Will the discrepancy in the start dates of Lakewood boys’ and girls’ schools this year be an impetus for permanent change?

Reuvain Borchardt

The school year is underway for Lakewood’s boys two weeks before the girls due to a calendar oddity that’s causing headaches for some families.

Boys’ elementary schools typically start around a week before the girls’ elementary and high schools start in early September. But with Rosh Chodesh Elul this year falling out August 13- 14, the earliest it’s been in recent memory, starting school the usual time would have meant the boys having minimal learning time before Rosh Hashanah.

Therefore, many boys’ schools ended early last year, and camps began and ended early as well, so that schools could start early this year and the boys could get in a solid Elul of learning.

But girls’ schools are opening on their typical dates around the beginning of September, resulting in a gap of about two weeks between the boys’ and girls’ openings.

The differing schedules are causing problems for many families.

In families that go to the country, some mothers and daughters were in bungalow colonies—or even in camps, some of which were ongoing last week—while husbands and sons were home in Lakewood.

Many of the girls home now have little to do.

“My daughters are sleeping late, and when they roll out of bed, they have to go shopping at every store in town,” says Esty, one local mother. “It would be much better if we could have the whole family on one schedule. My sons are upset that they have to go to sleep on time to get up for yeshivah while the girls are up all night.”

Rochel, another local mother, disagrees.

“I’m a teacher, and it’s convenient that in these two weeks before school, I have my daughters home to help me prepare. And when I have teachers’ meetings, they can babysit,” she says. “Also, it’s easier for my husband and me to get back into school mode a little at a time, taking just the boys to the bus in the morning and the girls not yet.”

One of those most bothered by the schedule discrepancy is Rav Nosson Levine, rav of Kehilas Somerset Walk and R”M at Mesivta Bais Elazar in Lakewood and Yeshivah Gedolah of Clifton. He has been advocating for years for an alignment of the school and camp schedules for girls and boys around the Hebrew calendar (as detailed extensively in a feature in The Voice last December.)

Yet in a way, he’s happiest this year, because, he tells The Voice, things are so crazy now that “maybe something will finally get done.”

The proposition is simple: Instead of the current schedule, in which yeshivos end in late June and camps run in July and August and then everyone has to scramble to adjust when Elul is early, schools should finish every year at the end of Sivan and the camp season should be in Tammuz and Av, with chadarim and girls’ schools starting early in Elul.

Nobody would lose a day of vacation, the boys’ and girls’ schedules would be aligned, and no problems would arise from an early Elul, since the vacation is following the Hebrew rather than the secular calendar anyway. (This plan would not affect mesivtas and batei medrash, which would continue with their usual schedule of starting at the beginning of Elul.)

Rav Levine says most mosdos he has spoken with in both Lakewood and New York agree with the idea, though several are holding out.

Toward the end of last school year, with the approaching Elul so early, there was a big and successful push from rabbanim, led by Rav Yisroel Neuman, to have the boys start earlier this year. However, by the time they had gotten boys’ schools to sign on and some were shifting their focus to get the girls to join, “it was too late,” says Rav Levine.

“Camps had already given out their dates, and buildings had been rented out. Changing things at that point would have involved too many Choshen Mishpat she’eilos.”

Rav Levine believes this week will be “the breaking point, when all the girls are home from bungalow colonies and camps, it’s been a week and a half since camp for some, and they’re still climbing the walls and have nothing to do with themselves. That’s when you’re going to start getting lots of comments in coffee rooms. People will reach their boiling point of frustration. And then, hopefully, they will act.”

The rav understands that when people look ahead to next year and see Rosh Chodesh Elul on September 2–3, they may lose their desire for change. But he says he believes this plan is closer to being permanently adopted than it’s ever been, partly thanks to the current early Elul.

“I think it’s becoming more understood that the boys are going to be more aligned with Elul, and everyone knows that it’s a problem when there’s a big disparity. I think it’s going to push the girls up at least one week. It’s becoming more normalized that the boys are aligned with Elul, so the girls can’t drift far behind,” he says.

Rav Levine feels that ultimately, the schools are answerable to their parent body, and changes to the calendar will come if “parents push the schools.”