My husband and I this week committed to sending our 1-year-old son up to a playgroup. No, not for this year, for next year – beginning September 2022. Anyone who has a baby or infant in Lakewood likely isn’t surprised by this because we’ve gotten so used to it. But can we step back for a second and notice how insane it is?
Just two weeks into my son starting at a new playgroup, I had to start looking for another playgroup. Not only that, we had to be ready to apply to the ones we were interested in by Isru Chag! Can we let this sink in for a minute? We had to determine now – nearly a full year before he’s ready to go to a new playgroup – whether he needs a group that is slightly older than him, younger than him, or one in which he is somewhere in the middle; in which location he should be going to playgroup; and what type of morah would be best for him – in a year from now. Utter insanity.
This isn’t a complaint about the morahs themselves. For whatever reason, most playgroups open registration for the next year right after Sukkos. It isn’t fair to tell morahs not to open registration then because we are asking them to risk not having a full group – and thereby having less parnassah – because they might be the only one not accepting kids until later in the year. But the fact that it ever became an accepted norm for registration to open so early is completely nuts.
Playgroups for little children is not like elementary schools, where schools want to look into applicants’ families and have to determine how many students they can take for the next year, etc. That requires a lot of time and effort, and I understand why they have to open registration so early. But that’s not the case with playgroups. Morahs get to decide how many children will be in their groups, they generally know where the playgroup will be, and they don’t need to look into the families of the children being sent – they’re babies and they’re only being there for a year!
If anything, playgroups shouldn’t open for registration until next spring because parents need to learn more about their child’s development and social skills to determine what the best type of playgroup for them for the next year would be.
I know this has been nothing more than a complaint, but I would love to hear if anyone has any solution to fix this ridiculousness. I was thinking that perhaps a group of rabbanim can get all the morahs together and have them all agree not to open registration until much later, but I don’t know if that idea is practical and can ever actually happen. But if anyone knows any other way to solve this crisis (yes, it’s a crisis, in my opinion) I would love to hear it.
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The truth is that maybe five or ten years ago the morah would have been worried that they wouldn’t get a group.
But I don’t know of any decent group that wld not be full even if they would open in July.
It is no longer an excuse.
They tried this a few year back and it just confused the process more. Since playgroups are private the owners/Morahs can do what works for them. You chose to live her so you need to comply to how things work. Would you think to tell a store that the rabanim can decide when they can open and have sales?
Absolutely if all the stores have the same insane practice then yes collectively you would try to stop it.
Such as raising the price of meat to really high….
Same old story every year. Complaint is totally valid but noone is doing anything about it. I don’t think anything can be done about it, as noone is bound to or needs to listen to any one authority. Hatzlocha!!
I think a great solution to this issue would be to put the onus on schools to open from nursery, instead of primary. In most other communities schools start from nursery. There is only one year of playgroup and then the parents register their child into a school and forget about searching for a Morah year after year until primary. We can trust the institutions that we register our kids into to select and vet the morahs, while also providing a curriculum, transportation and *gasp* lunch. We need to be open to this idea and promote it amongst our school administrations and parent bodies. I believe this would be a real solution to so many Lakewood problems that are only becoming bigger with the larger population. If the schools and morahs in their homes would get on board with this solution we could be looking at a real solution
Your wife obviously ain’t a playgroup morah bro… That’s someone’s parnasa you’re talkin about.
I can almost hear someone piping up and suggesting that the schools should then give part of the profits to the morahs who lost their groups because of that idea. It’s not that simple.
For the past few years, I have waited until spring time to look for playgroups for my children. The masa umatan is full of grouper that point and I had excellent success finding exceptional morahs. Let go of the fear that you won’t find a group and wait until june/July
Yup! I wait until the summer and have had many wonderful options.
This is a great point and there is something to do about it.
Pay Morahs more!!
I’m not suggesting in any way Morah’s are underpaid, however there clearly are not enough morahs. If there would be more morahs than people would not feel so pressured to apply so early.
Um a morah with ten kids and charging 275/month are making $27,500. add a summer program for 8 weeks at $75/week is another $6000. $33,500 for a part time job sounds fair to me…
Not exactly.
A morah spends alot of that money on supplies and on an assistant if she has one.
not all profit at all.
summer is same.
and even 33,500 is not that much
morah’s work very hard.
Minus salaries of assistants and subs, rent for space (most playgroups do not use their own living rooms, only babysitters do that), miscellaneous expenses and supplies. Your calculation is very below the mark. And with prep time and cleanup, it is hardly a part-time job. In any town other than Lakewood, playgroup tuition is significantly higher.
40 something years ago when I sent my first child to kindergarten the tuition was only $25. Of course the tuition went up pretty much yearly and 20 years later I was paying maybe $150, I don’t really remember how much. We didn’t feel any urgency in registering so early. Why can’t people just wait unti Purim or Pesach to register their kids?
If you are fully secure about your choice of Morah for next year,then by all means go for it. But if you have your doubts for whatever reason,then just relax. You can wait. You will find a Morah that has a slot open later in the year as well. This is not Girls highschools that literally don’t have enough classroom space. There are BH enough Morahs. BeH You can find very good ones later in the year as well.
Yes it is utter insanity! As someone who is looking to move I have no idea where I’m going to be living next year and don’t want to sign up to a Morah nowhere near me! This whole process is crazy! I wish there was someone that can do something about it. Why can’t they follow the same schedule as the Daycares who do registration Chanuka time!!
Hello? Is this the Bnos Whoever High School for girls?
Great. My wife is two weeks pregnant, and we would like to register my child (IF it’s a daughter), for the 9th grade in the appropriate year….
What do you mean by “and if it’s a boy”? Of course we are making phone calls to the yeshivas, as well, because we don’t want to wait until the last decade, and be left without a school!
Bd #3 YOU SAID IT PERFECTLY!
Ziva Kreiger T”ZL (do we say that for a women?? she WAS a tzadeikes) worked tirelessly for all children and saw this as a huge problem when she evaluated children in the middle of the year and suggested certain Morahs for the child, only to be told by the mother that the child is already registered for the next school year and pulling out was a big problem. Ziva, spent a tremendous amount of time and money to change the registration to Tu B’shvat. She ran ads, called playgroup morahs to get them on board and spoke to rabanim. It worked for a few years and we thought we had turned a corner. The problem was when a new Morah would open a group, she was anxious about filling up so she would let the word out and take registration which left other more experienced morahs without a full group. The delicate new system started to erode and completely collapsed when Ziva was nifteres.
So yes, it IS and WAS a huge problem, but unfortunately there won’t be a change.
If Ziva, who had the universal respect of all playgroup morahs, parents and rabonim couldn’t change the system, I’m not sure who could.
Perhaps the Rabbanim can sign a psak that any commitments for play groups are not binding on the part of the parent (not on the part of the Morah) until after Pesach. Due to the natural changes, such as moves, better understanding of ones child, new Morah’s starting in a better location or timing, or ANY other factors, there would likely be many cancellations after Pesach. Likely this would encourage a great shift in the system.
That would be a terrible psak. How can you leave morahs hanging like that just to implement a new system for nervous mothers? It would be against halacha and against decency.
playgroup Morah here:
I, as well as all other Morahs I know, hate this system!
I personally really feel like I need a breather, and would have taken a full year off, but I had contracts signed last fall, and wouldn’t back out on a full group of parents. The system is totally insane!
BS”D
Parents who don’t think that playgroup registration should start until the spring, should not register their children in a playgroup before the spring.
Mrs. Ziva kriger changed the system. While she was alive, registeration opened tu bishvat.
The year she was nifter, someone put a full page advertisement in the local papers stating “the tu Bshvat time-line for registration is no longer in effect. Going forward it starts isru chag”.
All the morhas panicked and followed the anonymous advertisement.
That was that. No going back. The end.
I am a Morah. I got calls for next year starting before this year started. The calls did not stop. I even got a text on Hoshana Raba asking when exactly am I starting registration. I am glad we are done registration and we can focus on this year. If we push registration to tu b’shvat does that mean that I would be getting calls from the beginning of the year all the way to tu b’shvat? Its totally okay with me if someone backs out …there is always someone to take their spot.
I am still of the opinion that the schools could be so instrumental in solving this issue. Did you find yourself searching for a rebbe for your second grader last fall? No. Reason being that your child was already in a school with hired staff. Why can’t we just start this earlier? Children should be in a structured and organized system starting at age 3, just like many other communities out there. Then all this wouldn’t be a conversation.
I’m not telling anyone what to do but I have never signed my children up for playgroup before pesach and I have sent to one phenomenal Morah after another. Do what you think is right and trust in Hashem.
By opening kindergarten and nursery in established schools you may be putting many wonderful moros out of business. Also if making a decision on isru chag for the following year is a bit much then deciding on a school that your child will go to till eighth grade is even a harder decision to make at that point. Sometimes solving one problem creates another one. Just some fft
Such a great point. Out of the frying pan into the fire.
There is such a lack of 4 yr old girls morahs right now, by schools opening kindergartens, it WOULD NOT be putting ANY…ANY!…morahs out of buisness! Let’s go schools!
Enough with trying to tell Playgroup Teachers what to do! They can do what they want and if anyone doesn’t like it no one is forcing anyone what to do! What an insane comment to make! The “Rabbonim” should give a PSAK what the Playgroup teachers should do??!! What kind of insanity is this?? Like last year during the Covid outbreak some Batei Din “L’Toeles Harabim” decided to give an “Advisory/Psak” about not paying the Playgroup teachers!! But when it came to the question about tuition for schools??? Which were also closed and are no different ?? !!-The only difference being that the schools were “OPEN” to make money on the foodboxes and loans, grants etc that they were too scared and no “advisory/psak” was given??!! And being that there was this “advisory/psak” even though people paid the tuition to their schools without a fight, they decided not to pay the playgroups?? Enough-Live and let live!!
Yes, I have a solution. Mommy’s stay home with their babies and play with them and love them all day until they are ready for school.