Reply to Would you send your non-jewish child to a jewish school?

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[quote=Anonymous]Assuming that you are looking at preschool and not K in a day school, you need to consider a few things:

First, the school is going to follow the jewish holidays.  The jewish holidays do not coincide nicely with the christian holidays.  This year, spring break and easter is March 27 and Passover April 22- April 30.  If you need child care, passover is going to be a pain.

Jewish holidays start the night before.  If you're in a synagogue, the building needs to be made ready for the influx of congregants.  School usually has an early dismissal or is closed the day before a holiday to accommodate this.

The logistical issue of school closings are a big factor.

Second--your kid will need to follow the dietary rules--you can't send a turkey sandwich to school.  And then add to that the no peanut policies that are prevalent, and lunch options take creativity.  My kids ate a lot of carbs for lunches.

So that takes care of the day to day considerations.  The next thing to look at is who does the school serve?  Yes, they state they are open to all but where do the majority of the kids come from?  Are they neighborhood kids who may or may not be jewish?  Or are they congregation kids?

If they're neighborhood kids, you'll be fine.  If they are congregation kids, it's a bit tougher.  If they are congregation kids, then you want to know how many of the families attend shul.  This is important because of playdates.  On Sat, shul can be one big playdate.  The kids hang out together during services, eat together at the oneg, and play together afterward.  After shul playdates are loosely organized afterwards.  Kids talk in school and if you're not at shul on Sat, your kid will be left out.  If the majority of kids attending the school are congregation kids but don't really attend shul, this won't be an issue.

Birthday parties---they will always occur on Sunday's.  Many times they will occur on Sun mornings because if you have older kids in Sunday school, it's just easy to have a bday party with the little ones.  If you are planning to attend church on Sunday mornings, that might be an issue.

Synagogue based preschools will teach religion and expose the children to the torah.  But at that age, it's more about judeo-christian values as a whole then religious teachings--be kind to each other, share, don't be jealous--that type of value.

But of course there is the big one---the jewish kids know that Santa Claus is not real.  In a synagogue preschool, amongst their own religion, it's okay to acknowledge that SC is not real.  If you would have an issue with another child telling your kid that SC doesn't exist, you might want to think about that.

One more thing--at our synagogue based preschool, our kids did a lot of life cycle events.  Things like bring in show and tell from your naming, a picture of your parents under the chuppa, a momento from your bris, or share a story about a bar/bat mitzvah you've attended.

Now---if you're talking about enrolling in the Gan at a day school and you're not jewish, I would vote that that is not a good idea.  The teachings of Judaism become prominent in day school and are integrated into every part of the curriculum--secular and judiacs.  I'm also not sure if any of the day schools in the area will admit a student who does not have at least one jewish parent and who's committed to raising the child jewish.[/quote]

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