Coffee Addict

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:34 pm

mfb wrote:

As I clicked in to see the newest posts I was just thinking the same thing!

↑ debsey ↓

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 11:50 pm

Maya wrote:

(Did you read the new book on this, The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel? Fascinating stuff.)

Yes, it is fascinating. Law makes for very odd decisions, when one value and another equally important value collide. WHen you read the backstory of famous legal precedents, it's always really interesting.

↑ dancingqueen

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 11:59 pm

happybeingamom wrote:

I don't necessarily agree, but either way, why do the parents value their adult child (18 yo) not getting a diploma?

↑ amother ↓

Thu, Jul 28 2016, 12:08 am

dancingqueen wrote:

I don't necessarily agree, but either way, why do the parents value their adult child (18 yo) not getting a diploma?

To understand this you need cultural context and respect for what they consider religious beliefs.

See the Amish case mentioned above. The question of why they value it is not the point.

↑ amother ↓

Thu, Jul 28 2016, 1:16 am

Anyone else here went to a bais yaakov in Israel and is Israeli American?

cmalky

Thu, Jul 28 2016, 8:49 am

amother wrote:

If you're on Imamother, it was probably before. Dk when you graduated, but when I was there, it was a great balanced mix of yeshivish, heimish and chassidish kids. Mrs. David was there to keep Mrs. Bluming's - I'm not sure whether to call it fervor, misplaced idealism, extremism or all 3 - in check.

I have a relative who sends her girls there now, and my friend works there, and from what I hear, it has veered away drastically from the place it used to be. The crowd has changed a lot, but I think the biggest difference is that since Mrs. David has left, the rules have gotten more and more extreme along with the mentality.

For example, girls are now not allowed to bring cameras or cell phones to school. In order to enforce that, they informed the girls on the first day of school that they would be doing 'inspections' and rummaging through girls backpacks/school bags to see if they have cameras or phones there!

Girls came to school wearing booties - black, modest short boots - and Mrs. Bluming banned booties from BB and made them get new boots, because they were 'too stylish'. Same with gray tights - apparently she went on a mini-crusade about them this year.

We learned with Reb. Ledereich that long hair is fine as long as there is some sort of pin in there/it isn't flying or unkempt - apparently Mrs. Bluming decided that girls need to have shoulder length hair - even in ponytails! I've heard from a few people who send there that she called them up to tell them that their daughters - who always wear their hair in a ponytail in school - can't come back to school without a haircut. We're talking about 5 inches past the shoulder, tops, tied back in a ponytail.

Now if you want to say that that's part of the dress code, fine. If you have some idiosyncrasies regarding the image you'd like your students to display, personally I find it disturbing, but as principal of a private school with no board, it's you who calls the shots.

But what I find immensely disturbing is that it's all taught in the name of Yiddishkeit. As they come up with more and more meshugasim to implement, they're teaching it in the name of Hashem and His Torah. Did Mrs. B have her oft-repeated motto in your day to explain all her measures? "At the end of the day, there's a bill to pay." - aka onesh, gehenom.

I wouldn't send there now because I'm from the yeshivish contingent and there's barely any yeshivish families there anymore, but even if there was or if I was chassidish, I would never send my kids there. I am horrified at and strongly disagree with the chinuch they are giving their students now.

I went to BBHS too though I'm much younger. I came I with Mrs. David but when I graduated we had the new principal. I have sisters there also (one of them is just out of sem) and I think a lot of what you heard was exaggerated. I had a cell phone straight through high school as did two of my younger sisters as well. Not only didn't anyone check through our school bags, the hanhala was completely aware that we had it. There were changes in their policy. When I entered high school we had to give in our phones every day. There was a crate in the hallway for all phones. Now they're afraid that having it out in the open like that will make more girls feel like that's the way it should be and they don't want to be the ones encouraging school gorls to have their own phones. I think that's completely understandable. As for the other things, Mrs. Bluming is pretty machmir, but rarely have I felt like she forced it onto us. With all the speeches she gave(for ex the tights), she would strongly recommend we do it her way, but never made it the rule. We all took it whichever way we wanted to.

amother

↑ Oak

Thu, Jul 28 2016, 9:20 am

cmalky wrote:

From all the many things I've heard about BB, I only posted the things which I had heard multiple times - from my friend who works there, my relative who sends there, and from other people who send there or their daughters. It was just the tip of the iceberg.

Regarding cell phones, the inspections I mentioned were said at the beginning of the year this year. I have no idea whether or not they enforced it, but telling girls they will be having inspections and rummaging through their personal belongings to see if they have cameras or cell phones is outrageous, violates boundaries, and gives the message to the girls that they don't trust them.

If the hanhala knew that you and your sisters had cell phones and didn't do anything about it, I imagine there were extenuating circumstances they gave special permission before, because I've heard reports that are the opposite of your experience.

To make the leap to say that anything short of outright banning cell phone use (even kosher phones, mind you) is encouraging the girls to have cell phones is ludicrous. They don't ban pants there, do they?

I'm glad you didn't feel like it was forced onto you, but I know that girls have been complaining about it for a long time. Like I said, girls wearing booties (which she was afraid was 'in style' and therefore untznius) had to buy brand new boots. You may have been there when she went into every classroom, stared at every girl, wrote down a few names on a list, then later called out every girl she had seen wearing a bun or braid and told them that they can't wear it because it's in style. When my relative's class complained, they were give a whole speech about tznius and how a girl who doesn't change her hairstyle all four years of high school is a choshuv girls.

If you'll reread my post, you'll see that my main issue is teaching all these mishugasim in the name of Yiddishkeit, which is precisely what Mrs. B is doing.