By Rachelle Jagolinzer, Skip Carpowich, Zvi Weiss, and Keri Copans

In 2018, San Diego Jewish Academy, a K-12 community school with an early childhood center, began a program to address affordability, a challenge faced by many Jewish day schools. Buoyed by the confidence that we offered high-quality education within a Jewish community that added meaning to our student’s lives, we saw both a desire and an opportunity to offer that experience to more families. We believed that our tuition ($24,000 - $28,000 per year) was a barrier for many middle income families, even with a significant amount of tuition assistance available. For a variety of reasons, some families never wanted to take tuition assistance; others still found the cost too prohibitive. Our goal was to remove cost as a barrier for what would remain a high quality Jewish day school education.

The groundwork for this program began a few years prior when we launched Open Tent, providing tuition reduction for Jewish communal professionals. In the program’s first year, 21 new students enrolled in the school. Subsequently, following extensive market research, we learned that if tuition was lowered to $10,000 - $15,000 per year, an entirely new audience of prospective families would appear. According to the research, approximately 1,100 families in our key neighborhoods would consider a community Jewish day school at this price point. 

Equipped with this knowledge, our board and leadership strategically crafted Open Door. Beginning in the 2019-2020 school year, made possible by the generosity of a long-standing donor, all incoming kindergartners and ninth graders’ tuition was half-price. That tuition remains the same for those families for the subsequent three years, guaranteed. As we announced at the launch, our vision is to eventually convert all grades as “Open Door grades.” In other words, we want tuition across all of our grades to be around 50% of our current published tuition.

We’re now in the midst of enrolling the third Open Door cohort of students into kindergarten and ninth grade for the 2021-2022 school year. They’ll join students in first, second, tenth and eleventh grades as Open Door classes. As we hoped, each year we get closer to having all grades at this key price point. To date, we have increased enrollment by around 40% in each kindergarten and ninth grade cohort each year, allowing the Open Door Program to continue for another year. Meanwhile, the school’s overall enrollment has increased 20%, and its net tuition revenue 10%, during the first two pilot years. Open Door has also served as a vehicle to gain our community’s attention and promote the school and our brand, among a very crowded field of excellent public and independent school options in our area.

In many ways, we are still in the early stages of our plan and continue to analyze, evaluate and reflect on the program’s opportunities and challenges. But we have some salient learnings relevant to the field. First, knowing which price point would actually influence families was critical. That informed how much we needed to secure from the generous donor, and how many grades we could impact. Only then did we hone in on the two key transitional grades of kindergarten and ninth grade with the four year price point guarantee. We never wanted those new parents to feel there was a bait and switch on tuition by only receiving the Open Door tuition credit for one year.

Second, we planned for a range of feedback from current parents, with our concern there might be anger from those whose children were not in Open Door grades. Preparing for a potential backlash, we drafted key messaging that explained our vision of eventually rolling out this program to all grades and also restated our overall goal of addressing the affordability challenge and re-imagining tuition at SDJA. But thankfully, this document was never needed. We messaged—and our families understood—that more families at the school would directly and positively impact all students and all families: more opportunities for friendships, for social and emotional growth, for an increase in academic class offerings, for new and different extracurricular activities, for increased diversity. Open Door did not eliminate any other tuition assistance that a family in fifth grade, or any grade, was receiving. It simply made our school and community more accessible.

Each year of Open Door is an opportunity for us to learn about the local market and the relationship between price and enrollment growth. The development of our tuition credits and assistance programs, and evolution towards financial sustainability, will be a continuous, iterative process. Open Door is one part, albeit a very significant one, in our strategy to achieve this. 

There are many variables and paths we pursue. Our Sustainability Initiative, for example, will save us close to half a million dollars each year in energy costs, allowing us to reinvest those funds into affordability and program initiatives. With our expansive 56-acre campus, situated in an ideal location in San Diego, we are also exploring a myriad of mission-aligned program and business development opportunities that can generate consistent non-tuition revenue streams in the year ahead, while also elevating our brand and serving to build an even stronger Jewish community in the region.

Sustaining Open Door is only possible because our entire community sees its value. Each year we ask Open Door families to donate back all or part of the tuition savings as a philanthropic gift, emphasizing the quality of the program and actual cost to educate a student (now approximately $30,000/year). Many families do give back, even those who are not in Open Door grades. While this giving is significant, it does not make up the difference between Open Door savings and full tuition. 

There are different scenarios and percentages where the number of Open Door families and the donations from families would be break-even. We are fortunate that the primary donor supporting  the pilot program understands the need for obtaining additional data to plan and innovate our future path, as well as  the long-term vision and the strategy of building each grade, each year with families excited at the opportunity to join a vibrant community with strong academic learning and meaningful Jewish experiences.

Open Door has brought growth and new energy to our community and will inform plans and innovations to come. Our enrollment is now more than 400 families. The momentum gained through a virtuous cycle is palpable, even during the pandemic. Current families and others in the community see a growing, thriving school. This builds confidence and belief that our product is of value and in demand.

With the right combination of more families enrolling and contributing whatever they are able to, we continue to restructure the cost model for our school. Open Door is part of our larger vision promoting accessibility for many families, in turn elevating the learning and community experiences for all who are part of the SDJA family. 

Rachelle Jagolinzer is director of advancement at the San Diego Jewish Academy

Skip Carpowich is CFO/COO at the San Diego Jewish Academy

Zvi Weiss is head of school at the San Diego Jewish Academy

Keri Copans is director of admissions at the San Diego Jewish Academy

This month’s edition of Kaleidoscope is devoted to one of the most widely discussed topics in the Jewish day school field: tuition. Prizmah devotes a significant amount of its time to collecting and analyzing data related to tuition, affordability and sustainability. This information is critical to parents and to schools as well as to the many federations and foundations that support them. School stakeholders look to Prizmah for a contextually appropriate understanding of the data and for insight into best practices in the field.

Approximately one-third of Jewish day schools employ an alternative tuition model. The most common alternative tuition models include middle income “cap” programs; discounts for Jewish communal professionals; flexible or indexed tuition; and non-needs based tuition reductions. Recently, Prizmah conducted a survey of many of the newer alternative tuition models in day schools. A summary of the survey findings is contained within this issue of Kaleidoscope, as are articles from some of the individuals and schools behind some very interesting and innovative tuition models. 

Prizmah consulted with dozens of schools and communities considering new approaches to tuition, affordability, and sustainability. Over the past couple of months alone, Prizmah has advised nearly two dozen schools and communities that have developed or seek to develop alternative tuition models. With Covid-19 serving as a catalyst for new approaches to tuition, Prizmah believes that half of all Jewish day schools will offer an alternative tuition model within the next few years.

To further spark interest in this area, Prizmah recently conducted a three-day institute on tuition practices and alternative tuition models. The institute was well attended, and Prizmah plans to conduct a similar institute in the early spring. Prizmah will also be conducting a three-part “Ask Me Anything” series where participants will hear directly from schools involved in a variety of different tuition programs. 

Dan Perla, Senior Director, Catalyzing Resources, Prizmah
Our team at Prizmah would be delighted to provide your school or community of schools with a deeper understanding of best practices in tuition setting. We are also happy to help you develop an alternative model, if and where appropriate. Please reach out to me directly to schedule a free conversation: [email protected].

Background
In 2019, the Bess and Paul Sigel Hebrew Academy of Greater Hartford and the Hebrew High School of New England merged to create a vibrant, cornerstone K-12 Orthodox Jewish day school in West Hartford, Connecticut. The merged school, renamed the New England Jewish Academy (NEJA), serves students in the West Hartford, Greater New Haven, and Greater Springfield communities .

Thanks to the vision and generosity of community leaders Ann and Jeremy Pava, New England Jewish Academy now offers a transformative, subsidized tuition program, The Pava Tuition Initiative, for all students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. As a regional school, the school is also generously supported by three Jewish federations including the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

What follows is an interview with philanthropist Ann Pava.

Tell us about the factors that led to the school merger that created NEJA and why you and Jeremy were supportive of such a merger?

To be quite honest, our interest was initially in the Hebrew High School of New England.. We were founders of the high school 20 years ago (the first coed Jewish high school between Boston and New York). We watched it grow from 18 students in the first year to more than 80 students by year 10, with the promise of continued growth. 

And then the economy tanked, the demographics began to change and the school began to shrink. The high school’s six elementary feeder schools also began to shrink, and one of its largest feeder schools, Heritage Academy (in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where my children went) closed. We worried that the high school would become too small to be attractive to teens and began to look at creative ways to turn around the decline in enrollment. 

The Hebrew Academy (located in the same area) had also gotten smaller. They were in an old,  costly building in a town that was no longer convenient to the Jewish community. The Academy believed they needed to move into a state-of-the-art building in a better location to be able to attract new families and to retain current ones. 

At the same time, West Hartford’s modern Orthodox community was growing, in leaps and bounds. There were many, many young families with children in the pipeline for a K-12 day school education. Families  moved to the community for both schools, even though their children were not yet of school age.

The leadership of both schools recognized a win-win opportunity to grow. The high school had a beautiful new building on a campus in the heart of the Jewish community that could accommodate the Hebrew Academy. Both schools embraced the idea of bringing all their families (current and future), faculty and board members under one roof. And most exciting was the opportunity to give everyone in the day school community an opportunity to build a new, fantastic K-12 school together. This merger had all the right elements to  create something new and exciting, to rally the entire community, and to maximize the resources of both schools.

Jeremy and I thought the idea was brilliant and supported it 100%. And, we were thrilled that the Greater Hartford Jewish community, through the federation and the Jewish community foundation, supported the merger process with significant funding to ensure a smooth merger.

What are the goals or objectives of the Pava Tuition Initiative?

We truly believe that sending children to Jewish day school is the most important decision a family can make. We know that day schools immerse entire families in exploring our tradition and sacred values and enable a knowledge and understanding of Judaism that can never be replicated anywhere. Our hope (goal) was that this gift would help the school to grow enrollment by making tuition affordable and accessible to a broader range of families while also ensuring that our school provides an academic program of the highest quality. 

There is something that has happened as a result of the tuition subsidy that I believe from a Jewish perspective is the most important. We are taught that the highest form of tzedakah is when the gift is given in a way that allows the recipient to maintain the utmost dignity. No matter how gracious, welcoming and confidential a scholarship committee may be, we know that applying for day school scholarship can be a very demoralizing and embarrassing experience. With this subsidy, new families applying to the school feel like mentsches. Many current families were able to go off scholarship and avoid the process as well. Almost every family in the school made a significant donation to the school in gratitude and were thrilled with the ability to give back. 

Nearly everyone who enters the New England Jewish Academy does so on equal footing, with their heads held high. As a result of a new, more affordable tuition level,  the atmosphere has changed to one of pride and dignity for all the families. This was not really an original goal, but it is the result we are most grateful for.

NEJA Tuition Costs

How do you think about the relationship between affordability and excellence?

I think schools need to be both affordable and excellent. You simply can’t have one without the other and expect to maintain or grow your enrollment. I also think excellence is an important differentiator when a day school is competing with a free public school. I believe that one of the mistakes we make in marketing ourselves is forgetting to include the value of a Jewish education, a values-based education, and an education that embraces an entire family. That is something that you will never get in public school or in a fancy private school. I think we focus too much on which Ivy League schools our graduates are attending. No matter where they go to school, smart kids will get into the top colleges. It’s the values and sense of community they get from a Jewish day school education that will make them better human beings once they’re there.

What type of data did you or the school collect in advance of launching the initiative?

The biggest piece of data that drove our decision to offer our school a tuition-incentive program came from the 2017 Nishma Research Profile of American Modern Orthodox Jews. The report had nearly 4,000 respondents. The survey asked many, many questions. What stood out for us is that the number one issue of concern in the modern Orthodox community (89%) was the cost of Jewish day school education. 

That number certainly reflected the reality we were seeing as people we thought would be coming to the school chose public school instead. When my kids were little, there was no question that we and our friends in the modern Orthodox community would send our children to Jewish day school, no matter what it cost. (Of course, it was relatively more affordable 20 years ago!) My mother-in-law once told me that she and my father-in-law and a whole group of families in their day school took a second mortgage out on their homes (when Jeremy was little) to help the day school! But, it’s a different world today. Day schools are much more expensive, college is prohibitively expensive and young parents are looking for other (less expensive) ways to supplement their children’s Jewish education and connection to the Jewish community.

We began to research tuition models that might work here in our community. Jeremy and I were very inspired by two of our friends from Prizmah, Joel Segal from Montreal and Paula Gottesman from Metrowest, New Jersey. Both of them spearheaded and implemented tuition incentive programs in their communities that were very successful. Although both of their communities were much larger than ours, we were able, with the help of Prizmah’s Dan Perla and in partnership with our school’s leadership, to take pieces of each of those programs and create a plan tailored to West Hartford. 

Tell us about the early results of the program.

Since enrollment opened under Covid, early results are difficult to gauge. Nevertheless, the tuition initiative brought 13 new families and three returning families. Thanks to the lower tuition, we have  had a 22% decline in the number of families on scholarship and a 26% decline in financial aid dollars awarded. And parents are so grateful for the lower tuition. Here are some quotes from two of them: 

“We felt it was of the utmost importance that our children attend a Jewish day school, but the rising costs of this type of education would have made it virtually impossible for us to obtain. We feel truly blessed by Hashem to have found a school we love with a tuition program that has made high quality Jewish education truly accessible.” -Howard Weiner

“When I was a child, my parents had to choose between day school and other forms of engagement for their children. Thanks to the NEJA Tuition Subsidy, we do not have to make that choice. A Jewish day school education for our children is important to us, and the subsidy allows us to breathe a little easier.” -Steven Bernstein

Is there a point at which the program will be self-sustaining? In other words, is there a level of enrollment that would obviate the need for philanthropic support? 

I believe that the school will always need philanthropic support. But if this initiative spurs more enrollment growth, they will need a lot less of it!

 Some parents believe that Jewish day schools are simply too expensive. Is this true? 

Yes and no. Yes, they are too expensive for your average family who wants to have a comfortable life and send their children to college without burdening them with student loans that will haunt them their entire adult lives.

No, they are not too expensive for what you are getting. Many schools actually set full tuition  below the actual cost to provide that education. The best education, both Judaic and secular,is simply expensive. And there is not a family that doesn’t want an excellent education for their children.

At the end of the day, the question is, are they willing to pay for that and sacrifice other things? I think we’re seeing that, in many cases,  the answer is no.

What role does partnership play in your philanthropy generally, and did you seek out other partners for this unique tuition program?

We normally seek out philanthropic partnerships for everything we do. However, because of time constraints, we decided to jump in and do this ourselves. 

Nevertheless, we had wonderful partners every step of the way. Our local Jewish community foundation financially supported the merger process with a huge gift that paid for our consultants and merger director. Our Jewish federation paid for the legal costs of the merger. Our local synagogues and federation have partnered with the school to actively market and recruit families to the area based on the tuition initiative. And our greatest partners are the families in the school. It’s been thrilling to work with them to make the school the best place to be.

Ann Pava is the immediate past board chair at Prizmah.

By Eric Amar

Please allow me to start by saying that unless your school is in the highly enviable position of being able to fill almost every seat in every classroom with a full-paying student, this article applies to you! 

I have been fortunate to have spent 20+ years of my professional career working with independent schools, mostly within the context of financial sustainability. I learned the foundational elements of the school business while in the position of CFO of, at the time, one of Canada’s largest Jewish day schools. Over a ten-year period, I witnessed a gradual and seemingly unstoppable enrollment decline. I was the person who administered the final family financial aid allocation. I learned a few hard lessons which I would like to share with you. 

After years on the job, I reached a eureka moment when I realized that school financial sustainability was not diametrically opposed to family finances. What was needed was a set of policies that aligned the school’s need for cash flow and financing via its tuition, with the parent body’s need for a fair, easy and dependable financial aid system. 

Independent schools work on a set of key strategic levers (a topic for another blog). Not only do these levers define the school’s demographics, but they also drive the school’s financial outlook. 

As educational leaders, we choose the policies that affect these key levers. These levers are also highly interconnected and interdependent. When we understand and internalize the impacts of these levers, we can then set policies that will work in accordance with community needs and expectations. 

Tuition should be a function of your value proposition in the context of your competition and community demographics (religious and financial). However, what often happens is that tuition is set after all other variables of the budgeting process have been estimated and calculated. For example, schools will often budget by estimating all costs (teaching, administrative and overhead), then subtracting financial aid expectations, adding alternate sources of financing, and then dividing that grand total by the remaining enrollment. 

Although mathematically accurate, this process can lead to a vicious tuition cycle particularly, for schools with declining enrollments. Such a practice increases the tuition burden on the fewer remaining school families by allocating the rising excess costs of occupancy inefficiencies to the remaining families. This means that even if all budgetary costs remained flat from one year to the next, tuition would still increase because of declining enrollment. This process may exacerbate the middle -income affordability issue and push your middle-income families to leave. 

Here is an alternate solution that not only allows for long-term planning, but also empowers school leaders to make strategically impactful decisions. This simple calculation will quantify the amount of tuition that your remaining families will bear as enrollment either increases or decreases. 

The following is a much-simplified theoretical example on a total school basis (as opposed to a recommended per grade basis) : 

In this greatly simplified example, the school in scenario 1 will require a 12% tuition increase only because it has lost students from one year to the next. Its costs have not changed, but the remaining students will have to shoulder an additional $1,389 each to make up for those students who left. This school will likely see further middle-income attrition because it will require more and more funding from an ever-decreasing student population. This vicious cycle will repeat itself unless tuition setting becomes a strategic attraction tool. 

Enter the concept of tuition at maximum capacity: here, $10,000. 

Why is this number so important? 

This number simply puts a full-occupancy price tag on your proposed value proposition. It shows you how much less would be required from each student if you could fill your school to maximum capacity (500 students in our example above). It introduces a key strategic lever that you may have never-before considered: financial-aid driven enrollment as a method to reduce the additional burden of empty seats. It quantifies the growing cost of chasing away your middle-income families and the additional financial burden that it places on the remaining population. It effectively measures the impact of losing your middle class. 

It also empowers you to create innovative flexible tuition policies that will attract those same middle-income families by quantifying a more affordable financial contribution all while satisfying your theoretical tuition at maximum capacity. The school in scenario 2 above may have identified 25 families capable of paying $10,000 and thus lowered the financial burden of all remaining families to $10,526– a reduction of $585 per remaining student. Regardless, the school in this example would greatly benefit by creating a flexible tuition program that is aimed at all families able and willing to pay at least $10,000, effectively ensuring that it doesn’t slowly and gradually alienate its remaining middle-income families. 

My tuition setting advice to the school #1: before increasing your tuition to $12,500 from $11,111, create a flexible tuition program with the specific intent of attracting as many students as possible capable of paying at least $10,000 (full-occupancy tuition). Once that is done, you should be able to reduce your 75-student attrition and your enrollment should be higher. This will effectively reduce your $12,500 required tuition, all the while keeping your enrollment base more stable. 

By calculating full-occupancy tuition, you have identified your break-even tuition at full-occupancy, applied that to a middle-income family flexible tuition, and as a result, have protected your enrollment and all remaining families from wasteful tuition increases. 

By quantifying how empty seats affect your pricing, you inherently align your school’s financial sustainability with your middle-income families’ need for an affordable tuition. 

In real life, you will of course get the opportunity to debate a more complex series of very important interim strategic decisions:

• Do we change the number of classrooms per grade? 
• Do we change the maximum number of students per classroom?
• Do we offer less than we had wished for?

The point, however, is that our traditional accounting-based annual budgeting processes do not provide for this type of in-depth strategic insight. Understanding how tuition setting policies affect different types of enrollment strengthens the tools at our disposal. Enrollment is not an end result, but rather a lever that can be activated through middle-income friendly policies. At the end of the day, your school’s culture, policies and financial structure should be inclusive and inviting to the middle class. 

Now more than ever, enticing and accommodating middle-income families is a key strategy in maintaining stable tuition, particularly in light of ever-increasing costs. 

Eric Amar CPA, CGA is a seasoned nonprofit executive with 20+ years of independent school consulting and leadership experience. Eric has worked with over 150 independent schools throughout North America on financial sustainability and is the author of the innovative Multi-Year Flexible Tuition approach to solving independent school sustainability. Eric can be reached at [email protected]. 

By Lianne Forman

As an educator, you are on the “front lines” and act as one of the most critical sources of connection and emotional support for your students. School staff are charged with nurturing relationships with children, potentially in a virtual setting, and ensuring their social and emotional wellness during these stressful times. During a time of crisis, children are increasingly vulnerable to mental health issues. Providing support, and assessing and ensuring every child’s needs are met, can be incredibly challenging in the best of times, and even more so during these uncertain times. It is incumbent on us, particularly those with these valuable relationships with our students, to be even more vigilant in our efforts to detect any signs of distress including the use of alcohol and drugs.

Aside from adverse impact of the general stress and uncertainty in our world caused by the pandemic, children are also suffering from the social isolation and other Covid-related life changes. We all know that socializing is critical to children’s health and wellbeing. Students who get meaning and fulfillment from their usual school, social and extracurricular activities may no longer have those outlets. We should also consider the major disruption to their routines outside of school, such as the significant changes to common life milestones such as graduations, bar/bat mitzvahs, and birthdays, or having other/more family members now living in the home on a regular basis. Such changes can lead to or worsen alcohol and substance use or misuse, making those who struggle with these issues far more vulnerable. We should also remember that many kids may be home for days/hours at a time, unsupervised, which can lead to higher risk and increased opportunities to use and misuse substances. 

Also consider the fact that parents/caregivers are under a lot of pressure themselves, perhaps having to meet work obligations while supervising and caring for children at home, or facing economic challenges due to a loss of employment or, sadly, emotional difficulties due to the loss of a loved one. Preoccupied with these issues, a parent may miss the sometimes very subtle signs of their children using drugs and/or alcohol. Parents, themselves, may be turning to substances to cope with the stress and anxiety related to the pandemic, unfortunately modeling to their children that this is a way to “cope” with the current crisis. 

In our support group for those with loved ones struggling with substance misuse and addiction, we are seeing that many of those struggling with substance use are self-medicating to deal with the stress and anxiety. In many cases, parents are being forced into impossible situations where they must endure their child’s substance use because there is nowhere else for the child to go and they want to keep them as safe as possible. Some parents have been compelled to stock up on Naloxone, the drug administered when someone has overdosed on opioids, simply to save their child’s life while they attempt to follow a harm-reduction model, knowing that their child is using while under their roof, but unable to stop it.

What can you do to help? Keep the lines of communication open and be compassionate. Try to notice the signs and symptoms of substance misuse and address the issue openly and honestly, without judgment or criticism. Give the student the chance to speak and express their concerns; they may be waiting for an opportunity to talk about something troubling them. Hopefully, the child’s parents are there to partner with you in these efforts, and you can engage them and candidly express your concerns. Help and enable them be a credible source of information about substances by providing information and programs, such as ours, to educate them on current drug trends, how to recognize if your child is using substances or developing a disorder, and ways to communicate your concerns effectively with your child.

Possible signs and symptoms of substance use disorders:
Behavioral and personality/social changes

• Decline in performance at work or school
• Freuently getting into trouble
• Engaging in secretive or suspicious behaviors
• Changes in appetite or sleep patterns
• Unexplained change in personality or attitude
• Sudden mood swings, irritability or angry outbursts
• Periods of unusual hyperactivity, agitation or giddiness
• Acting sullen, lethargic or depressed
• Sudden change in friends, activities or normal hangouts
• Loss of interest in usual hobbies and activities
• Unexplained need for money

Physical changes

• Bloodshot eyes
• Dilated or constricted pupils
• Sudden weight loss or weight gain
• Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much
• Deterioration of physical appearance and lack of hygiene
• Unusual smells of breath, body or clothing
• Tremors, slurred speech or impaired coordination

Knowledge is power. Education about substances is important for children, teens and adults (faculty and parents alike). There are many misconceptions about commonly used substances, such as nicotine and alcohol, and especially about ones that are made to sound harmless, like marijuana. People of all ages should be aware of the damage that drugs and alcohol can potentially do the body and brain, as well as one’s emotional wellbeing.

Ensuring that children are educated about drugs can act as a protective factor and help prevent children from using them. Helping adults understand the repercussions of drug use can enable them to provide accurate information and help their children. Educating your staff, parents and students on symptoms of substance misuse and how to get help is critical to all of our combined efforts in awareness and prevention of substance use by our children.

Lianne Forman is the executive director of Communities Confronting Substance Abuse, a not-for-profit organization that provides education and awareness regarding substance misuse and addiction to audiences from middle school to adults. For specific information regarding school programming, see www.time2talkaddiction.org/services.

With a desire for both continuity and creativity amidst the current backdrop of uncertainty, Jewish early childhood educators and leaders have encountered extraordinary “silver linings” in their work with children and families. As many default approaches are infeasible, an organic environment for inquiry, reflection, and change has emerged. New insights have kindled a scrutiny of once taken-for-granted educational norms, reaffirming Jewish early childhood educators and leaders as innovative researchers and practitioners. 

Through my personal and professional conversations, I have witnessed inspiring reflections framed by many “re” words: reinvent, reconsider, and recreate. To support these inclinations and elevate this palpable energy of reimagination, Jewish early childhood educators and leaders continue to commit to an inquiry mindset to transform relationships and teaching. This may seem like an untenable time for such aspirations; however, the realities of the pandemic have amplified educators’ resolve to not just stay afloat but to rethink practices and partnerships with families. Chanukkah, a holiday about rededication, is an ideal opportunity to illuminate the role of Jewish early childhood educators' inquiries and professionalism. 

In many Jewish early childhood settings, Chanukkah-related practices are driven by the desire to welcome families into the program. At a time when families cannot come into the classroom, early childhood professionals are taking beautiful lessons from the holiday itself for inspiration. A key theme of Chanukkah is the concept of pirsumei nisa or publicizing the miracles. While there is much rabbinic scholarship and sociohistorical commentary on its implications for today, one important takeaway is that connection can be experienced in counterintuitive ways. In order to spread the message of the Chanukkah miracles, there is a custom to light the candles of the chanukkiah by the window. Even from the potential isolation of individual homes, the candles are designed to bring people together. 

As such, Jewish early childhood professionals are planning for Chanukkah by reconsidering how to invite families "in" through more culturally responsive and equitable ways. The current context has sparked a sincere interest in making this holiday season as meaningful as possible. As one Jewish early childhood leader expressed, “I knew this year needed to be different, but I also knew it was an opportunity to bring joy and excitement to these children and families." Within an enhanced milieu of mutuality and empathy, early childhood professionals are developing practices that move beyond trying to replicate the parties and gatherings that used to happen inside. Instead, they are thinking creatively about outdoor and virtual spaces as they prioritize both families’ availability and accessibility to materials and children’s curiosities and interests. 

The power of pirsumei nisa, of showcasing one’s chanukkiah by the window, promotes how differences enhance the collective experience. Each window, each home, each chanukkiah, each family, each educator, and each child is distinctive and unique. In this way, another educator ignited a Chanukkah custom to document and publicize the “small miracles” specific to the children in the classroom with the purpose of sharing “the beauty of Chanukkah...in a real palpable way for the adults in our community.” 

With a dedication towards meaning-making and partnerships, Jewish early childhood educators are asking important questions. What do families and children want and need right now? What dreams do we have about Chanukkah given the pandemic restrictions? How do we make Chanukkah celebrations and inclusive and uplifting? These types of questions coupled with a researcher disposition empower educators to reflect on their assumptions, elicit ideas and data directly from families and children, engage in dialogue and learning with colleagues, document and reflect on findings, and create new traditions of pirsumei nisa.

While challenges continue to arise, and early childhood educators find themselves rethinking some procedures, an inquiry mindset supports their engagement in systematic cycles of “think-do-reflect” to transform practice. Inquiry sets a precedent for a process of asking questions, evaluating assumptions and current understandings, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, incorporating novel approaches, and engaging in the next inquiry. An inquiry stance affirms the role of educators’ dynamic knowledge in successful solutions.

Through inquiry, early childhood educators model to young children how to be researchers. Provocations are intentionally selected to propel young children to develop their own questions and act with creativity. Just as early childhood educators value the discoveries and critical thinking of each child, so too Jewish early childhood professionals deserve to be lauded for their dedication to affecting change through inquiry, perspective-taking, and problem-solving.

Let us uphold pirsumei nisa and publicize how Jewish early childhood educators fuse their ingenuity and professionalism to spark sustainable approaches towards transformation.

Ilana Dvorin Friedman is a child development instructor, consultant and researcher based in Chicago.

Every year at SAR High School, we choose a theme for the year, which shapes programming and informal learning that takes place all year long, including our Beit Midrash program curriculum, sessions at shabbatonim and even during our Mac-A-Bee colorwar. Students learn and discuss sources around the concept, as well as explore practical applications to their everyday lives as Jews and citizens.

This year’s theme, inspired by the current pandemic, is achrayut, communal responsibility. Students have explored both the halakhic and ethical imperatives about our accountability towards those around us. Our first learning session was aimed at deepening our students’ understanding of achrayut by:

• Helping students recognize that there are multiple communities in which they are a part and groups to whom they should feel responsible.
• Encouraging students to think about how the decisions they make are both affected by and affect the various groups to which they are responsible.

Compared to so many of the concerns and roadblocks caused by the upheaval of Covid-19, needing to rethink a high school admissions process is certainly not the worst problem to have, and in many ways, it has caused our team to partake in what has actually turned out to be a positive creative exercise, all undertaken in the spirit of achrayut, and with a focus on recruiting new students while prioritizing the health and safety not only of our school, but of all our feeder schools and communities who have each gone to unbelieveable lengths to open their doors this year.

SAR High School is a co-educational Modern Orthodox school in Riverdale, New York. SAR Academy, our preschool through 8th grade arm, accounts for about half of our student body, while the other half is comprised of students from a range of Tristate area communities, including Westchester, Manhattan, Bergen County, Stamford, and Queens, among some others. 

In a typical year, we love connecting with so many wonderful families from many different elementary schools and neighborhoods. Suddenly, in a Covid-19 reality, the thought of welcoming students from 15+ different areas, something that used to excite and energize us, became a source of near panic. 

So, in a moment of startup culture for a 50-year-old school, we began to iterate. First, we planned a virtual open house, which allowed us to find ways to creatively showcase some of our fantastic staff in short departmental videos, as well as a live student panel and a really fun “Ruach Zoom,” which was a real glimpse into the warm and energetic way we kept our school community connected last spring when everyone was at home. We also built a new admissions website, including a virtual tour section with 360 degree shots of various spots around our building, as well as slideshows and videos. It was a great experience for us to go through our media archives and be able to display some of the most vibrant moments for prospective families. 

Another highlight of our admissions season has been virtual parlor meetings. In a more typical year, we host neighborhood meetings at homes of current SAR High School parents in six different areas. While being able to meet prospective parents in person, chat and answer questions in the personal setting of a family home is a hard experience to recreate virtually, we have found some great upsides. 

Since the meetings were virtual, we chose to consolidate some of our neighborhoods together, which allowed us to create additional evenings that were grouped together by theme. We held meetings focusing on First Time High School Families, Co-Curricular Offerings, and Student Support. Although we missed being able to greet families in person, many people commented that it felt very convenient to be able to attend parlor meetings from home, and it was also easier for families to join more than one meeting in order to gather information about our school. Going forward, we have been discussing whether we might be able to offer both types of meetings to give families maximal flexibility. 

Additionally, while these meetings are typically hosted by a family in person at their homes, with the host families generously opening their homes, setting up extra seating, providing light food and drink and mingling with prospective families, they don’t generally take an active role in the meetings themselves. In our Zoom parlor meetings, however, we asked our “hosts” to speak briefly about their experiences as SAR parents, and this added an unexpectedly warm and wonderful element to the meetings. In some cases, their child joined as well, and in many cases, families directed questions to the parents and were able to get honest and helpful answers from the current families. 

We feel proud of how we have shifted our approach, and we are pleasantly surprised at how many warm connections we have been able to make through our Zoom parlor meetings and interviews. We are continuing to creatively problem-solve and to plan new ways for our prospective families to get to know us. 

For many reasons beyond school recruitment, we are eagerly awaiting a day where people are healed and healthy, and masks and distancing are no longer our everyday norms, yet we are optimistic that even as we return to “normal,” we will hold on to many of the lessons learned along the way. 

Shifra Landowne is director of admissions at SAR High School in Riverdale, NY

Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools just completed a 2020-21 survey of enrollment in Jewish day schools and yeshivas – and a majority of respondents reported an increase in admissions and enrollment this year. Overall, schools reported an average 2% increase, particularly among non-Orthodox schools (whose average was 4%). Schools also reported that an average of 40% of new admission inquiries came from students who had not inquired before and were not known by the school.

The survey also highlighted some worrying data. A number of respondents, most notably but not exclusively among Orthodox schools, experienced a decline in enrollment. 74% of Orthodox schools also reported an increase in tuition assistance requests from new students, indicating challenges of affordability, no doubt exacerbated by economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, 47% of non-Orthodox schools report increases in requests for tuition assistance. 

Patterns of enrollment vary regionally and even within relatively close geographies. – as has been widely reported, Manhattan schools, for example, have struggled with enrollment challenges due to COVID, while certain schools in surrounding suburbs have experienced growth.

This leaves me with a number of questions, but one overall: is the enrollment growth we observed a COVID blip, or can/should we see this moment as a launch point for sustained growth in Jewish day schools? And how do we support those schools and families who are struggling?

It is no secret that in general, day school enrollment outside the Orthodox world has been declining. The most recent AVI CHAI 2018-19 census of Jewish day schools reported a 9% drop in enrollment in non-Orthodox schools in the United States over the previous five years, a fact sadly consistent with longer term trends. 

What explains the positive indicators we found? Well before the pandemic took hold, day schools were doing a much better job of demonstrating their value proposition. More and more people throughout the Jewish community (and beyond) recognize that day schools are a hub of educational innovation, in areas like STEAM, differentiated instruction, and whole child learning, to name just a few. Across North America, the central role day schools play in a thriving Jewish community has been documented, time and again. We see this most starkly in smaller Jewish communities, where a day school can be an “anchor” institution, essential to the continued existence of the community itself. 

COVID has amplified the strengths of Jewish day schools--academically and communally—and has spotlighted the power of a (Jewish) values-driven education, and the focus on social and emotional health. Day school faculty and staff continually go “above and beyond” to maintain the best possible experience for students and families. 

It is not just that so many of our schools are open when public schools and many other independent schools nearby operate on a hybrid or remote model. I believe that what we are seeing in this year’s enrollment spike is a result of the enormous communal investment in day schools and in our teachers in recent years. The value of our schools is coming through at this time, and it is incumbent on all of us who care about day schools to do all we can to ensure that this is in fact not a blip, but rather a moment to catapult our schools forward.

What can we do to leverage this moment and ensure that the trajectory for schools follows this year’s new direction, including addressing the deep financial challenges we all experience?

For starters, we need to double down on student retention. Prizmah’s Retention Institute December 14-16 will focus the efforts of school professionals on all they can do to keep families invested. Growing enrollment starts with families already in the door.

Second, we need to keep telling the amazing story of a Jewish day school education. Everyone at a school can be an ambassador, and social media makes this easier than ever. On any given day there are so many great stories that happen in every classroom. At a time when even the most upbeat spirits need lifting, video clips of engaged and happy children or examples of achievement and learning can be truly inspirational. 

Third, we must keep focus on the tremendous financial costs involved in day schools. Affordability remains a critical challenge. We must promulgate creative tuition models and best practices in fundraising for the near- and long-term so that our schools can operate in a fiscally responsible way while fulfilling their moral obligations to all families seeking serious Jewish education. Ultimately, we are feeding the “virtuous cycle” where excellent schools generate increased enrollment, in turn attracting greater resources, which allows us to invest in affordability and even more excellence. 

More than anything, we need to convey the inherent value of  a Jewish day school education for our collective Jewish future. The increase in enrollment that we are witnessing tells us something important about how much schools matter. We are seeing first-hand just how much families, teachers, communal leaders, and funders are willing to sacrifice so that these schools continue fulfilling their mission. 

We hear so much lately about “essential” businesses or employees. Just as political and public opinion has reached a degree of unanimity about the priority for keeping schools open as much as possible, we in the Jewish world recognize just how “frontline” our day schools and teachers are for our current lives--and for the sustainability of our community for years to come.

As admission professionals, we understand the value of an independent school education, how it is one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children. We also understand that when you invest in an independent school education for your child, you are investing in a premium product, a luxury brand. Neuroscience tells us that emotions associated with our judgments guide us in making decisions. Evidence suggests that decisions to purchase a luxury product are overwhelmingly emotional. 

Just as emotion is the key driving force in luxury item decisions, the same can be said to be true in choosing a premium educational option. How we make our prospective parents and students feel is going to help guide their decision. All admission professionals have the best intention to personalize each family’s experience, but the reality is, when you’re receiving hundreds of inquiries per season, it’s challenging to deliver on that goal. In today’s digital world, however, we have the ability to use recruitment tools and strategies to help us.

Inbound marketing, a marketing methodology that attracts potential customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them, is a recruitment strategy that has helped us get the right content in front of the right people at the right time. The strategy and technology enable us to move prospective families through the admission funnel, guiding them with prompts to take the next steps in their process. There are a variety of inbound marketing platforms to choose from. Hubspot, a one-stop-shop for creating, optimizing and promoting content, building out lead generation funnels, automating lead nurturing, and reporting on end-to-end performance, offers CRM (customer relationship management) tools that allow you to manage your ongoing relationships with prospective families.  

Together with our communications team, we developed an email drip campaign, a series of automated emails sent to prospective families that allow you to nurture your leads, communicate often and effectively, personalize your message and steward families through the admission process. While outbound marketing sometimes delivers content that your audience doesn’t want, inbound marketing allows you to form emotional connections with your audience and solve problems that they already have. 

Initially, we started with one drip campaign for all inquiries. Every family who entered the admission funnel as an inquiry, whether they were a new family or an existing one, was placed into the same admission drip campaign sequence and received regular engaging communication throughout the admission season. We have now moved to the next level of our inbound marketing, which is to establish unique drip sequences for the different audience segments entering the admission funnel. New families, current families applying for another child, even families who are inquiring a year early, are all able to be entered into their own drip campaign sequence that is deliberate and intentional. 

Talking to these distinct audiences and having the ability to deliver unique content for each audience helps build long-term relationships and makes them feel known. New families are introduced to many different programs, school mission, core values, educational philosophy, etc. Existing families receive a drip sequence that doesn’t duplicate content that they are already receiving, but instead reaffirms the value of our brand and their decision to be a part of our community. Families who are inquiring early receive just the right amount of communication to keep us top of mind, without burdening them with too much information too early on. It is also a great tool to help build a database of prospects for future years. 

Our intention is to eventually design interest-based drip campaigns that are tied into specific buyer personas, allowing us to interact with our prospective families in areas of interest based on how they engage on our website.

Having an inbound marketing strategy has enabled us to understand our audience better and market to their specific needs. It’s also allowed us to personalize the process and ultimately attract mission-aligned families to our school. From an internal perspective, it has helped us identify opportunities, focus our efforts, and organize our priorities. 

It definitely takes time to develop the various drip sequences and create unique content for each of them. It also requires ongoing management of the platform, including purging old contacts and adding new ones, but ultimately it will allow us to achieve our goal of ensuring that our school feels like the luxury brand that it is.

The Covid-19 pandemic provides both unique challenges and opportunities for independent school recruitment. These personalized recruitment strategies that are designed to establish emotional connections with prospective parents and students will be key to our success through COVID-19 and beyond. 

Lindy Kadouri is the director of admission and enrollment management at the Milken Community School in Los Angeles.