Thursday, June 30, 2005

Thinking creatively about dayschool costs

Thanks to Orthomom for linking to an article about an initiative by some Woodmere parents struggling to pay dayschool tuition:
Kenny Gluck and Jonathan Isler, both of Woodmere, have organized a Committee for Supplemental Yeshiva Programs, comprising Orthodox parents in the Five Towns, to test the feasibility of joining forces with the Lawrence schools. The parents said they are paying between $6,000 and $18,000 a year to educate a child in the yeshivas. They would pay about $1,500 to bring a religious instructor into the public schools after school hours to educate their children. The students would study with other public-school children during the regular school day and then receive their religious education after hours in the public-school building.
In short, a sort of return to the after-school-cheder system.
Is this practical? Too soon to tell. Is this ideal? No. The best solution is for our kids to go to affordable dayschools. But the initiative is important because it is an indication of just how pressing the problem of dayschool tuition has become, and because it is an indication that people are finally beginning to think creatively about how to address it. Is this a model of things to come? We'll be watching closely.

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