Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many Jewish families to pull their children out of public school and into Jewish day schools, enrollment has remained on the rise, particularly in New York and Florida, a new study of the field by Prizmah, the network of Jewish day schools and yeshivas in North America, has found.

Over the past five years, Prizmah has measured a 7.5% increase in day school enrollment in its network of 305 institutions (which does not include most Haredi schools). However, this trend slowed somewhat in 2025, which saw 1% growth, the survey found. The organization attributed its multiyear growth to a mix of factors: families who first enrolled their children during the pandemic and stayed, an ongoing desire for Jewish community following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, schools’ growing reputation for quality and greater accessibility thanks to scholarship programs and increased communal funding.

“The importance of these sustained trends cannot be overstated. The last Avi Chai census of Jewish day schools published in 2020 documented a decades-long trend of decline in non-Orthodox enrollment,” Prizmah’s CEO Paul Bernstein told eJewishPhilanthropy. “The trends have shifted, and we could not be more proud of our work and the work that field leaders, schools and communities have done to make this happen.”

That growing enrollment was particularly concentrated in the New York Metropolitan area and Florida. In the Southeast, enrollment increased by 13% between the 2021-2022 school year and the 2023-2024 school year, with 1,553 new students. Nearly 1,400 of those new students were concentrated in Florida, where enrollment increased by 15%, with two new schools opening during the observed period. In the Metropolitan New York area, 1,393 new students enrolled, a 4% increase. 

Gains in the Midwest and Southwest were more modest, each adding between 300 and 400 students. The Mid-Atlantic region also grew more slowly, at 2%, while the West picked up only “a small number” of new students.

In addition to regional differences, growth was also unevenly distributed across denominations. Between 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, Orthodox schools led the way, growing by 7% and 3,396 students, while schools across the Community, Conservative, Reform, Pluralistic and Nondenominational categories — grouped together — gained 1,259 students, a 3% rise. Within that broader non-Orthodox category, Reform schools experienced 5% enrollment growth, whereas Conservative schools lagged with growth of only 0.4%.

As of the 2025-2026 school year, 50% of schools in Prizmah’s network were Orthodox, 40% were community schools, nondenominational or pluralistic, 6% were Conservative, and 4% were Reform. 

Geographically, non-Orthodox schools saw their sharpest gains in Florida, which added 538 new students, followed by Ontario with 326 and Texas with 208. Several other regions also saw meaningful increases in non-Orthodox enrollment, the study found, each adding more than 70 students: Ohio, New Jersey, Manitoba, British Columbia, Connecticut and Virginia. Still, while 61% of schools in Prizmah’s network reported an enrollment increase over this period, a third — 33% — saw enrollment decline.