Had a great conversation with a friend of mine, a student at Yeshivat Rambam.
I asked him his assessment of the school’s future.
While he didn’t have a real strong answer about the future, one thing he knew for sure, he wants to be able to still go to Rambam.
He wants the school to survive. And while he’s not wringing his hands in worry, he said that his mother worked so very hard to get him into Rambam. He didn’t want her efforts to disappear.
He said he really doesn’t want to go to another school, that Rambam is “my” school.
He worries a bit that he might not be able to academically fit into one particular school, or that he might not religiously fit into another or socially in another. But for where he is in his life, it just doesn’t seem for him possible that he would have to make any other choice.
Usually when we’re talking, it’s about sports, or cars or the movies. But this time, this boy, on his Passover break, kept bringing up the future of his school. He had suggestions as well. He brought up the discontinuation of different parts of the school, and the bolstering of others. He asked if the Rambam building sold right away, couldn’t the school stay in the building for a while until it found another place to call home?
He also wanted to talk about rabbis and teachers who really liked and who have really helped him. He named them.
Then he asked me if I thought the school would make it.
I told him that I hoped so.
But I also told him that he had a job to do. His voice needed to be heard by the administration and the community. And if he has friends who think the same way, even though they are young, get them to talk to their parents and their teachers as well. Because for my friend, this is all very personal.
Rambam is his school.
He wants to keep it that way.

If any school in our area was to fit our children it should have been Rambam. Two professional parents trying hard to live a Torah observant lifestyle who have a strong bond with Israel.

Unfortunately, it was not. Both of my children who attended Rambam left the school to go elsewhere. Both were good students at Rambam who went on to become honor students at their next school.

Why? I’m not really sure. But I will say this. Rambam is very good at fitting a round peg in a round hole. Any deviation from the mean, even if it a half standard deviation is handled poorly by the school.

As a parent, I was underwhelmed by response of the faculty and administration about parental concerns. They were machmir about things I thought were silly and makel about things I felt were important. Perhaps we just weren’t a good fit. But, we had thought that if anyone would fit their profile, it would be our family. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

I wish the school nothing but success. We need more choice in our community and Rambam fills an important niche. But they need to decide what they are. They can’t out Beth Tfiloh, Beth Tfiloh. And they certainly can’t outdo the Talmudical Academy. They need to take a serious look at themselves and decide where they fit. And finally, they need to be honest with the parents and responsive to their needs. If they manage to do so, there is no reason that Yeshivat Rambam shouldn’t survive. Hatzlacha Rabbah to Yeshivat Rambam in their quest to make it in a difficult economic period for all of us.

Phil.

I don’t understand. A few weeks ago in a blog post you mentioned that perhaps, the Jewish Community should look into shutting down some of the schools. Now Rambam, a school with major financial issues, has just been bailed out by the federation so “the kids shouldn’t roam the streets” and problems “defining itself”, suprisingly, you seem to be advocating keeping it open and finding a way for its survival.

It seems to me, of all the candidates for a Jewish school to close in the Baltimore area, topping the list would be Rambam.  I know that Rambam has allot to offer, and there are kids which may not fit in to other schools, but wouldn’t that be the case, should any of Baltimore’s Jewish schools close? (Unless they had 0 students left, I guess)

Very nice post Phil. I think most people involved with the school - parents, students, teachers, alumni - feel that it is “their school” but I think that is part of what is the core issue. For the first 15 years of Rambam everyone had a very similar vision as to what “their school” was and should be. In the past few years that vision each person had began to widen until the school no longer had a singular identity and the parent/student body was no longer unified. This alone is not what has caused the school to get to where they are now - financial mismanagement has done that just fine - but it definitely makes it much more difficult for the school to come together as one in order to overcome the issues they face. Let’s hope the same passion that your young friend has is able to carry us through these difficult times.