JCC MetroWest to end child care in Whippany
Brody Center ‘victim’ of ‘economic realities,’ says top administrator
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Children work on solar system projects in the Brody Early Childhood Center at the Aidekman campus in Whippany. The center is slated to close in June.
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
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February 3, 2010
The Brody Early Childhood Center in Whippany will close at the end of the school year, JCC MetroWest announced on Feb. 1.
The decision came on the heels of an 11th-hour recruitment and fund-raising effort undertaken by preschool parents over the last few months.
The school will close June 11, the last day of the current academic year.
JCC MetroWest chief executive officer Alan Feldman called the school an “unfortunate victim of untenable economic realities.”
According to Feldman, the school was running at an annual deficit as high as $110,000 per year, and original projections for 2010-11 were grim, suggesting a deficit that could reach $250,000.
The only class for which direct costs would not exceed revenues for the 2010-11 year was the four-year-old class.
The Brody Center’s closing will not affect operations of the early childhood center at JCC MetroWest’s facility in West Orange.
“This is a sad day for all of us,” said Stephen Seiden, chair of the JCC MetroWest board of trustees, in a statement. “I deeply regret that all the noble efforts to keep the Brody Center open were not enough to mitigate the combined effects of declining enrollment and financial losses in these challenging times.”
In recent months, administrators told parents that if they could reach an enrollment for the 2010-11 year of approximately 60 children, the school could be saved. Parents, led by Sandra Matrick Forman, tried fund-raisers, an open house, word of mouth, and other publicity efforts. By the end of January, they reached a committed enrollment of just 36, with five or six additional children possibly on the way.
Feldman praised the parents’ efforts as “heroic.”
Nevertheless, “with all the additional funds they raised, and everything they did, we still would have been running at a deficit of $81,000 next year,” said Feldman. “No matter what we do — even if we could raise funds, even if we could manage expenses to a bare minimum, even if we could change the structure to make the school more cost efficient — we would still be running a significant five-figure deficit. The financials pretty much said it all,” he said.
“We’re disappointed,” said Meryl Heller of Morris Plains, whose three-year-old, Morgan, has attended the preschool since she was about 18 months old. “My daughter loves her school. She loves her friends. I’ve grown close to the parents. It was a very special place,” she said. She had planned to enroll Shayna, Morgan’s baby sister, in the school this summer.
Enrollment was down this year to 40 children, from a high of over 100 in the early 2000s. The infant room, for babies from six weeks to 18 months, was eliminated in the fall of 2009.
“We’re very proud of what we did. Even though the school will close, the parents built a community together that is unbelievable,” said Heller.
Forman, the parent leader, said in an e-mail, “I feel very sad for the children, the community, and especially for the teachers.”
Some parents feel the center’s fate was sealed in 2007, when the JCC, citing a budget deficit, pulled its athletic facilities out of the Alex Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus, which includes the Brody Center, the offices of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, and New Jersey Jewish News. The gym and pool are now operated privately by Gold’s Gym.
“Perception is powerful,” said Amy Fingeret, Brody Center director from 2005 until she resigned in June 2009. Enrollment dropped “because people did not know we’re still here or if we would be here,” she said at the time.
Lee Emdur of Morris Plains, whose children Gavin, four, and Rayna, two, both attend the school, called the closure “a huge loss for Morris County.” He faulted the JCC for not taking appropriate measures to save the facility.
“The program has been neglected for many years, and that’s the real shame of it,” he said. “There were opportunities, going back, to look at the program and identify something was not working and change what they were doing to try to keep it open. The sad part is, they waited until too late to confront the issues at hand.”
In response, Alan Feldman, who took the helm of the JCC on an interim basis in 2008 and on a permanent basis a year later, pointed out that it was never in the interests of the JCC to close the Whippany preschool, either conceptually or from a business perspective, but declined to attempt to explain his predecessors’ motivation. “All institutions have histories and leadership issues that happened in the past. But at the time, people make the best decisions they can. We’re never sure how they will turn out. I can only believe that the leadership of the JCC in the past sought to do what was in the best interests of the school and the agency.”
He added that from June 2009, when they began to address the issues, “We have tried to face this process with empathy for the history, for the teachers, and for the current parent body, to do what we could to take the situation and turn it around.”
The Frances and Herbert Brody Early Childhood Center opened with the inauguration of the Whippany campus in 1992. Several of the 13 teachers soon to lose their jobs have been there since its inception. Among them is Rachel Mizrahi, who shared her sorrow and disbelief.
“It’s a really sad day,” she said. “I felt so good about the school. I loved it. I had so many kids. I can’t believe they let it go. I believe in a Jewish education for the kids. It breaks my heart to see the school close.”
Asked where she will go, she said, with tears in her eyes, “I don’t know.”
Feldman said he will examine teacher contracts with the union and their lawyers to determine the JCC’s obligations. “It was heart-wrenching to meet with those teachers,” he said.
Parents are adamant about staying in Morris County and keeping their children in a Jewish preschool environment. “We are working on an option to keep as many families and teachers together as possible. We have built a very strong and close community, and feel committed to having a full-day option for working parents in Morris County,” said Forman.
Other full-time preschools in Morris County are at the Bohrer-Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph, at Morristown Jewish Center-Beit Yisrael, and at White Meadow Temple in Randolph. Brody parents said they want to stay together as a community and are floating the idea of starting their own preschool. “We have some promising leads, but nothing is set in stone,” said Heller.
Johanna Sohinki, director of early childhood services for JCC MetroWest, said, “The closing of the school affects me on so many levels. As the director, I feel the loss of an important component of our early childhood program. As a teacher, I feel the individual loss of every child. As a community member, I feel the absence of a nurturing Jewish environment.
“It was a painful and difficult decision to make but declining enrollment and financial losses in uncertain economic times forced our hand,” Sohinki said. “I will be always be grateful for the overwhelming recruiting and marketing efforts put forth by our…early childhood families.”
Stephanie Martin, who took the helm of the school following Fingeret’s departure, declined to comment.
‘The closing will be a loss’
United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ issued a statement on the closing of the Brody Center, portions of which follow:
United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ was deeply saddened to learn about the closure of the Brody Center Early Childhood Program. The closing will be a loss for the Morris County Jewish community and for the young families who have enjoyed the benefits of the center.
UJC has been informed that JCC MetroWest’s decision to close the center was made on the basis of both service and financial considerations. Remarkable efforts were made to save the center by parents who worked tirelessly to keep the center open. In addition, several generous donors stepped forward to help support the center.
“It is unfortunate that JCC MetroWest had to close its Early Childhood Program in Whippany,” said Gary Aidekman, UJC MetroWest president. “It is not something that any of us wanted to see happen, but due to a combination of low enrollment and challenging economic times, this difficult decision was made. They could no longer continue to operate this program at a significant financial deficit. We will continue to look for ways to help young parents in the western portion of our catchment to provide Jewish culture and values to their children.”
UJC MetroWest was prepared to increase its already substantial subsidy of the Brody program to help alleviate the situation. In addition, UJC MetroWest provides the JCC with a large annual allocation for overall program services. The Brody program worked to find a way to maintain the program, but in the end, enrollment simply wasn’t sufficient to keep the center open without enormous subsidies. Keeping the center open would have required an unacceptably high per child subsidy, which in these difficult economic times, with so many other programs at risk, could not be justified.
UJC MetroWest is working with the JCC to help families affected by the closure find suitable alternatives.
Comments
Lew
February 03, 2010
If they did not send $100,000 to Haiti, they could have saved the Brody Early Childhood Center for another year, hopefully, when things might improve in the overall economy.
Haiti is a worthy mission to be sure; but so is our own youth.
I know someone will say that there is a different allowcation for Haiti and a different one for the JCC. That is not an acceptable answer.
Haiti is an important program but others in the general public are donating to that cause. Who else is going to donate to our JCC? Really, it is only our own community that will fund our JCC.
Sarah
February 04, 2010
The statement UJC released is, not surprisingly, completely disingenuous. If they hadn’t been charging the JCC $1M in rent to run the JCC in Whippany all those years, then perhaps the JCC would have been able to maintain fiscal health and hold on to the Brody Center.
I’m sure it’s true that the UJC provides a large allocation to the JCC, but it’s also true that the UJC uses the programs of the JCC to fundraise for themselves in their direct mail and their advertising.
Judy
February 04, 2010
Sarah,
Why shouldn’t UJC charge rent for its facilities? As a charitable organization it owes all of its donors fiscal responsibility, and part of being fiscally responsible is to make its physical space pay for itself to the degree possible. Conversely, why shouldn’t a child care center be expected to pay rent for its space? There are a number of agencies around town—all are struggling to one degree or another, and no one is getting a free ride, whoever their landlords might be. The UJC is not the government, and can neither print money nor raise taxes to subsidize struggling agencies. If it were to increase subsidies to Brody or the JCC (and free rent is quite a subsidy), that means less money for another of its beneficiaries. You need to make the case why the 36 Brody families deserved more assitance than, say, the clients at Jewish Family Service or the elderly at Jewish Housing. And you may want to connect the dots between the lavish expansion of the JCC’s facilities in West Orange and the starving budget at Brody.
(That being said, you might want to check with UJC—I’ve heard they haven’t been billing the center for rent for at least the past few years.)
And I’m not sure what you mean by “UJC uses the programs of the JCC to fundraise for themselves in their direct mail and their advertising.” UJC doesn’t fundraise for “itself”—after operating costs, the money it raises goes back to agencies like JCC and JFS and the day schools and JSDD plus a chunk overseas. Of course it is going to have to justify itself to donors by boasting of the programs it supports—but the JCC isn’t its only responsibility.
Lew:
The Haiti fundraiser was an Open Mailbox, meaning everyone who donated to it wanted their money to go to Haiti and Haiti only (all proceeds of which are destined for JDC’s work in Haiti). Your assumption is either that, A/ UJC should have deceived donors (and the IRS) by diverting Haiti money to Brody, or B/ that if people were asked to give to a special fund to save Brody, they would have coughed up the same $100,000. That’s very optimistic of you.
sarah
February 04, 2010
Judy,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that the UJC shouldn’t give an organization a free ride, but it’s my understanding that they charged $1M for the space used by the JCC in Whippany and that seems quite excessive for space in a building that is hidden in a town and surrounding area that doesn’t have a lot of Jewish residents.
I guess what I really want to say is that the federation model is antiquated and doesn’t suit the way donors want to give today. The UJC doesn’t run any direct programs and yet it tells the agencies that do, that they aren’t allowed to raise money from the community themselves. This old fashioned way of telling donors to give their money to federation and let the federation leadership decide how to spend it just doesn’t work. Let the agencies do their own fundraising and if they can’t make it then they won’t continue to exist…that’s the way things work today!
Jack
February 04, 2010
Judy:
With regards to your response to Lew….While I do understand that the The Haiti fundraiser was an Open Mailbox, there was no such Open Mailbox ever offered for the Brody Center. Why is that? It’s easy for you to speculate what might have been raised, but the bottom line is that we’ll never know because the broader community wasn’t given a chance to directly contribute to saving the school.
Rich
February 04, 2010
Seems like the ultimate issue is that the Whippany campus was built in an area far away from where most Jews live. Thus, it was very hard to secure enough students to keep the facility from becoming a significant drain on the resources of the JCC. Early childhood services are profit centers for most JCC’s and are needed to fund the many programs that will always run at a deficit. It is my understanding that for at least 4 years the parents of kids at Whippany were asked to help with recruitment and fundraising but these results were never enough to close this substantial financial gap. Clearly a loss for the community but all agencies are under terrific strains and a six figure loss can’t be supported for a program that serves less than 50 children.
Jack
February 06, 2010
Rich,
I completely agree….the long-term prospects for the school weren’t promising and it was very hard to secure students. But a major problem was that the JCC did not WORK very hard to secure students. My impression is that they had been putting forth the same marketing and recruitment efforts for the Brody Center when they had 100 kids, when they had 80 kids, when they had 60 kids and when they had 40 kids. They either weren’t capable of changing their tactics or didn’t have any interest in putting forth a serious effort. Businesses and organizations that don’t change with the times fail.
Sure, they may have asked the parents to help a little in the past, but that doesn’t replace the responsibility that the JCC staff had to lead a turnaround effort which never came. And in June of 2009 when they first alerted the parents to the seriousness of the school’s difficulties, they still didn’t do anything that much different. They, in effect, said to the parents, “good luck with it, it’s all up to you!” With roughly six months to get more kids when most families don’t even think about preschool options for the following year until the spring, it was next to an impossible task.
So yeah, there is a lot of bitterness among the parents and community that the JCC didn’t give it a full year—a full recruitment cycle—to try and turn things around. I think everyone would have been a lot more accepting of a closing if things didn’t improve after a year of hard work by everyone. But the bottom line is that the JCC didn’t try very hard and didn’t give the parents a real opportunity or enough time to succeed. In 2010, the JCC has to work harder and smarter with the limited resources they have if they want to regain the confidence of this community. What worked in 1990 won’t cut it today. The JCC needs to do better.
Joseph
February 07, 2010
Look, it’s not location. If it were location, then Gold’s Gym (in the same complex) wouldn’t be brimming with new members (something JCC could never do on their own). It’s mismanagement. JCC leadership doesn’t know how to run a gym, so great… they get someone who can, and bam! it works. If they let someone who knows how to run a day care take care of Brody, we’d have the same results. Seriously… look at how many new kids were entered just with this small marketing push in the last couple months. If they were given some wings and some time, Brody would be over-run with requests. This location argument is tired, and holds no water. It’s just rhetoric when actual facts are missing. My two cents.
Todd
February 07, 2010
Just a sad event for me and my family. If there is still a way to do anything about this, I am all for it. My son loved this place and all of the teachers that took great care of him. It is so sad that the decision was made by corporate executives who have no stake in the future of this place nor care about the children that attend. How do they expect kids and teens to come here if they couldn’t even grow up here as younger children?
Joseph
February 09, 2010
What I would like to see is accountability. “Jack” is correct. JCC management didn’t try. They put the responsibility on the parents to do management’s job, then hobbled the parents with bureaucracy and platitudes. Current management says: “Hey, it wasn’t us. It was the guys we inherited this job from.” Ok, then if you are so different, if you are so much better, prove it. And a fire sale doesn’t count. Turning our kids out like this proves one thing: the previous management may have dug the hole, but the current management is the one turning it into a grave. It’s time to hold them accountable. If they aren’t smart enough to keep a first-rate day care, with outstanding teachers and parents, alive, then they shouldn’t be trusted with any responsibility.
Delores
February 09, 2010
Good luck to the JCC. Come June your building will be a ghost town. No more children running in, smiling and bringing smiles to the faces of everyone they pass - including me. No more young parents seeing the rewards of an early Jewish education. No more parents in your corner as the next round of Jewish leaders.
The JCC managment has squandered a successful school and business, and the entire building could be next. And in the end, who is being held accountable? The only one I’ve heard blamed is the previous CEO. It’s about time management looked in the mirror and asked themselves if they did everything in their power to promote the school. If they feel they did, then good luck to the JCC - the Brody Center is just the first domino to fall.
Ann
February 11, 2010
What a horrible mistake! These Jewish kids are our future! And here they are being pushed out the door. And as for management’s deficit (the one they managed to create themselves), the parents came up with over 100K in just a couple months to save the school. I bet they could double that if given until next school year. Thanks to the parents, the school was starting to get back on track. The open house went very well (20 prospective parents, I hear).
Given an opportunity those parents would have turned the school around.
Harvey
March 23, 2010
Doesn’t surprise me. I wanted to send my kid to daycare there. I sent multiple emails with no response for information and left a phone message last year. Very sad. The people running it, didn’t try to make it succeed it seems. How many people like me couldn’t get any info.