Shalhevet LA to close some doors

Sign of things to come?

By Michael Orbach

“We had to make a very responsible and painful decision,” explained Rabbi Elchanan Weinbach, the head of school of Shalhevet, located in LA’s Fairfax neighborhood.

The school’s board of directors based its decision on a report it received last month. It was prepared by Measuring Success, a consulting firm contracted by the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, a national group that works with Jewish day schools.

“The report produced two very surprising results: the high school is on very strong financial footing; that the other divisions were a drain and operating much less sustainably,” said Rabbi Weinbach, a Five Towns native who previously headed Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy (RTMA) in Elizabeth, N.J.

The report compared the financial situation of the school to 200 other yeshivas and Jewish day school in the United States.

“The Middle, Elementary and Early Childhood schools were operating at a deficit and their operation was no longer feasible,” according to a press release from the school.

The decision was somewhat pre-emptive.

“What Jewish school doesn’t know they’re in financial difficulty?” Weinbach asked. “They’re mission driven. All schools are saddled with a fundraising load.”

Yet, faced with a growing budget shortfall, the school decided to close the doors of its lower schools before the debt increased.

Founded as a high school in 1991, Shalhevet’s educational method was based on the work of the late Lawrence Kohlberg, an eminent psychologist at Harvard University and the University of Chicago who specialized in research on moral education and reasoning. The Westchester-born Kohlberg, who died in 1987, was best known for his theory that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable stages of development.

“The founder [established] a school where there would be an emphasis with presenting moral dilemmas to students and have them struggle with them, and guiding them to think for themselves and make better moral choices,” said Weinbach.

Students were empowered to decide school policies such as dress code and discipline, he said.

“The town hall [is] the most unique experience I’ve seen ever in education, not just Jewish education,” said Weinbach. “A Shalhevet student is different than any student I’ve ever encountered — when you meet one you know.”

Plans are already in place to ease the transition for students and faculty. The eighth grade will continue for one more year in order to not displace graduating students. Altogether about 115 students will be without a school. The day after the announcement was made was “like Tisha B’av,” Weinbach recalled.

“All schools say our kids love to come to school; it’s true here,” he said. “In a world of meritocracy this would be the last school to close.”

As happened in the Five Towns when the identically named Shalhevet High School faced imminent closure for financial reasons, parents have begun mobilizing to save the school.

“There is no other school like Shalhevet in Los Angeles. It is truly a magic place,” wrote Debora Joffe, a parent, on the Shalhevet Facebook group.

By e-mail she explained that the group had already raised $200,000 to save the school, out of $550,00 that would be required to stave off closure.

Miriam Prum Hess, director of the Center of Excellence in Jewish Day School Education at the Board of Jewish Education of Los Angeles, said that the decision to close Shalhevet’s lower schools, based on the financial information and the independent assessment, was the “only viable option.” She stressed that the high school is still open and that it fulfills a unique niche in the community.

“In the long run it will strengthen the community,” she said, “but it is very painful.”

Hess does not see any national implications from the school closing but emphasizes that there is a moral to the story.

“I urge schools to have the courage to look carefully at the data and make data-based decisions when it’s clear,” she said.