by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

June 4, 2009

Day school enrollment for next year is stronger than many administrators had dared hope, but the dismal economy has sent requests for scholarships soaring.

Requests for financial assistance are up by an estimated 35 percent at Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, say administrators. The West Orange school is offering $1.9 million in grants for the next school year, up from $1.4 million this past year.

The school is offering an additional $125,000 in tuition subvention grants that will be distributed to Schechter middle and high school students. Additionally, the Community Day School Endowment Fund of MetroWest is planning to distribute $75,000 in emergency supplemental funding in total to the three area day schools, pending approval, according to Kim Hirsh, development officer at the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest. But that number has dropped over the three years it has been providing funds, from $150,000 in the first year to $100,000 last year. This is in addition to the almost $800,000 the day schools are expected to receive through UJC MetroWest allocations for the next school year.

“The message is, ‘We cannot solve this problem for you, but we will help you,’” said Hirsh. The JCF is working with the schools to raise endowment funds for long-term affordability and academic excellence. To date more than $20 million in commitments has been raised.

The Jewish Educational Center, an Orthodox network of day schools in Elizabeth, has received more than 200 requests for tuition assistance for next year, well ahead of the pace of previous years.

“We are knee-deep in scholarship application forms,” said Steven Karp, JEC’s executive director. “We have plenty of people applying; it’s just that nobody can pay.”

And the school expects more such requests to come.

“Our parents are known for procrastinating,” said JEC dean Rabbi Elazar Teitz. “I can think of 50 parents off the top of my head who always receive assistance but whose forms are not in yet.”

The JEC is actually slightly ahead of enrollment this past year, said Karp, and the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes have been full for awhile.

The Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County reports enrollment for next year at 128 students in grades pre-K through eight, roughly the same as this year, with slightly fewer new students, said Naomi Bacharach, director of marketing and development.

Last year, there were 49 new students; this year, there are 44. Bacharach attributes the drop, however, to last year’s one-time influx of five students from the Solomon Schechter Day School lower school in Cranford, which closed the previous year.

So far, no families have pulled out of HAMC for financial reasons, said Bacharach. She pointed out that there are, however, “still three long months before school starts.”

Scholarship applications are up by 3 percent from 19 to 22 percent, for a total allocation of $278,500. Meanwhile, tuition subvention grants will actually go down by 3 percent, from 35 to 32 percent, for a total of $168,840.

Bacharach speculated that the shift reflects a downward effect on people’s finances. “People need even more assistance than what the affordability program can give,” she said.

At the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, enrollment is stable so far, according to executive director Michael Grad. But registration is later than at other schools, beginning a few weeks ago. So far, just four families have left for financial reasons, said Grad. The school is expecting its largest incoming kindergarten class ever, with 60 students already enrolled, compared with the usual 50. He attributes this to a bubble in the area’s Orthodox synagogue preschools; if it weren’t for a sour economy, he added, he would have expected close to 70.

So far, the school is expecting a total enrollment of 700, compared with 707 for the 2008-09 academic year.

But Grad isn’t breathing easy yet. “Just because students are registered doesn’t mean they’ll be here next year. It could be that people will say we’re not getting enough aid” and will then withdraw. He estimates that the dust will settle sometime in mid-August, “when people make their final decisions.”

In the meantime, he is expecting scholarship requests to shoot way up — due May 31, they are still coming in. The school has budgeted $200,000 more for scholarship assistance this year than last, for a total of $1.4 million. But they are expecting at least 140 applications for aid, far in excess of the 120 they received last year — and that had been the most to date.

Moreover, Grad said, “We are seeing requests from families we don’t think qualify. I think they are scared of the financial bottom dropping out for them.” He’s also seeing families who have already received their letters of aid returning to request more. “We may lose people, and we may have to tell some people, ‘Sorry, we ran out of cash.’ Right now, I can’t tell if we will have enough.”

Earlier this year, the school sent a letter to parents outlining the economic measures it was taking to keep the school affordable and urged parents to keep their children enrolled.

Around the same time, amid reports that Orthodox families hit by the economy were considering public school, Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler of Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob & David held a town hall meeting April 26 at the West Orange synagogue. According to Grad, who attended, most of the people there were parents of kindergartners, some of whom did, ultimately, decide to send their children to public school, he said.

At Schechter, approximately 90 percent of students have reenrolled for the 2009-10 academic year, consistent with previous years, said Donna Oshri, director of marketing and communications.

Schechter is feeling the economic impact mostly in the lower school and particularly in preschool through first grade, she said.

“A number of families that applied were forced to withdraw their applications in the midst of the process due to concerns over their financial situations,” Oshri said. “Families who told us a year ago that their children would come to us for first grade instead of kindergarten — in order to save a year’s tuition — have changed their minds due to the current economic situation and will be sending their kids to public school.”

Schechter is expecting 45 new students, compared with 72 last year.

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