Tuition solutions instead of kvetching

amother

Phlox ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 9:56 pm

amother Pumpkin wrote:

Govt needs to step up. We need leaders, lawyers advocates that can make this happen on a National Level. Organizations that are serious about this, need to Unite w/ Christian schools in this country , and make this happen .

It is not going to happen in New York or New Jersey - no amount of advocates, leaders or lawyers will make it happen. The Oklahoma Supreme Court which is in a state as red as can be just ruled against the state funding a Catholic charter school.

The Federal government doesn't control school systems as it is state and local. They do contribute funds to all schools through various programs like lunches and grants for various things/

And the "community" is not ever going to donate to a central fund because "community schools" don't exist in much of the frum community where nuances between different schools are dissected so that people only want to send to a school that is exactly to their desires.

Whenever school recommendations are requested, the elaborate explanations of differentiation in schools makes it clear that there could never be consensus in terms of how money is distributed - especially since many people would be supporting schools that wouldn't accept their children.

There are certain communities that do support community schools - it happens in smaller communities where there is no choice except to send to the one or two schools that everyone sends to..

Also the Chassidish community seems to operate its schools as community schools to some extent as there is more unity in terms of what schools are acceptable to each community - or so it appears to me based on imamother threads.

My question is if people are in favor of "community schools" why not send your children to a public school in which the majority of children would be frum like in Lakewood or Monsey. I am being facetious of course because the thought would horrify people.

↑ Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 9:57 pm

amother Daphne wrote:

Add July & August to the school year (with a 2 week summer break) & add two months of tuition.

Its win-win for everyone.

Teachers will get an extra 2 months of salary & will be working like an office job minus yomim tovim. Parents will pay tuition instead of camp.
Children will have continuity & wont lose the info they gleaned.
Schools will be able to charge more tuition & pay their employees better.

If its so important to have camp - incorporate it into the school program.

It sounds nice in theory.
In practice, there are many people who don't actually have money for 2 more months of tuition and don't do camp, to backyard camp, do partial camp, barter for camp, have childcare vouchers that work in the summer for school aged kids...

On the school end, the amount of work done to set up the new year is enormous and most work can't happen when there are students and teachers in and out of the office the whole day long. The principals are dealing with those daily operational issues and not able to formulate policy tweaks and new systems and procedures for the coming year. They need to be available to recruit new staff, to analyze the past year and make changes, to meet incoming students and assess how to best meet their needs. There's so much done in the summer, like a business doing a remodel that a 2 week break for teachers would mean a negative break for administrators.

↑ Hashem_Yaazor

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 9:58 pm

Jewishmofm wrote:

Talmudical Academy Baltimore used to have a program for anyone not paying full tuition. (They may still have it- it's been a while since we lived there) You got a tuition cut by signing up volunteer hours to the school. You had to work x amount of hours for every Y dollars of reduction or something similar.

TI also tried this but it was a set amount no matter how much your cut was.
It ended up not really working for parents trying to work to make the money to pay tuition and felt very demeaning.

amother

Offwhite ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:04 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

TI also tried this but it was a set amount no matter how much your cut was.
It ended up not really working for parents trying to work to make the money to pay tuition and felt very demeaning.

Right it does not make sense because who said these working parents have any free time to volunteer??

My husband is in a service profession and technically he can volunteer his services to the school. But he literally has ZERO free time. He works Sunday-Friday. He takes off three weeks a year-1 week for pesach, 1 week for sukkos, and 1 week at the end of the summer (don't worry we don't do anything elaborate. We take a road trip and do cheap/free stuff. and yes we tell the school about it when we apply for scholarshIp)

He doesn't get paid for time off obviously. So if he has to take off to volunteer at the school that will result in a lower income for us which will mean we need an even bigger scholarship than we already get.

amother

↑ Offwhite

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:39 pm

amother Winterberry wrote:

scale down simchas and cut out Seminary will free up alot of money
school should not allow any discount for a family that sends to Seminary
Seminary should come out of a Tzedaka fund if the community approves the need

The ironic thing is that the schools themselves pressure the girls to go. The schools want to boast that their graduates go to seminary x and they place enormous pressure on the girls to go
I read on this site a few !months ago that this year in Lakewood a lot of girls did not apply to seminary and the High school principals were furious

amother

↑ Peach ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:39 pm

amother Winterberry wrote:

I find this extremely unfair to the girls. They get ONE year of learning away from home after finishing high school. Boys get multiple years, and they cost about the same as seminary. (DS's yeshiva gedola, which is not even in Israel, has a sticker price of $25,000 annually, and I don't think it's the most expensive. Yes we get a discount, but we'd get one for seminary too.)

Maybe seminaries can be somewhat cheaper (like all schools) but I don't see seminary as such a luxury.

Why should my DD go straight from high school to work? Why can't she have this year where she finally learns because SHE wants to, not because she is forced to? Why can't she have this one year possibly abroad to finish her maturation before she is thrown into the heavy responsibilities of life?

DS, who is older, is going into yet another year of yeshiva, at a similar cost to seminary. Nobody complains about that. But how dare a girl get a year of learning that is not absolutely mandated!

amother

↑ Peach ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:42 pm

amother Phlox wrote:

I agree. It's a waste of time.

They'd do better to lobby that private school education should be paid from pre-tax income. That would change the game for many middle class families.

amother

↑ Blonde

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:47 pm

amother Peach wrote:

I agree. It's a waste of time.

They'd do better to lobby that private school education should be paid from pre-tax income. That would change the game for many middle class families.

Isn’t that unheard of

They tried to get it to be tax deductible dollar for dollar for corporations but the NJ bill died a few weeks ago

amother

↑ Winterberry ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:47 pm

amother Peach wrote:

Boys don't need to go to Israel several years either.... or even at all
If your swimming in money, Gladly!!! otherwise....

amother

↑ Peach ↓

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 10:53 pm

amother Winterberry wrote:

Boys don't need to go to Israel several years either.... or even at all
If your swimming in money, Gladly!!! otherwise....

Again, DS is NOT in a yeshiva in Israel. It's still $25,000 a year.

The seminary I'm hoping to send DD to is comparably priced. (before Federation aid or any other discounts) And it's one year. DS is in his third year and it's not the last one, either.

amother

↑ Phlox

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 11:05 pm

amother Peach wrote:

I agree. It's a waste of time.

They'd do better to lobby that private school education should be paid from pre-tax income. That would change the game for many middle class families.

A tax deduction won’t happen either.

College tuition isn’t deductible or graduate school.

Actually the tax deduction would disproportionately reward the wealthiest people because there really aren’t any other middle class people who send their kids to private schools.

Most middle class people move into school districts that are known for their excellent public school systems because it is less expensive than private school tuition. 🤷‍♀️

amother

↑ Petunia

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 11:35 pm

amother Winterberry wrote:

Boys don't need to go to Israel several years either.... or even at all
If your swimming in money, Gladly!!! otherwise....

In the litvish world, boys typically start dating at 23. That means five years of bais medrash after high school. Which us parents pay for.

And they do typically go to Israel for a year or two or three.

amother

↑ Winterberry

Tue, Jun 25 2024, 11:53 pm

amother Petunia wrote:

well if the economy and people's situation is bad as it's made out to be on here it might be good to scale back on that too... Might help the girl's shiduch crisis at the same time.
Better for a boy to date at 22, save a year of his tuition than take a 4th grader out of school

amother

Lightcoral

Wed, Jun 26 2024, 12:36 am

Jewishmofm wrote:

wrong school. Its not TA, its TI that does that. They call it maaser zman. TI - shearis hapleita, torah institute

↑ notshanarishona

Wed, Jun 26 2024, 4:34 am

amother Peach wrote:

If there are 12 children in a class, they have to pay a teacher and for a classroom.

If there are 24 children in a class, they have to pay the same teacher and the same classroom, but divided among less people.

That's economies of scale. It's cheaper per person if there are more people in the system.

Most schools have multiple classes in each grade. Going down from 100 to 75 in a grade won’t increase costs. They would just need one less classroom and one less teacher.

amother

SandyBrown

Wed, Jul 10 2024, 7:15 am

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

TI also tried this but it was a set amount no matter how much your cut was.
It ended up not really working for parents trying to work to make the money to pay tuition and felt very demeaning.

Years ago when I was in school we received tuition assistance and my father would work in the evenings at whatever event the school was having to help support the school. In the old days in NY at least there was Bingo. He would come home wreaking of smoke, but it was not demeaning to him because he felt he was doing his part to support the school since he could not give the money directly. I felt so proud of him and never saw this as demeaning. maybe we need to think of it in a different way.