Withholding a diploma if tuition isn't settled

amother

↑ Hyssop ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:45 pm

amother Mimosa wrote:

So is a seminary valuable experience where girls mature and become independent or it's 13th grade? I happen to agree with the latter, but that's not what Imas say here when debating pros and cons of going to seminary

That is irrelevant. If seminary is standard in your community, opting out is like opting out of 12th grade, and not (as you might prefer) like avoiding a luxury experience reserved only for the wealthy.

amother

↑ Cyclamen

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:00 pm

amother Mimosa wrote:

Thankfully, the frum world does not make chinuch decisions based on the consensus on imamother.

If this is standard in your community, its standard in your community. Rich girls and poor girls alike go to seminary.

Whatever your personal reasons for sending your daughter to seminary, it's meant and treated as 13th grade for many of us.

amother

DarkViolet

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:11 pm

amother Hyssop wrote:

Respectfully, I disagree. I think we can teach our daughters that we don't need to follow necessarily what the rest of the class is doing if it doesn't work for us. There are other options of things to do and each girl is individual and unique.
I personally put a lot of pressure on my parents to attend Seminary, because "everyone else was going" and B"H had a wonderful year, but in retrospect I really feel guilt and regret. I pushed my parents to put forth $$ they couldn't afford to lay out (it took them a number of years to finish paying the loans) I can't say Seminary was in any way a make it or break it for who I am today.

12th grade is obligatory. No one wants to be a high-school dropout. It might be standard but it's still a luxury.

↑ keym

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:22 pm

amother Mimosa wrote:

A girl usually can't earn 25K in 4 years of HS by working summers, Sundays, and evenings. How much can they get paid already? Summers are the main income.
Camps pay pennies, youth corp now is only from 16 and it's about $2,400 for the summer.

I live in NJ. No YouthCorp.

Girls who are serious about making money don't work in day camps. They work in daycares.
Two months they can make around $500/week (average) which comes out to $4000-$4500 a summer. Which is still underpaid at $10-$12 an hour

Daycare centers hire high school girls for the 2 weeks before Pesach - the girls are off. $1000 for those 2 weeks.

I know 11th and 12th graders that work as a secretary at a boys school Sunday mornings 9-2. (Phones, copies, late notes, bandaids). At $15/hour, they can make a decent amount- $3000-$4000 over the year

I know 10th, 11th, 12th graders who work for shaitel machers. They do the calls, the basic washing. In the evening. 4 hours a week. $20/hour. That can earn them $3000 a year.
Or a woman who does cake decorating and needs 4 hours of someone to help bake the cupcakes.

12th graders do ABA on Sundays, or an hour after school. Decent pay.

All jobs that my daughter and her friends do or have done.

Like I said. Many girls are motivated to help cover a significant portion of seminary and really hustle all through high school to earn a lot of the money.
Its not so far from reality.

amother

↑ Celeste ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 10:18 pm

amother Cyclamen wrote:

So the student shouldn't go on to 12th grade if they still owe tuition for 11th grade?

There's no difference, your comment makes no sense.

In general, yes, we do have a sense of entitlement that we expect the community to make sure every Jewish child is educated. Bh this is (almost always) what happens.

As others have said there is a difference between 12th and seminary. You are just rationalizing here. Do you know of any seminaries where u can only pay half? Or pay your bill in a few years?

Entitlement is when you sit back and let others foot your bill. A responsible person does everything they can to take care of their family (even if it means paying off their tuition bills for years to come) bh there is tzedaka for those who do everything in their power yet still fall short.

amother

↑ Hyssop ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 10:42 pm

amother Celeste wrote:

Right. As a responsible person, I will continue to pay tuition until I pay it all, no matter how long it takes.

But that doesn't mean that I won't be sending my daughters to seminary.

amother

↑ Mimosa ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 11:49 pm

keym wrote:

11th and 12th graders, maybe. I know girls who did ABA on Sundays or in the summer (in camps).

Daycares have the same schedule here as camps, so not 8 weeks. $500 minimum per week, with $10/h is 50h per week. Your daycares are open 10h/day?
Never heard of schools hiring HS girls as secretaries.
Sheitel machers I know either do it themselves or have assistants who're older and for more hours.

The bottom line is, whatever girls earn will definitely help, but normally it won't come close to 25K.

amother

↑ Mimosa ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 11:51 pm

amother Cyclamen wrote:

BH for community norms making chinuch decisions!
/endsarcasm

B'Syata D'Shmya ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:06 am

amother OP wrote:

I've heard that some schools will not release a diploma or transcript if that students tuition isn't paid or at least a conversation.
On the one hand I get it. The school needs the tuition.
In the other hand, it's not the child's fault that the parents don't have the money/were irresponsible with money/the school is being unrealistic and unreasonable

What are your thoughts?

Why is this any different than foreclosing on a home when one doesnt pay their mortgage or a supermarket refusing to give food when there is a large bill that hasnt been paid.
I empathize with those who cant afford to pay their bills and the Torah had an out - to be sold as slaves (which we obviously dont have a way to do today). But the idea of getting something when not paying for it, is well known.
If you rented out your basement (cause you need the income) and your tenant hasnt paid all year what would you do?
The school is a business and cant run in the red forever. And yes, the child is the victim here.
A relative who cant afford the tuition sent her child to public school and home taught Torah subjects. She refused to have her child educated on charity moneys. Her choice. Child was just fine.
Im an advocate of ensuring a Torah education for every Jewish child, but the reality is someone has to pay for it, either the parent, their family or the community....

amother

↑ Hyssop ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:09 am

amother DarkViolet wrote:

To play devil's advocate, why? If you're 18 and take a GED, why do you need to stick out the rest of high school? Why does "no one" want to be a dropout? Why are you playing into peer pressure? Don't follow what everyone else is doing! Be individual and unique!

In a chinuch system where girls are given that year of seminary as a standard, since I support the idea in principle of girls having a year focused solely on learning for its own sake, why should I oppose that just for the sake of being different?

amother

NeonPink

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:12 am

amother Mimosa wrote:

So sad we are raising a generation of entitled, spoiled children. So many girls in our neighborhood refuse to babysit, they get their parents to pay for all their splurges, so why work.
In my day, we worked, babysat endlessly, did whatever odd jobs came our way , saved our money for seminary, for our wedding, a third hand jalopy of a car, etc etc. We understood that its wrong to pressure, guilt or force our parents into buying us anything beyond room and board, a yeshiva education and basic clothes while in their home. If I wanted name brand shoes, it was on me.

amother

Midnight ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:28 am

A relative of mine owns a sem, a girl wasn’t following rules and after a few months of this going on they gave her an ultimatum and she chose to leave sem mid year. Then her parents wanted to bring this relative to Bais Din to fight off not having to pay tuition. This guy is a tzaddik and was mochel the tuition for the sake of shalom

amother

↑ Midnight

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:36 am

When I married DH he was in kollel. I had worked for 4 years leading up to marriage and saved a nice sum of money.
We bought a house during our first year married. After about 10 months of marriage DH decided to enroll in undergrad cuz he knew he was going to want to get a degree eventually.
He called his HS to get his transcripts and turns out … his tuition wasn’t paid up and they wouldn’t release it. I of course stepped up an offered to pay it up. At the time I was HORRIFIED at how irresponsible my in-laws were.
Now I have the benefit of hindsight
My in-laws did not have the tool to be fiscally responsible. They did a lot of damage to their children in the process. It comes out in different kids in diff ways.
I have been so blessed, to be raised with so little but my tuition was paid. I appeared to have way less when I married DH cuz we were raised extremely simple but always in budget. I never once had to worry about my parents not paying for my basics. How lucky was I?
DH was a cooler kid with all the knickknacks and gadgets and guess what was really going on behind closed doors.
Till this day my MIL is incapable of saying no to kids. I saw my sil say her kid can’t have a candy and my mil walk over to the kid and give it to her 🤷‍♀️

amother

↑ Hyssop

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:42 am

amother NeonPink wrote:

Please don't paint all of our generation with the same brush.

Two of my DDs babysit regularly throughout the year, for the same $5-$10 I made two decades ago. A third decided to instead volunteer her time to tutor other girls and spent hours every night (though not making any money). She also goes on Fridays to help a family get ready for Shabbos (also without pay). Two are spending the summer as mother's helpers in camp, and another is a counselor.

None of them insist on name brand for anything. They don't spend much at all.

Although I think my kids are awesome, I don't think they are that unusual in their school either.

My girls may not be saving money for seminary or marriage, but I think they are demonstrating plenty of unspoiled behavior and fiscal responsibility (their bank accounts are linked to mine so I see what they spend on). They don't have to pay for their own wedding to prove anything.

amother

↑ Mimosa

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 3:46 am

amother NeonPink wrote:

I'm not sure why you got this from my quoted post.

amother

Wheat

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 9:51 am

I work in a school office and it's my job to send the transcripts.

I'm sure our school is not unique in withholding sending transcripts to colleges for students whose parents are negligent on tuition. It's the only thing we can hold over them to make sure they ever pay. Probably all private schools do this.

Before I send a transcript, I ask the executive director if the parents' accounts are in standing. All I ever hear from him is "yes" or "no." I have a feeling that not all of the "yesses" are actually families that have paid everything up. Some of them might be struggling. But as long as they're upfront about the struggles and willing to work together on a payment plan, the school will release the transcript. It's only the parents who are ghosting the school or refusing to pay with malice that don't get released.

Once, a parent threatened to sue and cited the relevant law that it's illegal to withhold a transcript over unpaid tuition.

We told him to go ahead and sue, but we would counter-sue for his failure to abide by the tuition contract that he had signed. And that ended the standoff. He paid the next day.

↑ B'Syata D'Shmya

Sat, Jul 06 2024, 11:00 pm

amother Midnight wrote:

Your dh was lucky to have found you. Perhaps your inlaws felt deprived as a kid etc. All we can do is learn from their mistakes.

Personally I would have a problem if my MIL would give my kid the candy that I said no to.