Presence

It's been just over a week since Yeshivat Rambam announced their two-school solution in an effort to attract more families and students. What has happened since then?

Rambam has held meetings with students, as well as with parents of the current eleventh grade class to discuss the changes.

A independant meeting of about fourty parents took place Tuesday night to discuss other educational options for high school students. Options discussed included Beth Tfiloh, Cardin and Yeshiva of Greater Washington (not sure if/why the school formerly known as HAGWASH was omitted). It was reported that Beth Tfiloh has no free appointments for prospective students for two weeks, and is holding a mass testing early in April. It seemed like many parents were anxious to find out more from the school about what the plan for next is going to be, and how the school will maintain or even increase the academic standards with a configuration that will undoubtedly cost more money.

The students put on a Purim shpiel at the school, which portrayed a past, present and future Yeshivat Rambam. Video is available on Facebook, and it's pretty funny. I don't know all the teachers involved, but the ones that I did recognize were very well done.

A person, or persons, unknown sprayed graffiti on the Yeshivat Rambam building that said "F*** Rambam."

The Baltimore Jewish Times has an article in this week's edition entitled "Rambam Splitting Into Two Schools." It features comments from Alex Porcelain and head of the Yeshivat Rambam debate squad, Maddy List.

The discussion on the previous post was intense, to say the least. It's hard to summarize the discussion, but it's clear there are a lot of issues here. Some are meta-issues, such as the value and place of co-education, the rightward movement of Modern Orthodoxy, the balance between secular and religious studies. Other issues are more specific: what will the actual two-school solution look like? Will more people come to the school or leave? What details will emerge at the next meeting in sixty days?

It does seem, however, that most involved in the discussion have accepted the fact that Yeshivat Rambam has to change, or die. While some would prefer to see the school close rather than change, most parents that I have spoken to, and the general evolution in tone of the comments from the previous post, indicate that many that are against the changes conceptually understand that they must be done.

I will add that I'm very impressed with all of the Yeshivat Rambam students who've commented on this blog. The fact that they confidently voiced their opinions, using their real names, and rationally debated with other commentors (most of whom were adults), shows a tremendous amount of self-confidence, courage and maturity. Thank you for participating and yiyasher kochachem.