1. What’s with other grades?
   My friend has a daughter out from 11th grade trying to get in by Rabbi Kanarek

2. So tell the Vaad to close all 11th grades also. The more the merrier. (Moderated)

3. Shouldve done this for boys too

4. Finally! Let’s hope it really sticks and works.

5. Seing is believing

6. My daughter has a school and she is home already way too long but I am still very happy that this is being done. Imagine you were on of those people without a school. I know that space is limited and all but we need to find answers.

7. The Boys High schools and Bais Medresh don’t really have that problem. They have the opposite problem every one wants to be a Rosh Yeshiva have you not noticed Trailer Mesivtos on every corner in Lakewood for 10 to. 20 Mesivta Boys or Bais Medrash boys. Every year Mesivtas and Bais Medrash in Lakewood ,Monsey and New Jersey and New York close for lack of enough students . If a boy cannot get into Mesivta it is usually because the parents are trying to push him into a Mesivta that is above his level and is not geared for him

8. Hope its true but they said that my year also and I wasnt in untill after sukkas

9. I’m just wondering what all the commenters did to create more space . Do you think thst by commenting on a blog you have done your share? Even if this somehow gets done by putting 45 kids in a class , everybody knows that there will be a shortage of at least 200 slots for next year ? Are we waiting till the schools put 55 in a classroom, or maybe have 2 shifts ,one by day and one by night ?

10. David get your facts straight. There was far from enough space for boys this year going into 9th grade, causing many boys to end up in Mesivtas way below their level.
    Just to clarify there a very big difference between boys Mesivtas and girls high schools. All the girls high schools are more or less the same in the level of education, contrary to the boys Mesivtas that the levels vary drastically.

    • Plenty of mesivtas with excellent very fine boys where there is space.

11. I live in an out of town community, where lots of Lakewood of the derech kids end up. I never understood why the amount of kids from lakewood is out of proportion to kids from elsewhere.
    The answer is rejection.
    If we reject good kids for silly reasons they will go elsewhere.

    • I don‘t know what you mean by out of proportion?? there are way over 30,000 kids in lakewood schools. how many kids are in your out of town community? and are you aware of every kid at risk in the US?

    • is there a reason tho why there are r no skwls for kids eho don’t fit the mold? why are they pushed out of town, do u think we’re second rate skwls?

12. Mazel tov. No maybe us poor parents can get our daughters into school

13. My daughter is wiith out a school for 9th grade .

14. To claire

    The answer is not necessarily rejection . The answer is the lack of space forcing schools to have,such big classes . In big classes ,the kids,with issues and needs can not get the proper level of personal attention .

    So instead of closing schools down to try to force them to have even bigger classes, maybe they should fund raise to open more schools and give the existing schools money to he able to survive with small classes.

15. My daughter is going into 9th grade and still doesn’t have a place

16. FINALLY.why are they only waking up now????I wasn’t in school for a half a year 2 years ago and the schools opened up with no problem.Im happy that there closing the doors.But there are so many girls including myself that got destroyed from this why is this normal.These schools don’t understand how much there destroying kids lives and families by this happening.

17. I have triplets still waiting for my school bus card to come… that’s a lot more carpool than your typical mommy driver to school.

18. The poll would be much higher if the question was not to open only 9th grade. Please re poll. Thanks.

19. What about the girls from last years 9th grade who are still sitting home without a school a year later?!?

20. Complaining and complaining again!!!
    Please those innocent girls have nothing done to punish them to stay home because of egotistical schools that won’t take in. Let’s punish the schools and cut the funding but girls belong in school period!

21. In response to Claire,

    You are 100% correct in your assessment.

    To all those that respond that Lakewood doesn’t have a higher ratio of Kids at risk,but instead has a larger population,and therefore it just seems like Lakewood has a bigger problem,sadly,that’s simply false.

    I have watched in disbelief for the past 25 years as the amount of children that rejected the Lakewood system,exploded.
    Many mechanchim outside of Lakewood(at least 10 that I know of)have spoken to principals and Rabbonim to warn them that if a systemic shift is not brought to Lakewood,then potentially thousands of Kids could one day become the result of this misguided approach.
    Sadly,this assessment have been proven right.
    To those that answer,
    “thousands,that’s crazy”, think again.
    According to people who work with boys in Lakewood that are at all stages of the term ” at risk”,it is,estimated that 18-20% of boys are visibly at risk,and another approximate 10% are at risk,but are going through the motions.Thats a total of 30%,3 out of every 10 boys.
    There are over 15,000 boys in K-12 in Lakewood,that means if things don’t get worse (chalila),4,500 of these boys,will be damaged by a misguided school system,that refuses to fundamentally change.Add tgat to all the boys that are already burned,and the numbers are frightening.
    This is just the boys.While girls are not being damaged and rejecting the frum lifestyle at the sane high rate,there are many that have been misstreated,and have been made to feel unworthy,some of whom we see and pretend not to,others,we no longer see,because they have left our town,and we no longer need to be burdened by their presence as a reminder of our failing them.
    Hashem is watching this yearly blood sport of ours.The Romans would sit in the colosseum and watch the lions tear apart people,the Spaniards watched the bulls gore the matador,in modern times people pay thousands for ring side seats to watch prize fighters beat each other till they are almost dead,and we in Lakewood
    have accepted the “system” where hundreds of boys and girls are humiliated,schools setup with expectations that if you are not an asset then you are a liability.
    How much more pain will Hashem let be inflicted on his children,before he lets us all know,what he thinks we are deserving for causing so much suffering?

    • Wow, who took this poll?

22. Dear rejection
    I am so sorry you had to go through that. I agree with you that this destroys girls and families. I can’t do anything to help you or any girls in Lakewood bc I don’t live there. But I wanted to just say there is someone out here that hears your pain and acknowledges that this whole situation is Destrying families and girls … and Lakewood schools are to blame for the destruction of these girls and families

23. You say to cut the funding . If only there were funding,then we would not have this problem . Every year for the last 10 years people have begged for funding to open more high schools but nobody has come forward . What funding exactly are you cutting ? Have you helped to fundraise for this ?

24. Yisroel Ahava, your words are harsh but very very true. I’ve seen students who do the worst things coming out of the best schools (both boys & girls) and I’ve seen students excel to great heights coming out of average schools. It is not the school that makes or breaks the child, it is the parents. I’m sure it’s many times not the case but a lot if not most of students who don’t have schools are because the parents have 1 school on their list and couldn’t get into that 1 school and instead of settling for something else that would be good enough they fight tooth and nail to still try for that 1 school. I have no problem with them doing that but don’t cry that your daughter doesn’t have a school to go to, it’s your choice to make yourself crazy and it’s not anyone else’s problem. To the parents who’ve applied to several schools and still don’t have one, we all feel for you and hope your child gets into school soon.

    • sorryI disagree with you that its the parents fault that a child makes it or not. All it takes is for a teacher,rebbi or anyother person in the school setting to make a not nice comment to a child and that could have an affect on that kid. A friend of my 2 years ago her daughter who is a very good kid and comes from a very good home didnt get in any were. Once she did get in somewhere it was a school that was on a very high level and she was not at that place. The girl suffered most of the year and then finally left school.
      Last year she was not in school at all. How do you think this has affected her. Now she is trying to get back into a school but is having a hard time because she is not as frum as before and the schools dont want kids like that.
      Also there are plenty of girls who didnt get into any school verses the ones who did but are holding out for the ideal school.

25. I know of two kids out of a school because they are not on there levels and they are still waiting for some answers

26. Todays youth are tomorrow leaders.

27. To Sl

    You say that you don’t live in Lakewood ,dont know anything about the situation ,yet you,accuse the Lakewood schools.

    Are you aware that Lakewood is adding an additional 200 girls to the high schools every year so that if there were 600 girls graduating 8th grade 6 years ago , there,are now 1200 and in 6 years there will be 2000 entering 9th grade . The existing schools,are so full and the class sizes are,so big they don’t even fit into the classrooms. There are dozens of new 9th graders moving from New York every year and taking away the seats from the local girls . Lakewood would need 3 new high schools every year to keep up with the growth . Are you aware of these things before you make such derogatory statements ? Or is it just a lot of fun to bash Lakewood ?

    • I agree with you 100 percent.

28. @Steve. I’ll tell you the funding. First comes the high tuition bills then is dinners and last but should be number one is government funding in the thousands including getting buses.

29. The only option is to assign schools based on alphabetical order of last name.
    First i thought of doing it by block like public schools but then wed have a block crisis.
    This is the only way to do it. The last name crisis will have issues of cousins and families overruning school. Hmm maybe alphabetical order by first name?!?

30. To option .

    If you assign by last name, then all people with names starting with w thru z wont have a school. There is not enough space for everybody and the problem gets worse every year. We add 200 more kids and open a school for 30 kids . That still leaves,youcwith a deficit of negative 170 .

31. To shower blower.

    How does busing help fund schools ? It is a convenience to parents not to have to carpool ,it diesnt pay even one penny of a teachers salary .

32. I hope the powers that be are reading this:
    Here is the only solution. This year there were 60 slots short.
    Next year (they know this data already, there will be 200 slots short ) and the year after 350.
    The only solution is as follows:
    Every school needs to create its own high school.
    The only exception would be Bais Faiga, to whom such an undertaking would be too difficult.
    Bais faiga would feed into Oros, Bais Yaakov and Bais Kaila.
    But all the other schools , must open high schools.
    Its not a choice.

33. Why can’t bais faiga open a high school? They can have 5 full classes for next year, administration is in olace, policies are in place and they have strong backing. Hire a principal and teachers and evrey other school will have slots. The small schools opening high schools is a huge burden, for bais faiga they have a system in place for years already. Would ease the burden significantly on the entire town

34. Asking every elementary school to open a high school is not so simple. Elementary school salaries and other expenses are much lower than high schools. Elementary schools therefore can stay afloat financially once they are established . Asking every elementary school to undertake the financial burden of also running a high school ,could jeapordize the financial stability of some of the elementary schools ,especially those who have a more Klei kodesh type of parent body and get less tuitions .
    The end result might be that some of these elementary schools will end up spending less ,by hiring less experienced high school teachers,and having less extra curricular and mechanchos. Then many parents won’t want to send to them because they won’t have as good a staff as sone of the other schools and the problem starts all over again . Unless we edtablish a rule that every child must attend the high school of their elementary even if the parents feel its not suitable for them .

    But if we established such a rule, then we could establish the same rule today that every child must go to the schools that have room even if the parents feel its not suitable for them .So its a no wib situation

35. While the rapid increase in children is a challenge to provide enough room for all,it should be looked upon as a N’soyon of ashirus,not of a’niyos.In other words,we are lucky to have such”problems”.Other generations would have danced to have had such challenges.

    While our generation rapidly increased by a lot of people numerically,the generation born in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s had a higher percentage increase over its previous generation(holocaust survivers)than this generation.In other words,while we have more people added per generation than they did,they grew at a higher percentage increase,since they started with far less.
    Therefore,they should be a lesson to us,how to ramp up quickly,and absorb a lot of new additions.Our generation has much more resources than they did.They were struggling to adjust to a new world,barely making ends meet,and they accomplished this.Why can’t we do the same?Why don’t we look at the population boom as a shefa of brocha,instead of a mabul that justifies us to leave a lot of our community bitter and feeling abandoned?
    We say tonight in the third Kapital of s’leechos,almost the same words as the last posuk in this weeks haftotrah,”Hakoton y’ehya l”elef V’hatzair l’goy atzum,which means let the smal one(referring to klal yisroel)increase by thousands,and let the “youth” become a great nation”.We don’t take care of our own “K’tanim and youth” very well,so how can we ask Hashem to increase us and increase us by thousands?
    I imagine Hashem is thinking when we say this s’leecha tonight,”you are complaining bitterly that you can’t handle what I meant as a brocha for you,you can’t build fast enough,you are leaving many feeling abandoned and bitter,many are being turned off from the message of being a frum yid,so why are you asking me to increase you by thousands?First take care of the k’tanim and youth I originally entrusted to you,and then come to me asking for more.

    I propose that the Rabbonim of this town immediately put out a letter condemning the humiliation and suffering that is being done to our children,and by extension to their parents.This letter should make clear that what is happening will cause a terrible kitrug in sh’mayim during a time that we all want to be judged for a year of brocha for ourselves and our families and khehilla.Therefore,this letter should implore all the people of Lakewood to daven during s’leechos that every child in our town quickly be accepted into a school and be made to feel worthy and and any shame and hurt not leave scars on them,and let them realize their full potential and bring hakodosh boruch hu nachas,each actualizing their own tafkid.
    Some will mock this and say,”this is over dramatic,doesn’t solve anything,just a feel good way to deal with it,the numbers are still the issue,it’s just a joke,instead of davening build more schools,it makes the problem worse” etc. etc.
    However,here is why it will have a healing effect,and cause some gain.

    1.It will make clear to all where we stand on this issue as a tzibur
    We look at the current situation as a tragedy,and we condemn anyone that has used the situation to his/her advantage and has made the situation harder for everyone by their actions
    3.The people going through this horrible ordeal will feel that the town is with them in their pain,and will do whatever it takes to rectify it,this helps sooth some of the intense pain and bitterness
    4.The owners of the schools will feel uncomfortable as it becomes clear that the town views the situation as a tzura the tzibur is facing,rather than a bump in the road of life,it will make them think carefully before saying that there is nothing they can do to help
    Many will say this is wishful thinking and will make Lakewood a laughing stock outside of Lakewood.I disagree.For many of the reasons already explained above.
    And in addition,if it really is something we can’t solve,even though previous generations post WW2 rose to the challenge as explained above,then lets ask the one that can make anything happen no matter how challenging.And when he sees we are truly distressed about each other,he may listen to our s’leecha and increase us by thousands.

    A k’siva V’chasima Tova to all ,and let every child find a place immediately,and fully recover from the pain and shame they experienced

36. Tell Rechnitz to (moderated)… open and fund a girls high school! Its as simple as that.

    • U can’t rely on Rechnitz for everything he already saved 2 lkwd skwls

37. This is a space and money problem. Not opening until everyone is placed does not solve the problem. This is like telling a hospital not to open until they cure cancer. There is no connection to their proposed remedy. At this point every school has already been forced to take in girls. There is simply not the room.
    The only solution, and one that would be financially viable is a college style system where a teacher lectures to 100’s of girls. That would divide the financial burden among a larger base. There would be smaller groups that would look after each other in a buddy system.

38. Actually at this point the real problem is that Bais Fayga doesn’t have a high school. As most of the big elementary schools, the ones graduating a largest number of kids ( Kanariks shools, bnon Melech, Bais Tova and Chasidi girls schools) have their own. Byhs, oros and Bais kayla don’t have elementary schools. If Bais Fayga would have its own high school it would fix all problems for a long time!

39. @yisroel ahava
    You start off claiming that Lakewood has a higher ratio of off the derech kids. But your numbers are purely speculative claiming that in the future there will be x amount off the derech. Can you please write how many of the thousands of boys/girls who graduate high school every year on Lakewood are off the derech?
    It’s silly to mix your theories with the actual fact.

40. @anon. A one time bail out doesn’t save a school. It’s taking the responsibility of the continuous upkeep of a school which is far more costly.

    • He saved my friends daughters skwl and supported it 4 2 yrs and now they’re a perfectly fine skwl

41. S.Y. Rechnitz is a trend setter, others need to follow his lead. One man cant do everything. BH there are many good people with extra money today. Sharing is the name of the game.

42. Moshe.. I do not live in Lakewood Bh but I do host many girls who end up in my city out of the goodness of the hearts of the mwchanchim here who try to rebuild the girls who spiral bc of the rejection of not getting anywhere. So no I do not live there but I wipe the tears Hugs the girls and try and rebuild what ur city destroyed. There is a lot of good in Lakewood but this is a dark cloud in ur city… the numbers verses spots is out of control but u can’t have it both ways… u need to open ur eyes and see that by girls feeling rejected is ur city’s destrying them it’s simple!!!! Ur kids prob had no problem getting in so u don’t know these parents pain.., mr Moshe I KNOW it bc I live with every day!!!!!!

43. Toby: you can’t “tell” people what to do with their money!

44. @Anonymous
    You can… If you stand up and make a public speech that all children must be accepted… and cry about the problem… you must be willing to do something about it… Talking doesn’t solve any problems

45. Close down the sushi joints, cut out all the high lifestyle nonsense that people waste money on (vacations in the country, tesla cars, fancy houses, pesach an switzerland, trips to leshansk, etc and put all that money into building more schools. problem solved.

    • You forgot to mention all that nosh like chocolate, candies, ice cream, tofutti , nuts, potato chips, cookies, cakes and 1,000 more items.
      correction: 2,000 more items.

46. Are there any updates?

47. Are the 9th grades opening or not, need to know 4 tomorrow

48. Why don’t you call the Rosh Yeshivas house to find out ?

49. In response to Entitklment society,

    My numbers were based on 16-20% of boys that licensed professionals have estimated are in open rebellion in lakewood,add another approx. 10% that they have discovered are already checked out mentally,and are walking zombis,total is,30% most of these boys don’t graduate 12th grade,they fall apart starting around age 12-13,and more fall every year till about 19,at that point its to difficult to estimate,since many no longer live at home,so if you take the current 15,000 group of boys in k-12,and figure 30% will fall apart over the next 12 years,you will have about 4,500 damaged boys.
    It’s a shocking number,but start looking around,at families you know,see how many families no different than yours have a boy that fell apart,start doing the math,you will be shocked.This is a plague that cuts across all families.
    Rich,poor,yeshivish,chinuch,balabstum,ashkenazim,sfardim,
    litvish,heimish,chasddish,
    strict diffucult parents,easy going parents,smart,average,nobody is safe,
    outside lakewood they also struggle,but it isn’t so
    rampant,people are in full panic in lakewood,they are concerned they will lose their boys to the street,and they feel powerless,and afraid,they have seen boys from similar homes fall,to many,a problem that is systemic,needs systemic change.
    The first step is to accept we gave a problem that will not go away,and nay claim 1 of our own children ch’v.That should
    get our attention,to be open to different chinuch expectations from our boy schools.

50. Close down all the schools as 90% of people cant afford the tuition with the exception of the few wealthy people and we will have to come up with a solution, first thing is declaring chapter 11 as the current way is failing and once we declare chapter 11 we can restructure the whole systym.

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