Exclusive: School turns to court to recover tuition

A local family is named as the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaways. HAFTR is seeking reimbursement for more than $10,000 it claims it is owed. The family, which acknowledges that HAFTR provided scholarships to help pay their children’s elementary and high school educations, maintains its obligations to the school have been met.

Family members spoke to The Jewish Star on the condition that they not be named or otherwise identified. They told of receiving a letter from HAFTR over the summer requesting payment of more than 10,000 dollars in unpaid tuition. Two months later, they returned to the home they rent in the Five Towns to find a legal summons taped to the door. It threatened that the school would seek a default judgment if the summons was not answered.

Isaac Tuchman, an attorney with Daniels and Morelli, which represents HAFTR, confirmed that the school has filed a number of lawsuits against HAFTR families. When parents come to the school with hardships, “accommodations are inevitably made,” to allow children to attend the school, he said.

“The school provides a service to the community, to the parents, and the parents commit to paying tuition. Often, parents don’t honor that obligation so the school believes it is justified - we’ve been trying to collect unpaid obligations that are owed by parents,” said Tuchman.

Two children in the family attended HAFTR on financial aid. The older child, a daughter, attended from 1st through 12th grades; the younger child, a boy, was pulled out during high school for financial reasons, their mother said.

The suit alleges that the balance being sought was agreed upon when the daughter finished 12th grade several years ago. The mother disputes the school’s account. She said the family had a verbal agreement with Bob Schwartz, a member of HAFTR’s scholarship committee who is now deceased.

“I’m not a big shot lawyer or doctor,” the mother said. “I’m very proud of what I did. I came to this country, I didn’t speak a word of English, I used to wash the floors and give them [HAFTR] the money. It was very important my kids grow up Jewish and it’s [still] very important for me.”

The daughter, a recent college graduate who is now in graduate school said the lawsuit shocked her.

“It’s a known thing when you can’t pay for tuition you can only pay this much and then they tell you as yeshivas do, ‘This is a yeshiva and every Jewish child is entitled to a yeshiva education.’ They’re going against what they said,” she maintained. “Why are they getting us now five and a half years after we graduated?”

HAFTR’s co-presidents declined to comment about a confidential tuition matter.