BMA Working Parents Petition
Dear BMA Co-Presidents,
We are coming together as BMA Parents to raise very serious
concerns to working families in a respectful forum but with the clear
determination to elicit change. As the new tuition rates for 2015-2016 school-year
were released a few weeks ago, one will determine that in order to pay for a
BMA education, most likely both parents in any given household will need to be
employed. This is definitely a change in culture for our school and for our
traditional Jewish upbringing where a parent was home as a caretaker. We are
therefore asking BMA to align some of the decisions regarding the calendar, half-days,
teacher-parent conferences, and teacher development days around the needs of
BMA’s working parent population.
We are embarking on a BMA journey supporting our school’s three core values of academic excellence, religious commitment, and character development, all while feeling as if the school has forgotten about our specific working parent population making it ever so difficult to manage our family calendars.
To achieve long-term financial stability for the school, families that pay tuition and do not rely on scholarship or assistance help to finance the growth and sustainability of the institution. BMA needs to align the calendar to help the needs of the working family with a clear objective of doing what is best for the children and the parents. Most families are doing a juggling act and most likely missing work or paying extra for child care while BMA is just getting by in fulfilling a 180 day school requirement.
BMA is a Jewish Modern Orthodox institution and without a doubt everyone needs to take off a great deal of time for Jewish Holidays. It would be amazing for families to feel that during the other times in the year BMA will be there as a source of reliable and consistent care for our children. Our families are doing their part in making a Jewish education for our children a priority. We expect to participate in our children’s events and progress without significantly impairing our work productivity and attendance. Most corporations are leaning towards a 10 day vacation policy with up to six combined days for sick leave or personal time off. This obviously does not leave a lot of time for working parents to take time off aside for the required Jewish Holidays. We are blessed to live in a community that is thriving with an affluent pool of families, but we are not all in that category. If BMA continues to make decisions based solely on a portion of the parent population we will most likely continue to express our disapproval.
We invite you to conduct an in-depth review and analysis of the calendar for the 2015-2016 school-year with the same care as the annual budget. Our satisfaction is as important as our participation in closing the deficit gap.
Respectfully,
BMA Parents
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