Shani Pruzansky

A mother sits up in her hospital bed, her newborn in her arms. She holds a phone to her ear.

“What do you mean you’re full? He’s 20 minutes old!”

It’s a joke that holds so much truth, it stopped being funny long ago.

Lakewood has always worked on its own time. We have our own calendar that revolves around the zmanim in yeshivah. We have our own retail seasons, and anyone who cares knows you need to hit the shops for your Sukkos shopping before you even started on your post–Nine Days laundry, or you risk not finding matching outfits for your kids.

And we have our registration seasons. From high school to mesivta to summer camps, each has a specific window, and you need to be in the loop to get your applications in as soon as that window cracks open.

But one registration season has been subtly edging closer to the beginning of the year.

We refer, of course, to elementary school registration and its close cousin, playgroup registration.

The school year’s barely gotten underway. Your kids are still learning their teachers’ names, and you’re learning which bus drivers run on Jewish time and which are Yekkes. And some schools have already started taking applications for next year. In fact, several schools started taking applications in middle of the summer.

Now, we don’t just get to think of our summer plans during deep winter storms, but we can also try to figure out if our lisping four-year-old who can barely dress himself will be ready for school a full year from now.

No one benefits from this bizarrely early registration window. And yet, no one seems to know how—or even if—the system can be changed.

The early registration process has become such a concern that community members on all sides of the issue—an administrator, a playgroup morah, and several parents—have reached out to The Voice, hoping to start a conversation and find a better way forward.

 

From the administrator’s desk

 

Rabbi Rachamim Ashkenazi, Yeshivat Or Hachaim

Are the schools pushing for the early registration season?

“Absolutely not,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “We’re pressured into it, and we have to follow what everyone else is doing or we won’t have a class for next year. But ultimately, the schools have to pick up the pieces of this broken system.

“There may be newer schools that will always feel the pressure to be ahead of everyone else, but the more established schools would prefer later registration.”

 

Inadequate assessment

From the school’s perspective, the fallout of registering boys for the next school year when the current school year’s just started can be disastrous.

“Our yeshivah has a kindergarten,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “This means our applicants are very young; some haven’t even had an upsherin yet. We’re pressured to start accepting boys right after Sukkos. It’s hard to know about a boy’s development and what it will look like in a year, especially at this age.”

Rabbi Ashkenazi notes that at this point on the calendar, the boys’ morahs don’t know them yet.

“At this point, the morahs barely know their names. This is especially true when the Yamim Noraim are very early, like they are this year.”

The interview process is likewise severely impaired by the early-registration window.

“A boy can be fine at an interview after Sukkos and only begin to show signs of social or developmental delays after Chanukah. There’s not much we can learn from doing it so early in the game. When a boy shows a developmental delay early, it’s a real guessing game to know where he will be 10 months from now.”

The boys who only start falling behind significantly later in the year may need significant intervention and would do best in a preschool or daycare program that offers intensive therapy, such as speech, OT, or even ABA. In less severe cases, younger boys who aren’t at the academic level of their peers can benefit from starting school a year later and having another year with their morah.

When this happens, Rabbi Ashkenazi shares, one of two scenarios ensues.

Sometimes, the mother becomes aware of the boy’s lagging developmental skills later in the year and knows he can’t start school in September and needs alternate plans. She may realize this on her own, or the issue can be brought to her attention by the child’s morah. And she’s left scrambling to find him a kindergarten for next year when morahs are already full or looking for a place for him in an agency-run preschool. Schools then need to adjust their acceptances at a time when they have already rejected suitable families for lack of space.

Other times, the morah and the boy’s parents are unaware of how much he’s lagging and assume he’s ready to start primary in the fall. Then the yeshivah is left to deal with a boy who’s really not ready for school. He may disrupt the class, have trouble following directions, or have poor social skills that make him a perfect target for bullying. He’ll struggle through primary and may ultimately need to switch to a self-contained setting or a therapy-based preschool and then start school again the following September.

“The current setup does no one any good,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “A much smarter system would be to start the application process in middle of the winter.”

Rabbi Ashkenazi asserts that his yeshivah would be happy to go back to the practice instituted by Mrs. Ziva Krieger years ago, when registration for playgroups started on Tu B’Shevat, and would like to see that policy adopted by elementary schools as well.

“At that point, we’re already deep into the school year, and the child’s morah has a much better idea of whether he’ll be ready for school in the fall.”

 

Empty chairs and early hiring

 

Rabbi Ashkenazi adds that there are other issues that commonly arise when registration happens so early in the year.

“There are many families that don’t know where they’ll be living next year,” he says. “They may get an offer for an out-of-town kollel sometime in middle of the year and move after Pesach. Their child is holding a slot in my school, and they won’t be living here in September. Now what?”

Don’t slots in schools fill up quickly in Lakewood?

“Yes and no,” Rabbi Ashkenazi shares. “If a school only finds out mid-summer about a pullout, they may not be able to fill that slot. There have been years when schools have been left with half-empty classrooms. They’ve already hired the rebbi, and now they’re stuck.”

This year, Lakewood has the opposite problem, with too many kids still needing schools, but not every year works out like this one.

There are also families moving into town from other locations that now need a school for their kids.

“Any family that moves here after Sukkos is going to have a hard time getting their kids into schools,” he says. “Lakewood elementary schools are deep into registration by then, and they won’t have any slots left by the time the newcomers start applying.”

Early registration also makes it challenging to hire top talent for next year’s incoming kindergarten or primary class.

“If we want to hire an experienced kindergarten morah who’s currently working out of her home, we need to think about it the summer before the prior school year starts—more than a full year before she’ll be working for us,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “If we wait any longer, she’ll start accepting kids for the next year, and she won’t be able to back out of her commitments.”

 

Defying the system

 

Are there any schools that hold out and wait until later in the year to begin accepting applicants?

“There were a few,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “But they’re getting fewer and fewer in number.”

He explains how the system relies on coordination—voluntary or not—between all the schools in town.

“If one school decides to wait a month or two, they’re going to be the ones that end up with a bunch of empty slots they need to fill at the last minute. This arrangement benefits no one.”

The schools that open registration earlier in the year are the schools that can be more selective about whom they accept.

But what about a more established school that has a primary class that’s mostly siblings of students already in the school? What’s their rush to open registration right after the school year starts—or even in the summer?

“A few of the older schools in town used to wait longer to start taking applicants,” Rabbi Ashkenazi confirms. “This might have worked in the past, but now that other mosdos are slowly pushing the deadline up further each year, even these schools will pay the price if they wait too long to open registration.”

But it gets worse.

“The larger schools, on average, have more kids who end up dropping out by the time school starts. This can mean having one class that’s nearly empty by September.”

One new practice many schools have adopted—including older, established schools—is asking about siblings who will be registering for the following school year as part of the annual student registration each summer.

“This way, schools will know how many slots they have available after all sibling slots are taken,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says. “Of course, some of these kids might ultimately not be ready to start school the following September, just like any of the kids we accept early in the year, but it does help registration go more smoothly.”

 

What’s the solution?

 

“First,” Rabbi Ashkenazi says, “we need to understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Newer schools that are still in their inaugural or second year should really have a headstart on registration. They shouldn’t have to be left with placements that don’t fit their vision and don’t want to be part of their school. Too many new schools ended up changing from their intended goals or even closing because this is exactly what happened.”

However, there’s definitely a need for a townwide effort to create a uniform registration season that all mosdos adhere to.

The most straightforward solution, he says, would be for the rabbanim to establish a specific date before which elementary schools may not conduct interviews, accept applications, or finalize placements.

“The biggest impediment here is the playgroups,” Rabbi Ashkenazi points out. “It isn’t fair of us to tell parents that their kid is not ready for school and needs to go to morah for another year if all the kindergartens in town closed registration months ago.”

Unfortunately, playgroups are a lot harder to regulate than schools. However, Rabbi Ashkenazi maintains that it is possible.

“It will take a tremendous investment of money and time, as well as a dedicated secretary who can reach out to every playgroup in town and make sure they’re on board. They’ll need to commit not to open registration until a designated date later in the year. Once this happens, the schools can move their registration window as well.”

Making a move like this poses a formidable challenge, Rabbi Ashkenazi explains, as there is no real leverage over the playgroups.

“The rabbanim were able to work with mesivtas and get them to move their registration dates by asking the elementary schools not to share information on boys until the agreed-upon date. But without any authority over the playgroups, it’s difficult to enact a similar system for elementary schools.”

But Rabbi Ashkenazi believes the town needs to think even bigger than registration dates.

“What we really need is a master plan,” he says.

We need to know how many new classes are needed in town each year and figure out which schools will expand. This must be done early in the year to allow schools to recruit staff, plan expansions, and take care of other preparations needed for adding another track.

The Va’ad could invest in a centralized system to track the number of young children in town and determine how many students will be entering each grade in the coming years. Schools could contribute toward the cost of maintaining the system, which would give the town a much clearer picture of how many classrooms will be needed and where.

A system like this could also track sibling enrollment and help schools anticipate which families are likely to need new placements. If the numbers show that an additional class will be needed in a particular grade, the town could prepare for it before the crisis arrives.

It could also help prospective mosdos make more informed decisions. Before opening a new school—or adding another class—a school could approach the Va’ad and ask a simple question: Is there a need for another school this year?

Right now, Rabbi Ashkenazi says, too much of the system happens reactively. Schools open classes, families register, new mosdos open, and everyone adjusts to whatever happens next.

“If we know how many children are coming, how many classrooms we’ll need, and where the gaps are going to be, we can plan ahead instead of constantly playing catch-up.”

That kind of planning wouldn’t solve every problem facing Lakewood’s school system. But it could change the way the town approaches them from a collection of individual schools trying to survive the next registration season to a community working together to anticipate its needs before they become crises.

 

The Parents’ Perspective

 

No one wins from the early registration season, and the parents pushing their kids into schools and playgroups are no exception. Here’s just a sampling of the fallout parents face from the early registration window and the race to get into schools:

One of my daughters needed to be left back in kindergarten, but her morah only told us around Pesach time. At that point in the year, every morah was full, and we made ourselves meshuga until we found someone who could take her—a full 20-minute drive from our home. I paid for that late assessment all year. If we had only started applying to schools in the winter, it’s much more likely that her morah or the schools we’d interviewed at would have seen that she wasn’t ready for school.”

“My parents are comfortable, baruch Hashem, and they’ve made a practice of becoming donors at the schools they know their children will be applying to in the next few years. It’s crazy, but so far, it works.”

“I don’t have any connections in Lakewood, and I knew I would have a hard time finding a school for my oldest daughter. When she turned three, I did some research and found out about a shiur the owner of the school I wanted for her went to every week. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to attend this specific shiur too. And that’s what I did. By the time we started applying to schools, he knew who I was from the shiur, and we had a much easier time getting her into the school.”

“When my friend told me I had to apply to schools in September, I thought she was joking. My daughter was barely four. She was a baby, completely not ready for school. She was getting speech therapy at the time and was always a step behind her class when it came to acquiring new skills. We decided to have her repeat kindergarten.

“Well, she blossomed that winter, and by Purim, I knew she was more than ready for school in the fall. Getting a school to take her at that point was impossible. It was only after we called in favors from every distant relative that we were able to find one who could get us into a school.”

 

A Playgroup Morah’s Take

Morah Chani Stein*

I’ve been a kindergarten morah in my home for over two decades, and registration has never been such a nightmare until these last few years.

When Ziva Krieger was alive, and for the few years after she passed away, all playgroup morahs in town would only open registration on Tu B’Shevat. This worked so well for everyone: the morahs, the parents, and the schools. But now, registration is moving earlier each year, and no one appreciates it.

The biggest issue with the early-registration window is that it’s very difficult to assess a kid’s social and academic level almost a year in advance—or more. When schools call morahs to ask about one of our students right after the Yamim Tovim, we barely know their names.

A school once called to ask me about a kid in August. I hadn’t even met the child yet!

When I pointed this out, the school told me, “Yes, but you did research on him.”

I responded that I had done research on a three-year-old, not a five-year-old. That’s not the same thing at all.

I told this school they can take the kid, but it’s completely wrong to accept a child so early in the year. I also told them not to come to me next year and ask me why I didn’t warn them against accepting this kid. I can’t take responsibility for the behavior and skills of a child I haven’t yet met.

One year around Chanukah time, I noticed that one girl in my class was acting a bit quirky and showing early signs of needing developmental intervention. A few schools had called me about her in October, but she had been perfectly fine then.

Well, the next year, the school this girl attended called and asked why I had sent them a child who’s on the spectrum.

“You asked me about her in October!” I said. “I don’t know these kids in October. Had you asked me later in the year, I might have given you a different report. But by the time I noticed anything, it was too late. I can’t keep track of which school called me about which kid; that’s not my job.”

The early registration benefits nobody.

Aside from the kids who end up not being ready to advance to the next playgroup level or to school, there are the families that move later in the year. Early registration creates a huge problem for all of them.

One year, I filled up with 15 kids right after Sukkos, and only 10 showed up at orientation the following September. Five kids had backed out because of a location change, and none had bothered to tell me.

Do you know what it means for a morah to have five empty slots in September? It’s a nightmare. She may be left scrambling to find kids who miraculously still don’t have a morah, which happens most often with kids who have behavioral issues. Alternatively, she’ll have to swallow a big loss that year, which might include paying the salary of an assistant she doesn’t really need.

After this happened to me, I realized that people were clearly holding slots at more than one morah, and I started charging more for registration. I asked my rav if I could charge $300 at registration, and he told me it was fine to do that. The funds cover the snack fee and are deducted from the child’s tuition the next year, and there are no refunds for families that pull out. This way, people think three times before signing up, and they take registration seriously.

The best solution would be to go back to the way things were when Ziva Krieger was alive and only open registration for elementary schools and playgroups on Tu B’Shevat. By then, morahs know the kids well, and they can tell if a child is ready for school. There are also fewer moves that can happen when you’re not accepting kids a full year before they’ll be in your class.

Over the years, there have been morahs who’ve held back and only opened registration later in the year, but they end up losing out and risk not filling up. A morah needs to know if she has a class for the following year—it’s her parnassah. Of course, if all morahs waited until Tu B’Shevat, there would be no issue.

I’ve had parents suggest that the Va’ad regulate the playgroups in town and decide when they can open registration, but that doesn’t work for me or any morah I know. I can’t be told to listen to the Va’ad or any other group if they’re not actually responsible for my playgroup.

For example, a few years ago, when DYFS was going around Lakewood, every morah panicked and shut down for two days. Someone I know was busted, and when I found out, I was one of the first morahs to close. Word spread like crazy, and soon every morah had done the same. A guy called me after the second day and told me I was shutting down the entire town and I had to open.

I asked him, “Are you going to stand behind me if I get in trouble? If not, you’re not my boss and I have no reason to listen to you.”

This year, Isru Chag is on October 5. It’s ridiculously early.

Aside from the early date, there’s the irrational panic that’s present throughout the entire registration process. It’s exhausting! I get over 100 phone calls beginning immediately after Sukkos, and I don’t sleep for days. In recent years, I’ve started doing a goral to help me decide who gets to be part of my playgroup the next year. I put it in Hashem’s hands, and that makes it a lot easier for me.

If the entire process was moved to Tu B’Shevat, there would be a lot fewer people calling and fewer parents registering their kids and then pulling out later in the year.

It goes without saying that if we moved the playgroup registration window, we could also move the elementary registration to later in the year. As it stands now, the morahs really don’t know the kids then. Also, if there was a master list of every kindergarten morah, the Va’ad would be made aware of the exact number of incoming primary students for the following year, and they would know how many slots are needed and whether additional classes—or even a new school—is necessary.

On a different note, as a morah who has watched families applying to elementary schools for nearly 20 years, I do want to point out that parents must put in realistic efforts when going for an interview at their desired school. Pretend it’s an important business meeting and dress like a mensch. Don’t show up at the interview with your top two buttons open because you’re so chill. Make sure your son has a nice, neat haircut and is dressed appropriately. No, it’s not respectful for him to wear leggings to a yeshivah. The mother should also make sure she’s dressed tzanua and wear her shorter sheitel. It’s not tricking the school; it’s putting your best foot forward.

The system right now is very broken, but I don’t think it has to stay that way. If the morahs, schools, parents, and Va’ad can all work together to find a better system, everyone will benefit.

 

Change Is Coming

 

As The Voice prepared this article for print, we learned of a recent development that may be the first step toward implementing a positive change in the registration system for the entire town.

We reached out to Rabbi Yanky Robinson, founder and executive director of Nachlas Bais Yaakov, for the full scoop on these recent developments.

“Over the last few years, registration has been creeping up closer and closer to Sukkos,” he says. “Some schools have started taking applications right after the new school year started or even in the summer months. This happens naturally as one school pushes up their dates and other schools follow their lead.”

Rabbi Robinson notes that the early registration creates unnecessary stress for all involved. Parents panic about getting their child into school, and schools are busy with registration when they should be focusing on getting the current school year off to a great start.

What’s changing now?

“Girls’ schools are signing that they will not open registration until Rosh Chodesh Shevat,” Rabbi Robinson shares. “This should make the entire process much smoother for everyone.”

An exception will allow new schools scheduled to open in the next school year (2027–28) to begin registration on the 15th of Teves.

The agreement was initiated by Rabbi Yossi Posen of the Cheder and is led by BMG roshei yeshivah Rav Yisroel Neuman, Rav Malkiel Kotler, Rav Yerucham Olshin, and Rav Dovid Schustal.

“Mosdos are heeding the call of the Roshei Yeshivah and joining together to make this happen,” Rabbi Robinson says.

Under the new policy, registration will only begin on Rosh Chodesh Shevat, and any  acceptance of a girl into a school made before that date will have no validity.

“I believe this change will be tremendously beneficial for everyone,” Rabbi Robinson says. “And hopefully, it will generate a change in registration dates for boys’ schools and playgroups as well.”