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Will We Let This School Fail?

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Rarely a day passes without hearing from one of my friends in the Jewish world about a new project in which they have become engaged or an organization for which they are fundraising. The conversation that ensues is often one about shared interests and common concerns. Sometimes the conversations result in my renewed optimism and other times they cause me to have sobering realizations; but never have they made me sick to my stomach.

Until last week.

An unexpected call from a former colleague who left Atlanta to move to Asheville, North Carolina started out with the usual pleasantries – work, family, memories of old times. But quickly the conversation turned to the matter that was obviously on my friend’s mind – the state of affairs of the nascent community Jewish Day School in Asheville where his children attend and of which he is president. His story started out inspiring enough, nineteen families had come together in 2006 to create a fully integrated core/Jewish curriculum day school for their twenty-one children, with plans to increase the school size by the incremental addition of students and grades. In the middle of North Carolina, where so much of the Jewish community had migrated away from to lager population centers like Charlotte and Atlanta, the small but resilient Jewish community of Asheville was not going to yield to demography. Grounded in a community with religious diversity and a small but strong JCC, the school would be an extension of the Jewish community’s efforts to create a rich Jewish experience for their children. At least that was the intention.

Now, like every school (and other community organization) in the country that is facing the hardships of the Great Recession, the Maccabi Academy of Asheville is in financial crisis. Its $40,0000 deficit is too big, its community is too small; it is literally on the edge of going from a school that could be much more to a school that might be nothing more than a memory. It made growth decisions that anticipated financial security and now must revisit those decisions with deep cost-cutting measures. It must ask more from each family, and has already received more than most families can afford. Looking beyond its small community it has reached out to friends throughout the Southeast that might have connections to Asheville or North Carolina in the hope they might find an angel or an unexpected benefactor from afar. But one decision my friend, his board, and his fellow parents are loathe to consider, but nonetheless must – without the needed funds, will it be possible to continue this Jewish day school experience for those nineteen families?

As a Jewish people we say that education is one of the most important elements of sustaining ourselves. As a North American community we insist that day school education is one of the most critical means to provide our children an immersive educational and communal experience (often at the expense of investing too little in congregational education). We encourage families to send their children to day schools; we cajole parents to give more of their resources to make those schools strong. We know that education is expensive and we say to one another that we face an affordability crisis that threatens our ability to provide the education we know is needed. Yet say every child matters, so we mustn’t fail in providing that education, no matter the cost. We say all of these things.

There are nineteen Jewish children in Asheville, North Carolina, far from the Jewish centers of life in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta. These children are getting a daily dose of Jewish education, culture and language, and they are sharing experiences that will help cement their identities for years to come. They may go elsewhere in life, far from Asheville – perhaps even to our own communities. We know this.

So with all we know, let me ask this – will we, the Jewish people, let this school fail?

And if we do, what does it mean about what we say?

Seth A. Cohen, Esq. is an Atlanta-based attorney, activist and author on topics of Jewish communal life and innovation. Seth is an alumnus of the Wexner Heritage Program, Vice Chair and past Allocations Chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, member of the board of Joshua Venture Group and First Vice President of Jewish Family & Career Services in Atlanta. Seth regularly shares his thoughts on where we are going as a Jewish community on his blog, Boundless Drama of Creation, and is a regular contributor to eJewish Philanthropy. Seth can be contacted directly at seth.cohen [at] agg.com.

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  1. Mr. Cohen’s article calls attention to one of the great challenges facing Jewish education today: ensuring that it does not become the exclusive purview of the affluent and the urban. Nearly 1/3 of Jewish community day schools in the United States have 150 students or less or is located in a Jewish community of fewer than 5,000 Jews. Maccabi Academy, a RAVSAK school, attends the needs of 20 children (a school smaller than my own son’s kindergarten class!), yet all of these small schools attend the needs of upwards of 5,000 students.

    Small Jewish community day schools of fewer than 150 students are on the front line of the economic crisis. Unlike larger schools, small schools generally lack endowments, reserve funds, and the broad base of constituents from whom to draw emergency funding. Small schools tend to be lean, if resourceful, institutions with little to no “fat” to trim during tough times. The very nature of small schools is such that the loss of even a few students can be devastating. Small Jewish day schools in small communities serve as pillar institutions; a weakening of the school can shake a small community to its core.

    The economy is wreaking havoc on small schools. Schools that cannot contain attrition are at risk of closing. There is no doubt that without an immediate, impactful response, we could witness a full-scale erosion of the Jewish community day school as a small community phenomenon – a wiping out of up to 35% of all non-Orthodox day schools in North America!

    Mr. Cohen’s letter is no small kvetch: it is a call to action. I hope someone is listening.

  2. The Maccabi Academy of Ashville has selected parallels around the country, and indeed, around the Jewish world. Last year I had the wonderful experience of visiting the Peoria Hebrew Academy in Peoria, Illinois, with even fewer students than Maccabi [I believe then they had 14 children in grades 1-9; it has increased a bit this year]. They survived under great pressure but with the loving and caring support of a number of community members who contributed not only money but other resources as well. A local doctor taught Jewish studies at the school Another parent oranized their campaign, the local traditional congregation budgeted a yearly stipend–and it has made it over thirty years. The federation director gives the school her unflagging support.
    For a number of years I worked in the Former Soviet Union [with the JDC] and noted first hand how struggling communities has established local Jewish day schools, supported by beneficent donors, foreign sponsors, and, often, by locals as well.
    Those who dwell in the geographical periphery of Jewish life often bring a sense of community, caring and kinship which is unmatched anywhere else.
    If not for that alone they are worthy of support.

  3. Here too in Charlottesville, Virginia we had a very small day school for a few years, which proved to be unsustainable. Many families who were involved in the school, or who, like me, hoped to send our kids there when they got the school age, are now re-thinking our plans. While the two obvious choices for educating our children are the synagogue religious school program, or day school, our community is trying to think creatively about a third way.

    While we may just be at the beginning of this journey, three important things have evolved: 1) our phenomenal early childhood program added a Kindergarten; 2) the synagogue has added a day school based Hebrew curriculum as an optional track for kids starting in first grade; 3) our minyan (made up largely of families that were interested in the day school) is thinking seriously about how to take communal responsibility for teaching our kids things that they may not learn at home or in the synagogue school.

    We may no longer have a day school (perhaps again in the future?), but it is forcing us to clarify our goals, get creative, and use all of our communal human resources wisely. I’d love to hear what other non-day school communities are doing to fill this gap, and/or what the field of day schools can share to help us achieve our goals, and perhaps build the appetite to re-establish a viable day school here.

  4. Seth, I fear you are right that this will not be a unique story and that we need to be thinking about strategies for smaller communities (and maybe some larger ones) where a day school will be in a perpetual struggle for survival. We tried to address precisely this issue in a Lippman Kanfer Institute publication last year entitled “Day School Education in Challenging Times: Examining the Strategic Options” (http://www.jesna.org/sosland/resources/Jewish-Day-Schools/Day-School-Education-in-Challenging-Times-3A-Examining-the-Strategic-Options/details).

    What is required, I think, in addition to the hard work and dedication of the school’s supporters, which is clearly already there, is a serious look at both a range of potential strategies for strengthening the school, some of which are “conventional” and some more “radical,” as well as alternative models that might produce at least some of the benefits of a day school education within a different, possibly more viable, educational framework. We tried to lay out and analyze some of these options in the Lippman Kanfer Institute publication.

    There is no magic bullet here, but I do believe that to avoid just closing schools like this one (which would be distressing), we will have to be more expansive and imaginative in our thinking.

  5. R U done talking to yourselves yet?

    Wow. The Seth article has accomplished nothing: status quo for the Jewish community professionals.

    Either connect the school to funders or merge it with a good Christian school who will absorb some of the costs. How about that for creative thinking?

  6. What about larger major-city day schools adopting a sister school in a smaller community? Granted all day schools are challenged to raise funds and stabilize their own costs. But what if schools channeled their student fundraising efforts to helping fellow students in smaller Jewish communities? This would create a greater sense of clal yisrael, put into action the teaching that we are responsible for one another and perhaps donors could be found to match the efforts of the sister schools.

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