Editor’s note: This article appeared Tuesday on ou.org, the website of the Orthodox Union. You can read a story about Jewish day schools and education choice from reimaginED senior writer Lisa Buie here.

Leaders from six Jewish day schools in South Florida recently convened to discuss the historic school choice expansion that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on March 27. The new law expands scholarships to all K-12 students in the state and will give approximately $8,000 per student.

This could bring as much as $40 million of new funds into Jewish day schools, which will help alleviate South Florida families who are struggling with the private school tuition crisis. One concern shared by many parents is that the influx of these funds will cause schools to raise tuition by $8,000, which would negate the affordability factor.

To address this issue, representatives from Jewish day schools met in a small focus group with staff members and the executive committee from Teach Florida, a project of the Orthodox Union, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization. The schools strongly affirmed that affordability is a critical component of their educational mission and will remain a key focus for them moving forward.

“Affordability is an important value of our schools,” says Teach Florida Engagement Director Melissa Glaser. “They don’t intend to take the state funds and then turn around and increase tuition by an equivalent amount. The schools recognize the value of affordability, and their goal is to support families receiving much-needed relief funds toward tuition, while providing a quality education to their students.”

Rabbi Bernstein of Toras Emes agrees, and says, “Over the last decade, we raised tuition very minimally as we value affordable education for our families. This year, before learning of the school choice bill, we made the decision to raise tuition due to incredible hiring challenges and inflationary costs.”

He adds, “We fully support the fact that school choice funds are intended as a relief for parents and will not be viewed as extra entitlement for the school.”

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Rabbi Isaac Melnick thinks learning should be fun. As a young teacher in a Hebrew dual-language charter school in South Florida, he ran a lively after-school program that taught Torah to students who wanted to receive Judaic instruction. He called the program Torah 4 Everyone. He also ran Camp Cooluna, a summer camp that offered water slides, crafts and costumes alongside instruction in Jewish scriptures.

When the after-school program was forced to go all virtual during the pandemic, Melnick didn’t miss a beat. He started Jewish American Zoom, which offered Judaic teaching in an atmosphere of entertainment, wacky competitions and prizes that included Amazon gift cards and massive Hershey’s Kisses.

The program, which Melnick called JAZ, was such a hit that some kids lamented it only operated Monday through Thursday.

Now, with more than a decade of experience launching and managing extra-curricular programs, Melnick wants to open a full-fledged Jewish day school. Shorashim Academy is slated to open for the 2023-24 school year in the Hallandale, Florida area.

He’s garnered support from The Drexel Fund, a national philanthropic nonprofit that aids entrepreneurs who want to start private schools that offer greater access to underserved populations and have the potential for replication.

Melnick was recently accepted into the organization’s Founders Program, which is providing him with a year’s salary as well as an opportunity to obtain seed money for startup costs. The fellowship program also offers training on such topics as school governance and budgeting.

As a fellow, Melnick will visit high-performing schools across the country and work with mentors who will help him develop a business plan for the new school.

Melnick and his school were a natural fit for the program according to Eric Oglesbee, director of Drexel’s founder’s program and a Drexel alum who founded River Montessori High School in Indiana.

“At the Drexel Fund, we are attracted to entrepreneurs with a clear and compelling vision for serving underserved populations in their local communities,” Oglesbee said. “Additionally, we are focused on supporting the development of financially sustainable, replicable models that from first principles are likely to produce outstanding academic results and deep character formation.”

What makes Melnick’s vision compelling, Oglesbee said, is his passion paired with his expertise and connections.

“We felt what he needed from us was the opportunity to have an entire year where he could devote 100 percent of his energies toward opening Shorashim Academy and to engage in a customized learning plan with a cohort of other first-time school founders to help him have a strong launch into a sustainable school,” Oglesbee said.

One unique feature of Shorashim Academy is that it will cater to a Jewish population that is more casually observant than those who attend the rapidly growing surrounding day schools in South Florida, which are primarily Orthodox.

“They may celebrate major holidays like Yom Kippur and Passover,” Melnick said. “They may have special meals and traditions and observe some form of Shabbat and occasionally visit the synagogue,” but their lives look more like the surrounding secular culture.

Melnick explained his target families fall into two groups: low-income families for whom a private education is financially unthinkable and middle-income families for whom private school might be possible but would require extreme sacrifices that would force them to forgo vacations and other aspects of a typical middle-class lifestyle.

“These are people who otherwise would not send their children to Jewish day schools,” he said.

Despite the challenges, members of the Orthodox community are required to provide their kids with a Jewish education regardless of the cost.

“I would sell my house,” said Melnick, a husband and father of four who is Orthodox. “Not all families are willing to do that.”

Melnick says Shorashim Academy is needed because Jewish students who don’t attend Jewish schools are at risk of losing their connections to their Jewish identity and Israeli heritage when they become adults. He’s seen that happen to former students from the non-religious Hebrew language charter school who attended his after-school Judaic program.

“Some of these kids are in their 20s, and they are struggling with it,” he said.

That’s why he believes an immersion program is critical. The academy’s name – Shorashim, from the Hebrew word for roots – reflects its purpose.

The school will initially be open to about 30 first and second graders. More grades will be added each year until the school serves students in preschool through 12^th grade.

Upper grades are part of the long-range plan, which Melnick expects will take 12 to 15 years to implement.

Each day will begin and end with prayer. Two periods will focus on religious instruction, including fostering of an awareness and appreciation of Israeli culture, with the rest used for academics. Melnick hopes to offer evening Judaic classes for parents.

To make the school accessible to students regardless of income, Melnick plans to accept state K-12 education choice scholarships. He said the Florida Legislature’s recent expansion of state scholarship programs has placed private education within financial reach of more families.

As an example, Melnick explained that a family of six like his can qualify with a household income of up to $148,600. (Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, manages state K-12 scholarship programs. You can find out more about scholarship programs and the latest eligibility rules here.)

“We’re very grateful for the scholarship program,” he said. “I’m very impressed with how powerful these scholarships are.”

In his first trip to South Florida since winning the election, Governor-elect Ron DeSantis visited a Jewish Day school Monday where he spoke about the importance of expanding educational options and enhancing security specifically at such schools.

DeSantis visited Brauser Maimonides Academy, a Jewish Day school in Fort Lauderdale, where 80 students use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for low-income students. Step Up For Students, which helps administer the scholarship, publishes this blog.

“For his first trip to be focused on visiting a Jewish day school, talking about security and expanding school choice says an enormous amount about what his priorities will be when he gets sworn in,” said Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, who attended the event.

Fine, who sponsored legislation in 2017 that provided security funding for Jewish day schools, said DeSantis highlighted security at the Orthodox school Monday. Gov. Rick Scott asked legislators last month to increase security funding for Jewish Day schools from $2 million to $4 million. This past spring, the Florida Legislature approved $2 million in security funding for 46 Jewish day schools.

Rabbi Yoni Fein, head of school for Brauser, said he was encouraged by the governor-elect’s visit. Fein said security is his own top priority, specifically “with the rise of anti-Semitism and the number of incidents that have happened on school properties.”

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States grew by 57 percent in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

“There is a lot more we need to do to ensure we have the highest security possible,” he said.

At a roundtable discussion, DeSantis emphasized how scholarship programs such as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and Gardiner Scholarship for students with special needs are working and how there are many families who want the same choice, according to Mimi Jankovits, executive director of Teach Florida.

“Florida has the weather, low taxes and hopefully under the DeSantis administration we will build the best school system in the country,” Jankovits said.

House and Senate leaders released their $83 billion budget Friday.

The spending plan, which lawmakers are expected to debate during the final day of an extended legislative session, would allocate $654,491 to fund security at Jewish day schools in Florida after a rash of anti-Semitic threats throughout the country.

There have been bomb threats at 167 Jewish community centers in 38 states since the beginning of the year.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay filed HB 3653, which initially would have set aside $1.5 million to enhance security at Jewish day schools. Over the weeks of session, that amount was lowered.

The Florida House of Representatives lowered the funding for security to $254,491.

By contrast, the Senate budget allocated $500,000 for Jewish day schools, at the behest of Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation.

Addressing the Florida House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee in March, Fine said Jewish students are afraid to come to school, with some even dropping out because of the security threats.

There are 55 Jewish day schools in the state of Florida, which serve nearly 10,000 students, according to Fine.

Several parents previously expressed concern to the Hebrew Academy of Tampa Bay about enrolling their children in the school,  worrying they would be targeted because they are Jewish.

 

Citing a rash of anti-semitic threats, the Florida House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee unanimously approved a measure setting aside $1.5 million to enhance security at all Jewish day schools in Florida.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, said since the beginning of the year there has been a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism. He said there had been 154 bomb threats reported at Jewish schools around the country, and 17 reported in Florida.

Appropriations documents show the measure, HB 3653, would benefit students in preschool through high school. Florida has 35 Jewish day schools in nine counties.

Fine mentioned there were no such schools in his district, but he felt the issue had statewide importance.

“We have a situation that Jewish students are very afraid and beginning to drop out of the schools,” Fine said. “It would put in security precautions so students and parents will feel safe having students attend these schools.”

Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, R-Mount Dora, asked what security measures would be put in place with the funding. (more…)

Finances were always a struggle for the Hebrew Academy of Tampa Bay, a small Jewish day school in Florida. But when the economy tanked a few years ago, the struggle turned into a fight for survival.

“We had to go out and find those dollars,’’ said Sulha Dubrowski, the school’s founder and director. A Homeland Security grant paid for a new gate and door locks. The state’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Program, which supplements tuition for 4-year-olds, helped fill preschool seats.

Three years ago, the academy discovered Florida Tax Credit Scholarships, a state program that uses tax-credited corporate contributions to help low-income children attend private schools. Now, 18 of the academy’s 35 students use the scholarships to pay half of the school’s $8,500 average annual tuition.

The scholarships, Dubrowski said, “helped us keep our doors open.’’

Saving Jewish day schools like the academy is the primary mission of the newly-formed Jewish Leadership Coalition, a nonpartisan advocacy group based in South Florida that includes rabbinical and lay leaders, educators and the Orthodox Union, which represents Orthodox congregations across the country.

Florida currently has about 35 Jewish day schools, but it’s getting harder every day for many to remain open, said coalition director Elliot S. Schreiber.

“Jewish day schools are hurting financially and are faced with the painful decision whether to continue providing general and Jewish education services to the community,’’ he said. “The result has been exorbitant tuition costs for low- and middle-income families with the community at large having to come up with huge sums to keep Jewish day schools in operation. It is unsustainable.’’ (more…)

As a Rabbi in training, I had the opportunity to travel and live in countries around the world, such as Argentina, France, Israel and Ukraine. What I saw was greater emphasis on preparing the youth to succeed in life. Kids were being given the skills necessary to grow and become successful adults who can find work and support themselves and their future families. In the U.S., we are definitely falling short of this goal.

As the most prosperous country in recent history, we owe a great deal of our success to free markets and the excellence that competition breeds. The ability to choose where you live, work and play has forced the marketplace to create products catered to our society.

Education should be no different. The more options we have for schooling our children, the more focused schools will be on providing the best experience possible. This means supporting a successful public and private school system, so parents can find the right environment and system that caters to their individual child's needs.

The reality is many children have been removed from this marketplace by the cost of tuition at private schools. Even with scholarships available, it is still too costly for many of our middle-income families, thereby excluding them from making the right choices for their children.

Floridians are truly fortunate that our state has seen this challenge and acted to overcome it. (more…)

Florida: Incoming Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett talks about the idea of voucher students being required to take the same standardized tests as their public school peers (Tampa Bay Times' Gradebook blog).

Texas: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sees expanded school choice as part of a legislative agenda that aims to make Texas the most conservative state in the country (Associated Press). The pending fight over vouchers highlights a difference over the best way to fund schools (Dallas Morning News).

Tennessee: A possible school voucher program will be a top issue for Gov. Bill  Haslam and state lawmakers next year (The Tennessean).

New Hampshire: The state's new tax credit scholarship program will again be the subject of debate - and potential legislative action - next year (New Hampshire Public Radio.)

Indiana: The state's school districts turned to marketing efforts in 2012 to compete with private school vouchers (Evansville Courier & Press). Charter school administrators say they have the flexibility to quickly respond to make improvements (Evansville Courier & Press).

Massachusetts: A new Pioneer Institute report opens a debate over the value of school choice options, specifically tax credit scholarships and education savings accounts, for Jewish day schools (Masslive.com)

Louisiana: Education reform,including creation of a statewide voucher program, ranks as one of the year's biggest stories (Houma Comet). Gov. Bobby Jindal's education reforms have reliable backing from the state education board, including its elected members (Baton Rouge Advocate).

Ohio: A long-troubled charter school moves again (Cincinnati Inquirer).

Washington D.C.: Fewer than half of the city's charter schools employ nurses (Associated Press).

Pennsylvania: Charter schools aren't just small, independent operations any more (Pittsburg Post Gazette). The western part of the state is seeing a rapid increase in charter school enrollment (Trib Live).

Delaware: Three charter schools delay opening next year, citing start-up costs and problems securing locations (Delaware Online).