By Tamar Snyder
Earlier this year, several Jewish day schools in the northern New Jersey and Manhattan areas announced that they would be starting the 2015-2016 year on September 8 because Labor Day falls late this year. I quickly did some math and discovered that this meant my children would be off for 17 days during the summer, without camp or school. To put things in perspective, the average American employee is entitled to only 16 days of paid leave each year, including holidays.
Scrambling to arrange child care is always a Herculean task for dual-income working parents, but this year it will be even tougher. My husband, who works in the corporate world, barely gets enough vacation days to cover all the Jewish holidays. I am lucky enough to work in the Jewish not-for-profit world, where I have most Jewish holidays off, and am grateful for the flexibility my employer provides. Many friends of mine have it worse; both spouses work in jobs that are far less flexible. Finding quality child care is difficult and expensive. Many parents are left with the undesirable choice of taking several unpaid days off (if their employers allow it) or paying more than their daily take-home pay for child care that often covers fewer hours than the typical workday (think 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.).
The school start date is just emblematic of the struggles that working parents face in their quest to provide their children with high-quality Jewish education while also pursuing the dual careers that enable them to pay that hefty tuition bill. Given this shifting reality for two income parents (let alone the challenges that single parents face), why do many Jewish day schools come across as indifferent to their needs?
The good news is that things are starting to change, albeit slowly. Here are a handful of examples of ways in which some Jewish day schools are listening to and responding to the very real challenges faced by working parents.
Longer School Day
A small but growing number of Jewish day schools are beginning to open their doors as early as 7 a.m. and provide a variety of aftercare options that extend as late as 6 p.m. to accommodate working parents while also providing enriching educational opportunities for their students.
Even small tweaks can make a difference. A parent at the Krieger Schechter Day School in Baltimore told me that the school opens up the gym at 7:30 a.m. (classes start at 8:15 a.m.) for the younger children, who are supervised for no extra charge. “I can drop my kindergartener off early and get to work, and he gets to run around and play before sitting all day,” she said.
Use the Weekend
A growing number of Jewish day schools have changed their calendar so that siddur and Bible parties are held Sundays as opposed to midweek during working hours. This allows parents to enjoy these milestone events without having to take time off from work. Similarly, many schools offer Sunday hours for parent-teacher conferences, in addition to weeknight appointments, so that parents don’t need to leave work early to attend.
Livestreaming
Last year, Yeshivat Noam, in Paramus, New Jersey, began livestreaming many of its programs, such as graduations, siddur parties and the third-grade Hanukkah show. Not only is this helpful for parents who are away on business trips or stuck at the office, but it also enables grandparents and other relatives who live far away to share in the celebration.
Fewer Days Off
After accounting for Jewish holidays, winter break and snow days, most Jewish day schools don’t meet the 180 days of school that are required of public schools in states like New York and New Jersey. Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County, which will begin school September 1, has school on almost every eve of Jewish holidays until noon or 1:30 p.m. (many Jewish day schools are off the entire day before a Jewish holiday). The students have school on Hanukkah and on the Chol Hamoed Sukkot, the intermediate days between Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, and end the school year late in June, right before camp begins.
This past year, the school offered an extra hour of aftercare from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. at no additional cost, and was surprised by the large number of families taking advantage of this option. “We are trying to work with families to provide aftercare and before-care, but it is truly an issue of cost,” said Ruth Gafni, head of school, adding that next year the school will likely have to charge for this program. “The children have to be supervised and supervised well, and there is a cost to that.”
Talking Openly
Rabbi Jonathan Knapp, head of school at Yavneh Academy, in Paramus, believes that it is important to recognize and acknowledge the growing reality in our community of two parents working significant hours outside the home. “This trend developed years ago and has intensified in recent years,” he noted. Yavneh’s afterschool homework club has grown in popularity each year, and the school plans on introducing an after-care program next year for early childhood students. The program will end at 6 p.m.
The school, in conjunction with its board of directors, recently convened a working parents subcommittee to ensure that the concerns of working parents are an important part of future conversations and decisions. “The topic of accommodating working families is not a one-time conversation; rather, it is a conversation that will need to be revisited and reanalyzed from time to time.”
These changes are encouraging, but there is a lot more than can be done. I encourage heads of schools and principals, lay leaders and parents at Jewish day school to consider incorporating the suggestions mentioned above and brainstorming additional ideas. Convene a working parents group at your day school and bring the conversation about the realities facing working parents to the forefront. Doing so is in the best interest of our families, our children and ultimately the sustainability of the schools themselves.
Tamar Snyder is the Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives and Communications at Jewish Communal Fund (New York).
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It is also important to make sure that working parents have a place on the board and its committees This means making sure meetings are held at times that they can come and that hours required to be part of decision making body do not preclude full-time work (as often is the case) and that the ticket to decision making bodies is not a huge donation ( Often parents are working full time for afford tuition and are the ones who can’t make big donations)..
Another parent in our previous day school once told me the most Jewish thing his kids did was come to school. If they were out of school for a holiday they were most likely not going to be doing anything holiday related.
Our current school, Temple Beth Sholom Schools in Sarasota, FL has a similarly non-observant population. They experimented this year with holding school on the first day of Sukkot. School was open but programming was centered on the holiday and all activities were shomer-chag (holiday observant). Almost none of our families would have been observing the holiday with their kids at home. The parents appreciated one fewer day off in the fall and the children were able to observe the holiday with their peers and the rest of the congregation. This is a great way for schools to serve their population’s needs and their mission at the same time.
Thank you for this thoughtful article, which is one of those topics no school wants to discuss and which every parent feels. In the Phila area, the conservative and pluralistic schools have had a very rigid schedule and in the past, some of the rigidity has been blamed on union contracts. (In Phila, the Jewish day schools were among the only nationally to have teachers unions, which the Perelman Jewish Day school cancelled last year and was covered by the Forward among others. Barrack Hebrew Academy, formerly Akiba, still has a union).
I think it’s about time that the school start acknowledging the struggle that families go through to afford the schools, let alone be available for the restricted calendar (lots of days off during the year for holidays, pseudo holidays (day before Rosh Hashanah for example), records days, and so on. The Sarasota school seems to be responding in a great way and making the Jewish life actually meaningful. I think it’s a needed discussion, especially as day school enrollment continues to plummet nationally.
I am currently the Director of a synagogue based Early Childhood Center. We serve children ages 3 months to Kindergarten. I came into this position after 15 years as a teacher at a Jewish Day School that used to have a union. I see both sides of the issue very clearly and from both an Administrative and teacher position.
Our program is trying very hard to be more accommodating to working parents. We are open from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday. We offer coverage on all ‘erev’ holiday days that the school is closed for an extra charge. We also offer coverage on many Jewish holidays in which we focus our day on learning about and celebrating the holiday. We make a great effort to provide these accommodations to our families; however, it is nearly impossible to staff these days with qualified Jewish educators to teach the values we hold so dear– the values parents look for in a quality Jewish program. Why? Because our teachers are sitting in their own Sukkah, dancing in Shul on Simhat Torah, or getting ready for Pesach. We do pay our staff ‘double-time’ when they work on a holiday, but working is optional. Yes, you could chose to send your child to a non-Jewish childcare center. You child’s teachers will be paid half, and in some cases a third, of what we pay our staff. The staff turn-over rates in these centers is very, very high.
As a former Day School teacher I was paid half of what my colleagues in Public School were paid. To ask them to work until 6 pm, on Sundays, or on holidays, is asking a great deal. Yes, I chose to work at a Day School. But I chose to work there for the values it teaches, for the life-time commitment to Judaism that it fosters. I valued then, and I value now, the times I see my students in Shul on Shabbat and on a holiday. I also valued my own time celebrating these holidays as a parent of three children.
When your children go to Public School, or Private School, Jewish or non-Jewish, your children will have days off. This is only one small part of what having children involves.
All parents need to be part of the discussion on the need for childcare in our communities. But teachers must always be included in that discussion. Think carefully of what you wish for. What messages are we sending our communities and our children we we say that we, or they, “are not very observant” so we shouldn’t close? Jewish identity and Jewish education is the responsibility of us all–especially us parents. As we all say in the v’ahavta: “v’shinantam lifanecha” -teach it (the words of Torah) diligently to your children.