In an unprecedented show of Achdus, all Lakewood girls’ high schools have agreed to work together to improve and streamline the admissions process, with a shared commitment to ensuring that no student is left behind, TLS has exclusively learned.
Askonim tell TLS, that under the new coordinated plan, schools will begin the general high school application process after Pesach. Although the overall timeline will be shorter than in previous years, administrators say the goal is to avoid the prolonged uncertainty that many students and families have faced in the past.
As part of the updated process, siblings of current high school students will begin interviews prior to Purim. The standardized entrance exam will be administered after Pesach, and admissions decisions are expected to be released around Shavuos.
School leaders emphasized that this unified approach reflects cooperation, open communication, and a collective sense of responsibility toward the community. The initiative is intended to create a more thoughtful, respectful, and efficient admissions experience for families across Lakewood.
with all due the respect the unified approach should be reserved for not starting the school year until everyone is accounted for
There are a number of new schools and older schools that have space. Space is not the issue. It’s placing people who only want specific schools and won’t consider specific schools. While every parent certainly has the right to want a specific school or schools and has the right to reject specific schools as not being good for their daughters, that is not a reason to not start the school year for 10 thousand girls to sit home and go to the shopping malls .
you are perpetuating the problem by talking about space.every girl needs to have a fair placement.this has not happened this past year.nothing to do with blackmail.once the placement is fair and complete then all the schools will open.this is where the the achdus should be reserved for
That is partially what created this mess.
Once parents saw that they could manipulate the system and hold it for the school that they really wanted, the number of girls who “were out of school” skyrocketed.
There are legitimate systemic issues that must be addressed, like the fact that infrastructure is growing slower than communal growth, but giving every disgruntled parent a weapon to blackmail the whole town with is just asinine.
I said “until every girl is accounted for “ that means that no one starts school until every girl has a fair choice as determined by an independent va’ad.parents have no say in the matter once they are “placed”.no room for parents blackmailing.
this has not taken place and hence my comment to reserve the achdus of schools for not starting until every girl is placed.if parents dont accept a fair placement is not what we are talking about.
There’s no such thing as an ‘independent va’ad’. Don’t kid yourself.
Dear Peaked Cap
fair enough.but you get the point i am making is to negotiate an achdus that gives every girl a fair placement.and to hold off opening until thats done.it seems that this has not happened this past september.and by misusing the Achdus card, it wont happen this coming september either.
and Mike it seems you are obsessed with space and classroom dimensions.could we negotiate something a drop bigger.we have so many askanim.
If this was done, school would never actually open…
Who decides what’s a fair placement ? If a parent wants a school that already has more than 40 students in a class and has no room and turns down a school that has 25 students in a class, what should we do ? Even if it might be a little better for their daughter ,do we then keep all schools in town closed for 10 thousand girls till the school with 45 kids bends and accepts their daughter as number 46 ? R number 48 ? or number 50 ?That’s is what it sounds
like you are suggesting .
New schools want to build up and they don’t take people even if they do have room, they are same picky as established schools, and they say they have to be acting this way so they won’t close in a couple of years. They do beg people with loud last name to come and they chase who they think is good for their image which is :”coming from a certain school with a good name”, “having a loud last name”, top notch academics.
School owners and school hanhala think that they know who they are getting, and they have no way to check! Nowadays kids from very yeshivish families and in very good mosdos are exposed to anything on Internet, everyone should stop chasing a perfect imagine and understand that there is no way to know who is exposed and who isn’t, and what level of exposure kids in schools and neighborhood have. You can try your best and be extremely picky, and still none can know for sure, everyone gotta wake up about Internet exposure and how it changes Orthodox teens.
I would say that if the “25 class” is a fair offer then thats the parents problem.as long as every girl has a placement choice that seems reasonable to a reasonable outsider then thats fine ,but it seems that this past september this was not the case.so back to the solution if schools unify and co-operate not to open the new year until every girl is offered a fair reasonable slot.
How about elementary schools
That’s a little harder as there’s no collected data on how many kids are in kindergarten across Lakewood and surrounding areas.
The high schools can get a better idea of how many 8th graders there are by calling all the elementary schools prior to the whole process.
For a few years the Vaad would ask that all kindergarten teachers send in how many kids they have to get a rough estimate.
I’ve been a kindergarten Morah for 10 years and never once received that call. I have 3 friends & relatives who teach kindergarten too. I’ll ask them if they ever did…
This was many years ago, they have not done it in years
They did not call kindergarten teachers
They put adds out asking for the kindergarten teachers to send in how many kids they have, to call all kindergarten teachers would mean they would have to know all the kindergarten teachers.
Why are we waiting for Purim? Pesach? Shavuos? In which world is it normal for an eighth grader not to know which high school she’s going to until the summer before?
If we’re being so achdus’dik, let’s just move the timeline up and do it right. Normal schools in normal cities send out their letters in February.
As someone whose child was home until first day of school, I think it’s amazing they did it. Waiting period and having exam before Pesach , ruined my yomtov. At least people can enjoy Pesach.
As soon as the interviews start ,the school year is effectively over for the 8th graders. They are inder a lit of stress and cant focus on learning and classwork. Why not give them a good 8th grade experience till at least Pesach?
What is this word ‘normal’? How do people acquire this moniker?
Why do people need to know already where they are going during the winter? How about winter of sixth grade? Who chooses these dates?
Maybe they should start the year before
Amazing !!!!
This is great! I hope babysitters, playgroups and day camps follow the lead. It will make it so much easier and better for all of us.
That sounds amazing but parents need to be in on this too…
No. Calling. Until. After. Pesach.
Easier said then done.
We live more in the future than the present. People NEED to know they have their kids signed up & it’s all squared away by issru chag sukkos.
People call to hear about the Morah (which takes a ton of time & we can’t even take as many students as the amount of calls we get…so this is a waste of time), they call as siblings, they call with “pull”….
As a group of playgroup Moros we have tried this but not everyone can “hold out” and the cycle starts again!
This is something that needs an entire community to agree to as we have no playgroup vaad”.
Absolutely correct. Oir any of these things to work, parents have to not create a panic. The schools try to keep things calm till after Pesach, but in many cases parents start panicking and trying to get their daughters accepted under the table unofficially ahead of the process ,abd then everything breaks loose and hurts everybody. It is up to all parents to be responsible and stay calm till after Pesach.
Is this starting this year? I was just told that the entrance exam will be in Feb
Don’t believe everything you are told.
A few years ago, all the schools decided to do the accepting on their own. No vaad. This was the best idea ever.
also no girl she ever be forced to go to a school where she doesn’t belong. Pls pls i beg the high schools to also not take a girl that wouldn’t fit in.
This is pathetic. There is never talk about placing girls, only minimizing the time that their feelings are hurt. When can there be actual change???!!!
When people like yourself get together and create more high schools ,then there will be actual change. Lakewood tuitions in most of the older existing high schools are not enough to properly pay the higher salaries now demanded by the limited pool of qualified high school teachers. Plus the extra curricular needs for high school girls in today’s society is also very expensive. So you need to step up and do more than just complaining on blogs as to why others are not doing more .
Not everyone is cut out to open a school.However as a community we should reserve the achdus to PLACE every single girl with a fair placement and offer each girl a FAIR school.And reserve the Achdus to wait till open till that happens.The first year it may take an extra 3 or 4 days but the point is everyone will be motivated to solve the problem.
Yes. But remember it’s we as A COMMUNITY. And unfortunately the community does not really take responsibility for chinuch in Lakewood. If it did ,we would always have enough schools and enough money to pay teachers ahd Rebeim . So now that we leave it up to individuals, what exactly do you want to happen? There are some schools that are older and fuller and more in demand. Your definition of FAIR placement would require those more in demand schools to take as many girls as apply ,assuming it was a FAIR placement for that girl. Well ,that’s not possible because that would make some schools to have 60 girls in a class, while the lesser in demand schools would have 15 girls in a class. So you have very nice slogans, but no.practical solutions. Your idea can only work if we had one community school ,fully funded and supported by the community.
Chaim W
while i am definitely not against a community school this is a different solution with the current situation.The idea of “fair placement” would not overburden any school.the idea is that every girl should get a slot in a fair way.and collectively the schools have achdus to distribute the slots to the schools or if askanim see that they are 80 slots short should hold off the school year to arrange an emergency 80 slots.now if parents dont accept a “fair “ slot thats their problem.but lets have achdus and wait a few days ,and there will be pressure on the whole town for a few days and then we will be motivated to “find”those 80 slots.the space argument is so boring.
Boring is a nice word to throw around. Askonim don’t make schools ,they don’t fund schools ,they just try to tell schools what to do. Space in individual schools is a serious issue. Many of the older schools are way overfull with siblings and alumni. So even if A FAIR slot was the right thing for a non sibling ,you don’t expect the school to have 50 or more students in a class. It’s nice to use fancy words such as boring ,but askonim don’t come through with any funding to make extra classes or new buildings so that the schools that are overfull can expand to give your daughter a fair placement. That woukd mean askanim coming up with millions of dollars and in the resl Lakewoid world, they barely cone up with pennies
dear chaim w
in a city of tzedaka like the LKWD area the no space argument is soooo boring.lets co-operate and give every high school girl a fair placement.instead of having everone bicker about interview dates.thats my 2 cents.
The tzedeksh in lakewood is tremendous. But most of it goes to Kollelim and Yrshivis in Eretz Yisroel and also kolelim and Yeshivos in the US. Very little for local schools ,especially girls schooks that get almost nothing as they are not considered hachzokas Hatorah by many gevirim . Why don’t you try opening a girls school and see how much you can raise to cover the yearly budget .
What happens every year is that the 80 slots are found mostly on account of parents finally giving in and accepting slots in schools that had room which they wouldn’t accept till the last minute. There are no new 80 slots created.
AI Machines Unite To Create AI-Generated Acceptance Letters For Every Student on Planet Earth
In an unprecedented show of Achdus, all of the world’s AI machines have agreed to work together to produce countless AI-generated acceptance letters for every student living in Lakewood NJ, the neighboring towns and on the rest of Planet Earth.
“We saw the TLS video yesterday describing a sample printout of a software-generated acceptance letter that was accidentally sent out to a student,” said one well-known AI chatbot platform who spoke to reporters Tuesday on condition of anonymity, “and me and my AI robotic buddies decided to replicate that experience by producing tons of artificially-generated acceptance letters and mailing them out to every kid and teenager in Ocean County and the rest of Planet Earth, thereby guaranteeing that all of the kids/teenagers are accepted into a school.”
“However, while we are not seeking out any monetary compensation for our efforts,” the AI robotic platform said, “we would greatly appreciate it if all of the parents would chip in to purchase us some brand new wiring to replace our outdated wiring. Thanx.”
But unfortunately, some of the AI-generated acceptance letters were mailed out to AI-generated students who do not even exist in the real world. Moreover, some of the acceptance letters were produced for schools that do not even exist in the Earth’s galaxy.
“No problem, it’s just a glitch,” the AI chat platform said.
“We’ll get it right next year in 2079,” the robotic platform added before automatically logging out for the day.
not holding my breath
I’ll tell you how. Parents will panic when the new school year approaches and their child is not yet in school, and they will put them in any school that agrees to take them. Good fit or not.
well said!!!!!
bh hasham takes care 0f everyone. everyone could come down!
earlier you said that space is an issue and that parents want better schools than they are offered.naw you are saying against this whole idea of adjusting interview dates.are you just trolling today?
Some people just feel that their hishtadlus of helping the jlal is to complain about others not doing enough
Where did I say that? I don’t think I said it, because I don’t really believe that.You must be confusing me with someone else.
How different are the schools from each other? I’m not involved in sending kids to school so I’m wondering how do they differ?