We have been advised that the Government of Ontario refuses to distribute to independent schools any of the monies from the federal government’s Safe Return to Class Fund because such schools operate as “independent businesses or non-profit organizations”.

At a number of levels, the government’s refusal is wrong.

• Even if such a school is an independent business, the issue at hand is enhancing protection for the health and safety of our children due specifically due to Covid. If private, non-school businesses across the country are receiving dedicated Covid relief funds from government, then surely, independent schools endeavouring to protect the health of their children should as well.

• In any event, most, if not all, of the independent schools in the Jewish community at least, are non-profit organizations. They may operate according to sound business principles, but making profit is not their animating mission. Providing education is.

• Every classroom in Ontario needs to be safe for the children learning there. Do public health experts differentiate between the children in publicly-funded schools and those in independent schools? Not likely. Why is the Ministry of Education indifferent to the public health concerns attached to the children in independent schools?

• Are not the children in independent schools as entitled to share in the federally dispensed Covid-related safety funds, especially since the size of those funds incorporated the number of children attending independent schools as well?

• If Ontario’s true purpose in disbursing the federally-sourced Safe Return to Class Fund was to abate public health concerns for “children in all the regions of our province”, as the Minister of Education said last week, then the children in Ontario’s independent schools would also fall under the Fund’s protective canopy. Ottawa did not stipulate that the Safe Return to Class funds must flow only to protect children in public schools.

• The health of Ontario’s children – at all times, but especially so during a pandemic – should hold a higher place of conscience and priority than the address of the school they attend.

Supporting Students Coalition (www.supportingstudents.ca) is providing advice on how to further respond to the Government of Ontario’s stubborn refusal to do the right thing.

Please get involved.

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, February 12, 2021

Ontario’s Minister of Education this week announced that the government was providing “an

additional $381 million, provided through the federal government’s Safe Return to Class Fund to keep schools safe from COVID-19.”

In making the announcement, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said: “We will continue to follow expert medical advice and work to get all schools open, for children in all regions of our province.”

The minister’s statement was only partially true. He may indeed be following expert medical advice, but he is certainly not working to get ALL schools open for children in all regions of our province.”

Despite the fact that the province has received an amount of funds from the federal government based upon the number of all children aged 4 – 18-years-old attending schools in Ontario, the province appears once again intent on not distributing any of the Safe Return to Class Funds to children aged 4 – 18-years-old in independent schools.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education yesterday told GAJE it was not likely any the federal funds would be allocated to independent schools.

And so, yet again, we call out the government for its shameful behaviour. Ontario’s policy is wholly unsupportable by any rules of fairness and justice.

Ottawa did not stipulate that the Safe Return to Class funds must flow only to public schools. Do not the parents of children in independent schools also pay taxes to the federal government? Is there no concern for – or call upon the conscience of the province – for the health and safety of Ontario’s 125,000 children attending independent schools?

We ask again: How can the Government of Ontario continue its callous disregard for the health and safety of all Ontario’s children, of compassionate, caring, let alone fair and objectively justifiable, public policy. 

That it does, is an affront.

Readers should make their views known to the Minister of Education.

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, February 5, 2021

The Supporting Students Campaign, about which GAJE has written in the past few weeks, points to the pledge that Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce committed two weeks ago to all parents of children in school. 

“To ensure our schools remain safe in January 2021 and beyond, we will continue and enhance testing in schools and allocate a new and significant investment in school safety, including in enhanced air quality, more PPE, and additional staffing and cleaning. We will do whatever it takes to ensure our kids can continue to learn.” 

To the extent that the province’s ability to fulfill that pledge derives from its resort to the federal government’s Safe Return to Class Fund, the minister’s pledge rings hollow for the families whose children attend independent schools. For, as we have written in the past, none of the 125,000 students attending independent schools in the province – among whom are the children in Jewish day schools – has received any benefit from those funds.

The Campaign, however, also draws our attention to the positive news that the Ontario Government has included the children in independent schools – including Jewish Day Schools – in a program that provides $200 or $250 per special needs child to assist parents deal with Covid-related costs in this school year. The grants have been recently extended to apply to high school students as well.

The deadline for applying for this assistance is Feb. 8, 2021.

For information about applying go to: https://www.ontario.ca/page/get-support-learners

The Supporting Students Campaign has posted new guidance for correspondence to the minister expressing thanks for the grants for special needs children as well as disappointment and dismay regarding the government’s unfair treatment in relation to its refusal to disburse Safe Return to Class funds to independent schools.

•••

For information about the Supporting Students Campaign, please go to their website: https://www.supportingstudents.ca. 

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, January 29, 2021

We have noted in the past few weeks that the Government of Ontario is slated this month to distribute the second – final – tranche of federally-granted Covid-19 relief funds to the schools of the province. Indeed, the government may have already begun the process.

Through the Safe Return to Class Fund, the federal government allocated $763 million for all Ontario children between the ages of 4-18. Yet, none of the 125,000 students attending independent schools in the province – among whom are our children at Jewish day schools – has received any benefit from those funds. One of five schools in Ontario is an independent school. Yet, none of these schools has received any of the funds that the federal government intended for schools to abate the cost of acquiring personal protective equipment, or for extra safety cleaning or for extra health measures training.

How is this fair? Or justified? It is not.

The Ontario Federation of Independent Schools is working with the recently created Supporting Students Campaign (SSC) to try to persuade the government to act fairly and justly by allocating Covid-19 relief funds for the safety of students at independent schools too. Thus, before it is too late and all the federal funds will have bee disbursed, the SSC is holding two 30-minute webinars to discuss what measures, if any, can still be taken to influence the province to do the right thing.

The webinars are Tuesday, January 26 at 2:00 pm and Thursday, January 28 at 10:00 am.

To register for the Tuesday Webinar go to:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqd-6gpzwiHNUgxC-M8VX5sooYiKoRuBrK

To register for the Thursday Webinar go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvfuirqDssGNz3WmbBscU3PU3HH9GR6CXv

For information about the Supporting Students Campaign , please go to their website: https://www.supportingstudents.ca. 

As we have also noted in the past few weeks, the virus does not differentiate between children in public or independent schools. Nor should the government of Ontario.

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, January 22, 2021

Two weeks ago, in his comment on the Torah portion, Vayhi, Rabbi Marc D. Angel, founder of The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, pointed precisely and eloquently to the essential qualities that must typify the behaviour of would-be leaders.

Rabbi Angel reflected upon the unique deathbed blessing/instruction by Yaakov to his son Yehudah in light of the observable transformation in Yehudah’s personality.

All human beings, Rabbi Angel observes, face crises and confront problems in life. But “we need to learn from Judah’s example. We need to understand that leadership requires clarity of thought, unshakeable commitment to what’s right, and a lion’s courage to take action.”

When we examine the behaviour of the provincial government in perpetuating unfair, discriminatory educational funding, we do not see even the slightest commitment to doing what’s right. Alas, we see the opposite.

The failure by the government to do what is right does not absolve us from embracing the commitment to do so. As Rabbi Angel wrote, “the Torah calls on all of us to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We must be lions, not laggards.”

And so, we must find the courage to take action to do what is right to remedy the long-standing, discriminatory educational funding policies of the provincial government. Resorting to the courts is the next appropriate step.

Rabbi Angel’s article is available at:

https://www.jewishideas.org/lions-and-laggards-thoughts-parashat-vayhi

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, January 15, 2021

Before the end of last year, Paul Bernstein, CEO, Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, published an article that was of a piece with many written in the latter part of the year calling attention to the excellence of Jewish day schools.

Educational experts and knowledgeable observers throughout North America, including in the GTA, marvelled at how well most day schools forged a relatively clear path through the dislocation, misery and fog of Covid-19. 

Bernstein noted the phenomenon of the increase in enrollment in many day schools during the pandemic. He then asked the important questions: “is the enrollment growth we observed a COVID blip, or can/should we see this moment as a launch point for sustained growth in Jewish day schools? And how do we support those schools and families who are struggling?”

“COVID has amplified the strengths of Jewish day schools – academically and communally – and has spotlighted the power of a (Jewish) values-driven education, and the focus on social and emotional health. Day school faculty and staff continually go “above and beyond” to maintain the best possible experience for students and families,” Bernstein wrote.

Bernstein’s real purpose was clear in the following words. “It is incumbent on all of us who care about day schools,” he writes, “to do all we can to ensure that [the increase in day school enrollment] is in fact not a blip, but rather a moment to catapult our schools forward.”

He answers his own question with a four-part solution:

• We need to double down on student retention. 

• We need to keep telling the amazing story of a Jewish day school education.

• We must keep focus on the tremendous financial costs involved in day schools. Affordability remains a critical challenge.

• We need to convey the inherent value of a Jewish day school education for our collective Jewish future.

Bernstein concludes by urging us to recognize and to acknowledge “just how “frontline” our day schools and teachers are for our current lives – and for the sustainability of our community for years to come.”

We agree with and reinforce Bernstein’s insights.

Bernstein’s article is available at:

•••

Be safe. Be well. Shabbat shalom. 

GAJE, January 8, 2021

Turning the last page on 2020 reminds us that GAJE has been advocating for affordable Jewish education for more than five years. The overall condition of Jewish education in the GTA – tuition, enrollment, excellence – has noticeably improved these past years. Community professional and lay leaders have adopted new, restorative policies toward the infrastructure of Jewish education. School educators, administrators and boards responded to the unforeseen Covid incursion in eye-opening ways, confirming their respective schools’ excellence, importance and foundational value to Jewish families and community.

But the cost of sending their children to day schools is still far too high and a crushing financial burden for most families. Thus, despite the laudable progress, the task is still very much in front of us. Tuitions must become truly affordable. That continues to be our focus. And with unwavering laser precision it will be.

Without any apparent embarrassment or regret, the Government of Ontario perpetuates unfair, unjust discriminatory educational funding policies upon families that send their children to Jewish schools, indeed to all independent schools in Ontario. The government’s record is objectionable, even unconscionable.

•  Ontario supports the religious education of the children of one religion only, in preference to the religious education of children whose families’ religious faiths are different. How can such patently preferential support be justified in the year 2021 in modern Canadian society?

• Ontario differentiates in providing health support payments for children with learning disabilities to help them overcome their educational challenges. Learning disabled children in independent schools are not treated in an equal manner to learning disabled children in public schools. Surely, it is the need and the disability of the child that should be determinative for receiving standard payments for health support services rather than the address of the school in which the child is a student. How can such patently preferential support be justified in the year 2021 in modern Canadian modern society?

• Ontario has thus far refused to distribute federal funds to independent schools to help them defray the cost of the vital health and safety measures wrought by Covid to ensure safe learning environments for children and teachers. The federal government did not stipulate that the funds go only to benefit the public schools. The virus did not discriminate between children in public or independent schools. But the Government of Ontario did. We ask again: How can such patently preferential support be justified in the year 2021 in modern Canadian modern society?

Of course, Ontario’s behaviour is not justified. Nor can it be. Nor should it be.

As regular readers of this update know, Ontario is the only provincial government in Canada – where sufficient numbers of students create the need – that refuses to help fund independent schools even partially. GAJE has engaged the services of one of Canada’s renowned human rights advocates and constitutional law experts to try to remedy this entrenched injustice. Where moral suasion and public appeals to fairness have thus far failed to move the conscience of the government, perhaps the courts and the law will? In the weeks to come, we will write more about GAJE’s legal efforts. Your help will be needed. We hope you will support us.

•••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom. And best wishes for 2021, free of pandemic, full of optimism, and renewed inspiration for collective purpose and good health.

GAJE, January 1, 2021

Covid-19’s effect on the delivery of education continues to generate a great deal of expert professional commentary.

Arielle Levites, Managing Director of the Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education, (CASJE) and Alex Pomson, Principal and Managing Director at Rosov Consulting, a mission-driven company that works with funders and grantees to inform and improve Jewish education and engagement, earlier this month contributed to the growing literature. They published an article on the eJewishPhilanthropy website entitled “How Essential is Jewish Education? COVID-19 Brings Some Clarity”.

Levites and Pomson offer certain conclusions from a recently released report by CASJE, conducted by Rosov Consulting, that studied patterns in career trajectories among Jewish educators.  The “report conveys how the labor market in certain sectors of Jewish education has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Through the lens of what the authors describe as the movement of “human capital” within careers in education, the authors provide some interesting observations.

“One key observation is the special status afforded to Jewish educational programs deemed essential and even the novelty of the very concept of essential as a framework for categorizing programs. Those sectors that provide services that people cannot do without, in particular childcare and day school education, seem to be emerging from the present moment in better shape than others. They have responded to the moment vigorously, although exactly what business models will prove sustainable for the early childhood sector is uncertain.

“These two essential programs, early childhood and day school, are core providers of education (both general and Jewish) and of care for children.”

Among the reasons these programs are deemed “essential” is that they enable parents to function each day with the minimal disruption to their previously “normal” lives. To be sure, this reason makes a great deal of sense. But we, of course, believe Jewish education to be essential for reasons that are far more encompassing than to help facilitate the relatively smooth running of a home and household.

Jewish education is essential because it is only through education that the promise of Judaism’s eternity will be fulfilled.

The full article is available at:

•••

Important reminder

There is still time to move the provincial government to act fairly in distributing federally funded Covid relief funds for the benefit of all of Ontario’s school children.

Next month Ontario will disburse the second tranche of some $400 million from the federal government designed to help make our schools Covid safe. Independent schools received none of the monies from the first federal allocation even though the funding Ontario received was based upon a formula that included all school-aged children.

GAJE joins with Teach-On, the Jewish representative, and other groups, in a coalition of like-minded members attempting to convince the government to act fairly without discrimination. Please call or send an e-mail to your MPP, Premier Ford and Education Minister Lecce pleading with them to distribute funds for the sake of children in independent schools too.

For more information on this important effort, please visit the site:

Supporting Students campaign (www.supportingstudents.ca)

•••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom.

GAJE, Dec. 25, 2020

With the winter school break soon upon all families, it is time once again to reflect upon the remarkably successful manner in which the Jewish day schools adapted through the Covid pandemic. Of course, we dare not be too self-congratulatory, nor celebrate a situation that is not yet resolved. But we can, indeed, we should acknowledge the good that the entire communal Jewish day school enterprise has conferred upon so many children, their families, and truth be told too, the Jewish future.

Three key administrative and lay leaders at the Kellman Brown Academy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, this week published an article on the eJewishPhilanthropy website explaining “Covid’s silver lining” for their small school. In illuminating their own situation, they also cast light upon the situation of day schools in the GTA and in other jurisdictions.

Much has already been written about the quick, effective pivoting by GTA day schools as a result of the pandemic. It is worthwhile, however, to read the experiences of other day schools. For they reinforce the positive steps and the deep, intrinsic excellence of the Jewish schools in the GTA.

We reproduce the authors’ concluding remarks.

“Like many other outstanding Jewish day schools, we have longed for an opportunity to share what we’re all about with families who, under normal circumstances, would never have considered a Jewish day school. The COVID pandemic has given us this unique opportunity to do so, and we continue to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to leverage this opportunity to strengthen our school. This is our moment – and we are determined not to let it pass us by.”

Newly enrolled families at our day schools are discovering what so many families already knew. The schools are animated by their respective missions which are variations on the same theme: the education of our children is the pathway to a thriving, inspiring, inclusive, tolerant, creative, respectful, tradition-honouring Jewish future.

The complete article is available at:

•••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom.

GAJE, Dec. 18, 2020

Dr. Daniel Rose, the educational consultant and content developer for the Office of (the late) Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, posted a thoughtful distillate this week on the eJP website of Rabbi Sacks’ core teachings on Jewish Education.

The author of the Ten Paths curriculum of Jewish education based on the thought of Rabbi Sacks, Rose wanted to mark the Shloshim of Rabbi Sack’s passing by beginning a conversation on what a system of Jewish education might look like if it were founded on the late rabbi’s ideas.
Rose called the Sacks’ distillate a Manifesto on Jewish Education.

Not surprisingly, there is a great deal in the Manifesto for us to read, learn, absorb and apply.

Rose propagates nine principles of applied Jewish Education. Each principle derives from a specific, typically inspiring, Sacksian teaching. Each principle is accompanied by a source reference, an elaboration, and a statement of related, core educational values.

The article is too long to reproduce in this space. We will, however, reproduce the first and the last principle (without the source references). Rabbi Sacks’ wisdom and his voice are discernible in every word.

1. A Nation of Educators
   “About to gain their freedom [from Egypt], the Israelites were told that they had to become a nation of educators.”

Universal compulsory education existed as a communal policy in Israel eighteen centuries before the western world. However, education as a core Jewish value was never limited to the framework and institutions of formal education. It was and is found in every aspect of Jewish communal life. But more than our great institutions of formal and informal Jewish education, the role of families is the most effective educational tool we have. Families must be encouraged to be seen as partners in and agents of Jewish education in their own right.

Core Educational Values:
• A Jewish education is the right of every Jewish child
• Jewish education should be at the heart of all of our communal institutions
• The family should be empowered and supported as partners and direct agents in Jewish education.

2. The Educator as Hero
   “Teachers open our eyes to the world. They give us curiosity and confidence. They teach us to ask questions. They connect us to our past and future. They’re the guardians of our social heritage. We have lots of heroes today, and they are often celebrities – athletes, supermodels, media personalities. They come, they have their fifteen minutes of fame, and they go. But the influence of good teachers stays with us. They are the people who really shape our life.”

As central as Jewish education was to the thought and work of Rabbi Sacks, his appreciation of the noble profession of education was clearly communicated. He dedicated his energies over many years to elevating the prestige of educators and the field of education in the community, and made great efforts to support educators in various ways (including investing in the creation of educational content based on his thought for educators to use as a resource in their work). Rabbi Sacks was also a role model par excellence in his private and public life, reminding us of the importance of exposing children to the influence of strong Jewish role models. These are our educators.

Core Educational Values:
• Jewish educational communities must value in real and practical ways the educator as the lynchpin in everything they do
• Educators make an impact not just through delivery of content and programming, but by being role models. This impact should be carefully considered in educational strategic planning.

From manifesto to blueprint to construction to realization…it is all in our hands.

Dr. Rose’s full article is available at:
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/a-manifesto-on-jewish-education-based-on-the-thought-of-rabbi-lord-jonathan-sacks/
•••

Be safe. Be well.

Shabbat shalom. Chag Chanukah samayach.

GAJE, Dec. 10, 2020