I received a long message today that included many important subjects. The message is posted on my blog here. However, one very important issue that was raised had to do with students who require extra assistance in the classroom, either academically or behaviorally, within Jewish day schools. Having a special needs child can have a tremendous impact on a family’s level of satisfaction within the frum community. The amount of support or lack thereof that such a family receives can even play a role in sending a family off the derech, or keeping them committed to yiddishkeit.
Parents who have children struggling within the day school system face a unique conundrum. Many day schools don’t have the resources, nor the desire to have the resources, to deal with students who have special needs. Most day school classrooms are designed to educate the average student, and if a child doesn’t fit into the average category in either direction, their family will be faced with the dilemma of whether to continue their enrollment in the day school system. Sometimes that decision is made for the family by the school – particularly if there are behavioral issues that cause disruption in class.
It might seem an easy decision to remove a floundering child from the private school setting and place them in public school, where not only is the education free, but there are usually more special education resources on offer. However, the stigma of having a child attend public school, a fate which most families impoverish themselves through tuition to avoid, keeps many families from making such a choice. Most families would rather have a child in a Jewish school that’s a bad fit, than in a public school that’s educationally a good one.
My husband and I were faced with this issue several years ago – to the point where my child needed to leave his day school for one year to enroll in a behavioral program. There was no guarantee he was going to be let back into his original school. That was a year of extreme anxiety. Not knowing if we would have a Jewish day school spot for him after his behavioral program ended caused many sleepless nights.
While that year had a tremendous benefit for him, I have to say that the experience of facing a row of closed doors for fall acceptance in the day schools had a major negative impact on me. Even though in the end, he was allowed back into his original school with aides and through the school’s special education department (BH, he has been mainstreamed in the regular school program with no aides for several years now), those sleepless nights and the hoops we had to jump through for him to have a place in the Jewish educational system were an eye opener.
For both students and parents – having a child that doesn’t fall within the range of average (at either end of the spectrum – truly gifted beyond the norm or one who falls below the spectrum) there are no options. If a child doesn’t fall in line with the program, there is no place for them nor for their parents. I have had friends who had to pull their kids out and put them in public school or secular private schools that cater to special needs. Not only does it become a challenge for their kids to maintain their friendships in the frum community – but it also can become socially isolating for the parents – especially if they only have one child.
Day schools keep social ties going strong for both parents and children. When your child has to leave the system, families lose those social connections and have to find other avenues to maintain ties – shul, outside charitable organizations, extending lots of invites for shabbos and yom tov – but they no longer have a natural and consistent avenue for meeting and seeing frum families on a daily basis.
When these families are around a group of day school families, it’s akin to a single in a group of marrieds, or a childless couple in a group of families – meaning that people tend to talk a lot about their kid’s schools, teachers, and events. If a family isn’t part of a Jewish day school, they are absent from a key social hub of the frum community during their children’s educational years.
Even on a lesser scale, for example, there are some friends I used to be close with before we all had children. After our kids were born, we chose different day schools for them and, as a result, we aren’t as close anymore. This is due to many years of having our kids go to different schools and making a different set of friends. It’s not a conscious decision to drift away from friends who send their children to different schools, it’s just that life is hectic, and unless you are put in a situation where you naturally see people at carpool, school events, or your kids having play dates, it’s easy to lose touch.
The message I received this morning brought me back to the time when my son’s school acceptance was down to the wire, and I didn’t know if we would have to make the difficult decision of enrolling him in public school (in his case, I knew he could make it in day school with assistance; if I had ever doubted that I would have enrolled him in public school). For all the parents out there who are making last minute decisions, or who have their special needs/behavioral needs children enrolled in a school that they are unsure of, as long as you do what’s best for your child, you are doing the right thing. Pulling your child from day school comes with sacrifices, but sending your special needs child to day school often also comes with sacrifices. I wish all such families strength and a fantastic upcoming school year.
