Working parent letter: two implementable ideas I posted

Ive never heard of a school that doesn’t give at least a week off for winter vacation. Why would the girls get off a week but not the boys? Doesn’t make sense to me

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I’m going to say something radical. Why do yeshivas give off on Chanuka. Chanuka is a time to reinforce Torah.

I had a Rebbe who would give a Bain Hazimanim Shmuz. Before Chanuka, he would say “You are now going to be m’kayim the mitzvoh of L’hashgichom totosecha u’lhaviram mechukey retzonecho.

An electronic item with rechargeable batteries needs downtime to re-charge the batteries or else at some point the item shuts down.

The idea of vacation serves the same principles. Take some down time and recharge your batteries.

Its truly a shame that learning days are getting longer and longer and Bein Hazmanim gets shorter and shorter. Even teenage yeshiva boys need downtime to recharge their batteries. Burnout can be a terrible thing as witnessed by many threads posted here

The rebbeim and teachers are getting paid a LOT LESS than you (and often are late or entirely miss in getting their paycheck) and are entitled to more days off than you.

also while where at it… .

c.let us petition the schools to offer full a 10 month school year program— not sept 15 – jun 15 (as they are usually doing.)

Mirichtka, I’ve been saying that for years.

My husband works on all those “off” days, yet he manages to build the succah, buy an esrog, help clean for pesach, buy nosh for my kids weekly shabbos party, and he also learns a

couple of hours every day and davens with a minyan 3 times a day.

How does he manage? Wonders!

Rabbeim get too much vacation, sorry if you don’t like to hear that.

A 2 day yom tov turns into a full week yom tov by them with b4 and after.

When shabbos is at 8, my boys are home at 12.

Sundays, they go late and come home early.

Summer vacation is 8 weeks, plus a week before and a week after.

chodesh tishrei they constantly start late and finish early. It almost didn’t pay to send them at all.

Why?

I love my kids dearly, but kids need schedule and routine. Any mother can tell you that. And I don’t think any mother wants to describe how her kids act at the end of a week’s yom tov.

Schools aren’t a babysitting service. They aren’t here so parents can maintain a two-income work schedule. That is not a schools function.

Miritchka – you said it perfectly!!!

Shmoel – First, you don’t know how much I make in my office job – so don’t assume I make more than a Rebbe or Morah (and I certainly work longer hours). Second, they chose this profession – if they don’t like it leave or go teach in a more modern day school where salaries are higher and the pay is on time. If you are a teaher/rebbe beacuse of the days off you are in the wrong profession.

The entire school system needs to be revamped to reflect today’s realities, not modeled on the way it was in the shtetl 100 years ago.

They chose a low-paying job with many days off. And that’s how it’s staying.

If you want to change it, start paying 20% more tuition and the school will add 20% more hours/days.

EVERY PERSON WHO WORKS IN A SCHOOL IN NO MATTER WHAT CAPACITY MUST GET PAID ON TIME! If we make sure this happens many of the concerns addressed here would be taken care of. If your child goes to a school where teachers are not paid on time try and change your kids school. Should schools start clamoring that they don’t have the resources then parents will demand that the books are opened and once the community is satisfied that there is no nepotism, favortism etc. the community will work hard to raise the money and make the school great.

Once all teachers are paid on time teachers will be glad to put up thir succah at 12 o’clock at night like every other person does. Once teachers are paid on time they will work even harder to come up with a plan to teach the few kids who show up on isru chag. IF WE PAY TEACHERS GREAT SALARIES AND WE PAY THEM ON TIME WE WILL GET ONLY AWESOME TEACHERS AND ALL OF OUR KIDS AND COMMUNITIES WILL BE SO MUCH BETTER OFF!

I had the same complaints when I was living in NY – schools there do not try hard enough to accommodate working parents! BH i now live out of town where every Friday school is over at 2pm, erev Rosh Hashana my kids had a half a day of school, erev pesach they get off just the one day of erev pesach…what a pleasure!!

I’m talking about elementary schools, not high schools. How bout you?

All industries come along with its positives and negatives. One of the “perks” of being a rebbe or morah are the days off. If it bothers you to no end, petition your boss for similar perks, or join the industry. So easy to whine and complain about everyone and everything.

Don’t be an idiot. If it bothers me no end, I can change it.

Who do you think sits on school boards? Morahs or baalei batim?

If the kids need vacation, we can always have training days.

Who do you think sits on school boards? Morahs or baalei batim?

Depends which kind, MO schools do have a board, but more right wing schools are run by the R’Y and the board has actually very little power as they are unwilling or unable to overule the R’Y

From the way people are complaining, I’d guess a whole bunch of poppa types are running the asylum.

To those who think schools are not a baby sitting service, you are simply wrong. If children were not going to school, where would they be? At a babysitting service. The school is a surrogate babysitter, hence it is a babysitter. Just an extremely haughty and unreliable one.

i am all for giving rabbeim higher salaries but giving then more off days does not help the problem. its not like they can use the off days for a second job.

if parents would have more time to work maye they will be able to afford more tuition.

Why are people complaining about the rebbes and morahs having so many days off? If it’s such an enviable job, become a rebbe or morah yourself!

Considering all the older bachurim and girls who have no yeshiva/school today….there are not enough available responsible people to watch the children of those who are working?

Are these working parents not a part of the same social circles that they don’t know a single one of these bachurim or girls? I’d venture a guess that not only are they part of this social circle, they are close family where payment is not a necessesity, especially in the situations described by the original letter writer.

Who said the bachurim must sleep until the 10 o’clock shachris and the girls must spend all day at the mall? A little chessed for their parents, uncles aunts and cousins, or neighbors wouldn’t kill them. If it would we have a bigger problem than just another day off from school.

hodulashem:

Forget about “motivated” teachers. Let’s start with “trained” teachers, or how about “dedicated” teachers. I assume that everyone who enters the field of chinuch does it with some level of motivation. Yet, we are far from off the wall if we question the degree to which our children are exposed to damage while in our own yeshivos/schools. The public embarassment, the frequent absence of love and caring, the bizarre “punishment” policies, and the hostage holding when tuition is not up to date are all examples that portray that our yeshivos and schools are NOT treating our children with the responsibility of a loving surrogate daytime parent (which is a prerequisite of chinuch). I congratulate you on furthering your training. But the skills alone, while valuable, will not replace the love you need to have for your students. If that is compromised, we will just have more individuals entering the field manufacturing OTD kids by depriving them of the cheshek for Torah learning and Yiddishkeit.

The bottom line is:

You will NOT get any more school days and you will not get any more hours per school day, until and unless:

1) Tuition is raised a commensurate amount to the number of additional hours and days you are seeking

and

2) Rebbeim, Morahs, and teachers salaries are raised a commensurate amount of money to the addional hours and off-days you seek to add.

Without both these conditions stringently applied across the board, you cannot and never will get the change you seek. Complaining that tuition is too unbearably high and cannot go higher may (or may not) be true. But even if it is true, without an equivelent increase of tuition — for everyone including those who cannot afford it — you simply will NOT get more school hours.

P.S. Girl schools have no Sunday hours, so you cannot do a trade-off between Sunday and Friday. And if you do it for boys schools, you’ll end up with your boys and girls having different school schedules on Friday.