1. The way to stand up and do something is with your wallet. This is a great idea, but will come with new additional expenses and until people are willing to stretch and pay for their ideas it won’t happen.

   • They wouldn’t automatically accept their own students. Vhameivin Yavin. V’dok.

2. This mandate on schools would only help in 9 years. And how would you enforce it? Close an elementary school if they dont open a High School?

   • Why can’t the existing elementary schools add on a high school one grade at a time?

   • No it wouldn’t, all the current elementaries who have 8th grades, should open a high school! That will take care of all the girls who need schools! It is these schools who are creating a strain on the system by producing 180 8th graders a year with nowhere to go.

     • It’s not the schools who are producing 180 8th graders… It’s actually the parents.

3. Nice idea though not sure how that will help for the next 8 years …for all the new schools that are already opened.. how are they placing an additional 290 girls this year in these few high schools is beyond me. This announcement should never have been made public. What are we hoping to gain? Nervous, rejected teenagers that feel worthless because they got no acceptance from the 4 schools they applied to??? (while some of their friends got a few. ) Oh don’t you worry. Just wait a few years.. Lakewood will have more girls in Shalva and the like, where there is an open door policy.. A PLACE where they are looking to save yiddishe NESHAMOS.

4. Why put the blame on the “next guy”?

   I have yet to see a comment (including this one) state that “I” will do something about this and open a new school….

   • As someone who has seriously considered being the “I” that you are talking about, the main reason I have not (yet) been willing to do so is that I grew up surrounded by people who were the “I”.

     The fact of the matter is, if I were to open a school within three years, I would have people calling me all sorts of names for not excepting whoever it is that I did not accept, regardless of space, and regardless of other reasons.

     And I would still be undertaking the massive personal and financial responsibility of learning such a school.
     I have watched family members go through this exactly many times over the last 30 years.

     In short, the reason why I (and likely many other capable people) am not stepping up to the plate is because of you guys. You only take but never give.

     • Well there ya have it folks. Nobody wants to put themselves through years of shame and abuse which girls highschool owners are subject to on a consistent basis.

       Perhaps we should be cheering on our principals, administrators and school owners for actually doing this thankless work. Maybe a thank you note once in a while !?
       Maybe a little gratuity may help in not scaring off the next guy who’s willing to try and open a girl’s high school.

       P.s. There are actually some good folks out there that do put in effort to help out their children’s schools through various volunteer efforts. Not all are “takers”.

5. While this idea does sound nice… we have that in a few schools and parents are not choosing to send to the feeder school. They feel their child can use a change or its not the right fit for their daughter. The system can only work when there are enough slots for each kid and thats the only solution. Elementary schools are having way less of an issue because there are enough space. High school the issue is space and until that is resolved.. no brilliant ideas will help

6. It’s an excellent idea. The only problem is that you make a lot of money by having an elementary school, and you maybe break even with a high school.

   • I think the people running the schools will be insulted by the insinuation that they are only doing it for the money. For the most part they claim that they are not in it for the money….

7. In theory it’s a great plan. However, parents choose the chinuch they want for their children generaly before they are even born. As children grow, different children need different things. So what’s good for one may not be best for another. Some might need a more relaxed school, meaning not as much pressure and push for all mefarshim on tenach. Others might thrive. Same issue with boys chinuch.

   • The idea is that as long as the ratio of high schools to elementary schools remains constant, some swapping between schools won’t break the system.

     • The biggest issue in Lakewood is for the girls that for some reason don’t fit the main stream. No one wants t set up such a girls school in Lakewood. They need an MOE situation for girls.

8. how about every elementary school thats opened now should open a high school? also i was saying for years that boys schools should open up masivtas.

9. um um um

   IT DON’T MATTER WHO OPENS THE SCHOOL, WE NEED MORE SCHOOLS.
   until class size is so low that the school will beg for students!!

   I heard that 2 schools are trying to open, if anyone has details please share

10. WOW !! For a minute there I thought you had a novel idea; Yoish was I wrong.
    Elementary schools are already working hard for their school, why should we ask then to work even harder and open another school ??!! Is that fair ? Bottom line is, many people are hesitant to open a school because its endless work and if you CHAS V’SHOLOM ever, EVER, say no to a girl because you’re out of room, you get tarred and feathered and called a Rasha all over the world.

11. Many schools are at their limit when they have an elementary school (financially and emotionally), let alone a high school.

12. Having a few daughters in a girls elementary school, I think that at around 5th grade some of the girls have “had enough” of each other. The girls need the “change of scenery” that a different school provides.

    I know there are many others like me who have had thoughts of switching their daughters elementary schools (some for different reasons), but stick it out through 8th grade.

    • In Brooklyn, most elem schools have high schools.
      The majority of girls stayed throughout. I never got sick of my friends.

      • Same

13. What is needed is a community school that will accept everyone who needs a school.

    With each school being a private enterprise, there is little feeling of responsibility for the students who are applying as opposed to feeling responsibility to take steps to see that the school flourishes.

    A community school would have responsibility to ensure that all the applicants flourish.

    • What a nerve this letter writer has saying that every school that took upon themselves to start an elementary school should also have to start a high school. Really? Why dont you start a high school? What have you done? This is purely a supply and demand issue and the only solution is to increase the supply. Why dont you start one? It would be a huge chesed.

14. Many people have offered to nake community schools but they needed community funding in the large numbers that such a high school would require. The community has not offered to provide that funding. When the funding is there in a guaranteed fashion ,there will be dozens of talented people that will offer their services.

15. While thearotacly a great idea, practical application of it is not simple at all. The costs of running a high school outweigh by far, the costs of an elementary school. Convincing elementary school administrators, who are already struggling financially, to add massive additional debt, is not an easy feat.

    I would instead propose that the current high schools simply add more classes. No room? Get a few trailers and/ or move one full gradeto a different building. The costs of adding classes to a current school are much less then opening a new school, and removes the stigma of applying to a new school.

16. I know there are many issues with opening new high schools
    That have been expressed in the comments
    I would like to focus on one
    If it is an issue of money
    Then the rabbanim in Lakewood can consider to get together to discuss
    The following
    Lakewood has so many baalei Chesed
    So much tzedaka money is given in the Lakewood community
    To the Lakewood community and to All communities around the world and for all diff types of needs
    Millions of dollars
    One would think that the Halacha would be that having a school for the girls in one’s town May come before other good causes
    And this may have to be addressed from the top
    Loads of Hatzlacha

17. There’s a buncha reasons why this idea may not work.
    Let’s say a 5 year old girl enters School A , but by the time she reaches 8th grade , she realizes that she and the school dont see eye to eye, then what does she do? or even if a sibling doesnt really fit in that system, so are u stuck????

18. The solution being suggested would alleviate the tremendous strain in the current system, making it easier, not harder, for girls who want to switch to do so.

19. They already have a school they are trying to run and squeeze in all the girls. Even if they wanted to (which I’m sure they don’t) where would they put another 280 girls (or however many) next year? Find all the teachers required? Run the school? Nice idea in theory but can not be implemented just like that. Lakewood needs more schools, not ideas on whose cheshbon it should be done.

Comments are closed.