Presence

I'm at Yeshivat Rambam, ther's a meeting with what are supposed to be big announcements. I'll update this post with details. Rumor is they are announcing that they will have separate buildings. More soon.

Notes from the meeting:

rambam has a growing deficit of $1 million. they contracted a consultant to analyze the school and make suggestions on how to turn things around.

jay hobby (consultant) says: enrollment is not meeting expectations, expected 50 students a year. overhead has increased, niche market is tapped out, there are no more candidate families to join the school, message is not appealing to the commuity, and is ambiguos.

vision points include committment to torah, israel, academic excellence, communal resposibility. note that this is not a vision or msion statement, just vision points. (editor's note: the original mission statement started with the term "co_educational" so this represents a significant refocusing of the school's mission/vision.)

60% of families that looked at rambam but did ot send their kids said it was because of the co_ed. stats in favor of separation of sexes. separation does not contradict any of the vision points.

what is happening: starting nexxt year boys 6-12 moving to baltimore hebrew u. classes separated from 1st grade and up. all starting next year.

more details inn 60 days at another meetings.

UPDATE: Ok, I'm home from the meeting now. Wow. Basically, the school outlined the fact that they are in dire financial straits. They have tapped out the market of families that are willing to send their kids to a co-ed Orthodox day school and can no longer grow. Without growth, there is no possibility of the school offering anything beyond what it does now, in fact, without growth the school would have to be shut down due to the mounting debt. In order to assess the situation, the school formed two groups of parents/rabbeim/rabbinical leaders to work out a vision for the school. After much discussion, both groups came to a consensus of what the vision of the school was (see vision points above). Next they looked at the marketplace (i.e. the frum community) did some research and surveys of families that had considered Rambam but decided not to send their kids to school there. They found the common denominator was the co-ed factor. The conclusion that the board reached was that in order to stimulate growth to keep the school alive, the would take measures to attract more families by further separating the boys and girls. They felt comfortable in doing this because doing so does not compromise on any of the vision points of the school (having a co-ed school is not one of the vision points).

This caused quite a stir to say the least. There were some very strong statements made at the meeting (I, personally, was shocked at some of the blatant stereotypes that were said publicly. It's embarrassing, frankly). There were also some very valid questions and concerns raised, as well as some very substantial comments in support. The school is going to present a more detailed overview of the changes in 60 days, including an outline of the executive committee that is going to be taking charge of all this.

Interesting: the kids at Rambam seem to be upset (requires Facebook login). It's interesting to read, as it seems that the kids feel that the co-ed aspect of Rambam is, to them, what sets their school apart.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that I think it's a good thing. I'd rather have Rambam in Baltimore than not, and it's pretty clear that based on the financial numbers they presented, the school would have had to either a) make tremendous sacrifices in academics (they said an option was going K-5) to remain co-ed, b) make changes to attract more students or c) shut the school down. I think they made the right decision, and I'm hoping that those families that had previously considered Rambam but decided against it will come take another look.