Dear Editor,
A friend of mine recently walked into the office of a school director here in town. He hadn’t knocked, it was an honest mistake and what he saw will stay with him for a long time.
The director was sitting alone at his desk, his head down, shoulders shaking. He was crying. Not the kind of quiet tears that come from frustration or exhaustion, but the deep, broken kind, the kind that come from pain that has no easy answer.
Embarrassed, my friend quickly backed out of the room. Later, he apologized, feeling awful for intruding on a private moment. The director brushed it off gently and, with a sigh, explained:
“I had just gotten off the phone with another set of parents begging me to accept their child. They’re good people, desperate to give their son a place to grow in Torah. But I have no space, no staff, no resources left and I don’t know how to say no. Every child is a neshama. Every rejection feels like a failure. And I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
It’s easy to criticize schools and their leadership, to paint them as cold, unfeeling, or elitist when a child isn’t accepted. But maybe it’s time we pause and recognize the impossible position so many of our directors and administrators find themselves in. They are tasked with limited space, finite staff, unending financial pressure, and the unbearable responsibility of deciding which children can be admitted, and which must wait.
These are not decisions made lightly. Behind every “no” are sleepless nights, heartfelt tefillos, and, sometimes, even tears on a desk.
So before we rush to judge, let’s remember the other side, the one we rarely see. The menahelim, principals, and school founders who carry the weight of hundreds of children’s futures on their shoulders, doing their best to serve Klal Yisrael with compassion and integrity.
They, too, deserve our understanding, our hakaras hatov and our tefillos.
Respectfully,
PA
Lakewood, NJ
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dont believe it ever happend i know many school directors behind the scenes and they dont cry about not accepting a child…they dont celebrate not accepting a child but definitly dont cry
Great, so you’re one of those people that says everything is AI or staged and can’t believe something happened.
Consider changing your name to “black”- as that is how you see the whitest among us- how then do you view the blackened?!
blackened chicken and fish is sooooo good.
So basically you are the type of guy who loves to paint a whole bunch of people into one specific type of personality.
So I ask you an honest question, how would you feel if people would judge you and paint you together with a large group and they will say about you that you are exactly the same type of guy like these other 100 people. Do you want people to assume that your unique personality is exactly the same like 100 other people.
Don’t we all wish that before people pass judgement on us, we wish they truly knew all the honest details about every detail of our decision making process and not simply include me into a blanket statement and automatically assume that my decisions are based exactly with the same thought process like Zvulun, Moshe, Chaim Yankel, Tzvi, Avram, Michoel, Yisroel, Naftoli and etc.
הוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות
Wow, Beautiful
as someone who works in a school himself I can testify that all schools are run by angels only.
May Hashem bench them all!!
not to get discouraged from those who knock them, Because NO one else would like to do the job that they do!!
Totally agree!
All those who chronically rant about the system- can open their own school and see how it goes…..
Exactly.
Thank you! We get literally sick from it.
You get sick because of the curses people give you behind your back.
That is actually a disgusting comment to make!!
I only know this pain on a small scale.
I am a local preschool Morah with 16 slots. I physically can’t teach more children and for my own personal reasons I don’t have an assistant.
Imagine when issru chag rolled around what my life was like. From havdalah until 12 am on Wed night and then the ENTIRE Thursday my phone rang and rang.
I stopped answering after 48 calls.
I then started doing research. Try picturing calling 48 Morahs & references to narrow it down to 10 slots (I had 6 siblings signed up already).
All I did was talk on the phone Friday, motzei shabbos & Sunday. My kids & house were neglected for the sake of 10 little kids.
In the end I couldn’t decide between so many amazing families that I did a raffle.
I couldn’t stomach texting the people who didn’t get a slot. It was physically painful.
It’s the worst part of the job.
I was not myself for 5 days. Who did I think I was playing G-D?!?
You can only complain about something you have no clue about.
No one gains from over stuffed classes.
NO ONE!
Never happened in an out of town community. Leave Lakewood, done.
Speaking from experience: Out of town schools are way behind Lakewood schools in dealing with today’s youth. That’s a fact.
I won’t say you’re wrong but I will say that it depends on the school.
That’s a pretty broad statement! And to call it a fact!?!
How many mosdos in how many cities do you have experience with?
The experience that I have in an out of town school is quite the contrary.
Every community and every mosad has its own personality and its own challenges.
i live oot and we don’t have nearly as many problems like Lakewood has.
so we dont need to deal with it!!
Wake up!!!!
Call the Askanim, that keep on getting us tuition relief and school funding, every election. The money keeps on flowing in, the buildings are sprouting up, huge magnificent halls, and properties
sprawling all over l;akewood and Jackson, but somehow, they just dnt have the money to add another table in the classroom for Hashems child wanting to chant Kametz Aleph Au (or Ah). Maybe cut your office size in half and utilize the simcha hall in the back or teh front or the side or another investment property somewhere.
This is just click bait
pics or it never happened
In Lakewood ,a new class is born every week. In the history of klal yisroel we never had such growth in one town ever in our history. How do you want our schools to keep up with this ? Most of our millions of tzedakah money is given to very worthy causes in out of town Mosdos. We need about 5 new school buildings every year.
That doesn’t make this story true
One solution to this sad problem is to make massive cuts to tzedukah for Kollels, and re-direct tzedukah funds to local schools. The “Lakewoodization” culture sends every newly-married boy to Kollel for at least 5 years. It’s “Kollel For All”, regardless of the knowledge and ability of the prospective avreich.
Definitely. Get a job.
I don’t understand, regardless of the shittos (opinions) about how long to be in kollel (which the idea of at least several years of ‘kollel for all’, as you called it, is actually seen as a praise, which as you said has become standard today – when people were practically embarrassed about it 50 years ago), but where do you think that kollel money is going? To tuition etc! Granted, if the young parents just spend it freely before their children are in school, that may be room for improvement, but it wouldn’t necessarily be any different if they were working.
Kollel money is NOT going to tuition, certainly not during the first 3 years of the marriage! More than likely, it funds “Shana Rishona” trips to Panama, Costa Rica, Italy, etc.
So Kollelim are the source of all problems.
You should meet up with the guys who think that the source of all problems is sheitels, or long ones.
Great match.
Yes, by and large, those in עבודת הקודש are exactly that- wonderful people!
Thank you for sharing this painful yet, inspiring story.
May all these pure and wonderful children be placed in their proper מקום תורה!
the gemara says that the impostor schnorrers absolve a person who does not give tzedaka because one can defend himself by saying perhaps this collector is just faking.
i think that perhaps school directors can soothe their conscience when they say no to a child because perhaps they are from the commentors on TLS who do not give them the benefit of the doubt and will always assign the worst possible intentions regardless of the facts. not every child comes from such parents but not every collector is fake either.
I was once asked by the mashgiach ztl to open a school. I explained to him that I and my wife was not up to be looked down upon 24/7..I have a friend who could and cannot walk down the street without a look and a lack of privacy.
Most of the courageous people who are creating schools deserve to be paid top salary as they give up all their privacy 24/7. They are not just operating a school of classroom and students with teachers. The overhead is immense. The stress is not typical of regular jobs. They deal with family crisis as well as klal issues all the time.
It’s only getting harder to operate a school due to the increase in daily living! Salaries, operational costs.
I’m curious, what did the mashgiach say about this, and how indeed do menahalim deal with it?
I believe that there are directors who have a hard time when he has to reject a child due to lack of space. I understand their anguish. However, there is a compassionate way to turn down a child. My experiences are that a lot of the directors act in an arrogant manner. There are ways to say no, and many people in the position of authority have not figured out the correct way.
B”H
A hard mitzvah is a good mitzvah. My rebbe taught me that if a mitzvah comes hard, it’s because the satan if fighting so the Yid or Yiddena doesn’t get the schar from the mitzvah. Mitzvahs that don’t come hard don’t have the satan fighting it as much because the doer doesn’t stand to gain much by the mitzvahs completion. The mitzvah of chinuch is so chushiv – that’s why the satan is fighting with all his might; in order that the Yidden can overcome it and gain tremendous zechuyos, IY”H.
Come on, for the right price? Grandchild of some Rosh Yeshiva? Grow up.
can we get Ruby Schron to open yeshivas instead of halls in Lakewood, he is a huge baal tzedaka.
Never going to happen.
Maybe if the halls cost less, there is more money for tuition (and for rabbeim and moros to make simchos more easily!:)
He may be THE ONLY ONE who cried.
I’ve personally gone into a specific administrators office to beg on behalf of a family member who was gng thru a personal tzarah and the administrator didn’t blink. He said I’m sorry -I’m very desensitized and in a few minutes, I’ll get another phone call about someone in a similar situation.
It’s as if they’re deaf and blind. I’m not blaming them but it’s the truth!
They will all say “it’s a space issue”. But when a dollar sign is attached, there is often more room.
yeah. “Walked into directors office by mistake”. My foot.
a director made up this story.
point is true. But sad that he had to “stage” it.
If he had to stage it = Red Flag.
Many of the children who are not accepted by any school, are met with APATHY.
Are these sixteen cows in Lakewood? Which farm? Today?! Maybe 50 years ago! I think the cows are staged too!! (4 feet per cow..!)
I once entered a menahel/director’s office, and he was on the phone with another menahel saying ‘he’s not a fit for our school, but where can we place him’. It amazed me that he cared that much. He could have just told the parents no, yet he felt the achrayus (responsibility) to help out more.
I have a hard time believing this story.
I do think that hi es directors are more sensitive to the parents than the school owners.
Having said that the schools – overall- have become desensitized to parents and their kids.
The truth is, space is indeed limited. Which is a problem that is not easily solved.
A suggestion: Perhaps there can be a teachers/Rebbe training course where they can learn half day and be a Rebbe half day and get free tuition. That will bring in more Rabbeim and the option to open more schools. In Baltimore there is an afternoon Kollel for Mechanchim. With incentives we will have more qualified Rabbeim, and less problems with paying tuition for Kolleleit. It works in other towns.
Why would that help? Right now finding rebbeim is not the issue. It’s called $$$. You need millions to run a school.
Why would he relate over this story? I dont know if it borders on lashon hara but Something this sensitive should have been left private. You know where your friend works. And would have been better if he wrote this story himself or not said over anything at all.