Schechter School Closing Adds to Boston Anguish Over Rabbi Barry Starr Scandal
Rabbi Barry Starr Image by Getty Images
Insult to Injury: Families with children at the Kehillah Schechter Academy in Boston’s southern suburbs will have to find another school after the Conservative day school announced its closure. Image by kehillah schechter academy
(JTA) — It’s been a rough few weeks for Conservative Jews in the Boston suburbs known as the South Area.
First, Rabbi Barry Starr, the longtime spiritual leader of Temple Israel of Sharon, resigned amid allegations that he used synagogue discretionary funds to pay about $480,000 in hush money to an extortionist to hide a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male.
Then came the news that the area’s only Conservative Jewish day school, the Kehillah Schechter Academy of nearby Norwood, will be shutting down at the end of the school year. With the next-closest non-Orthodox day school more than 45 minutes away, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of options for South Area Conservative Jews — notably in Sharon, the single largest source of KSA’s students.
“It’s a double whammy for me personally because I’m a member of the shul,” said Gregg Rubenstein, KSA’s board president. “But the temple will survive. It’s not an institution-threatening incident. The school, on the other hand, is disappearing.”
Like Rubenstein, many KSA parents are also members of the scandal-plagued Temple Israel.
Now some community members are trying to salvage some good news with a campaign to create a new local pluralistic day school to replace KSA.
Dubbed Ner Tamid — Hebrew for eternal flame — the school is still in its embryonic stages. It doesn’t have a site, nor is it clear if there’s a viable business model. Plus, current KSA students — who represent the target population of the new school — already are in the process of enrolling at other schools for next year.
But Elana Margolis, a school parent whose husband also works at KSA, says she’s determined to give it a try.
“Just because the school has decided to close doesn’t mean there won’t be Jewish educational options in this area,” said Margolis, who is also the associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. “We feel it’s important for our community to have something local. We think crisis breeds opportunity. This is time for a rebirth, a reboot.”
In contrast to the rabbi scandal, KSA’s demise was not a surprise. For the last few years, the K-8 school — part of the Solomon Schechter network of Conservative Jewish day schools — was struggling financially. After the 2008 recession dealt a severe blow to many school families, KSA responded by holding down tuition costs and increasing financial assistance — moves that helped preserve the student body but at a high cost to the school’s bottom line.
When it became clear over the last three years that the model was not sustainable, tuition rose, financial assistance dried up and staff was laid off. As a consequence, students began leaving in droves. The student body fell to 110 this year from 240 three years ago, with most of the departing students transferring to local public and non-Jewish private schools.
“It led to this downward cycle they couldn’t get out of,” said Gil Preuss, the executive vice president of Boston’s Jewish federation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, which supported KSA. “They actually were able to maintain a very high-quality education throughout this time, but they couldn’t get on top of the finances — fundraising and tuition — to support it.”
KSA’s board made clear several weeks ago that 82 students needed to enroll by mid-May if the school were to stay open for next year; only 73 signed up.
The closure announcement came May 15. Now the school, which was founded in 1989 as the South Area Solomon Schechter Day School, is making a final fundraising push just to make its payroll through the summer. Combined Jewish Philanthropies is kicking in $50,000 to help the transition, including funding for the transportation of students to other Boston-area day schools.
KSA’s closure comes at a particularly high cost for Ariel Margolis, Elana Margolis’ husband. As a science teacher and parent of two KSA students, he’s losing both his job and his kids’ school.
Since the closure announcement, Margolis has been working double time trying to launch Ner Tamid. He hopes that between ex-KSA students, unaffiliated Jews and online students who would Skype in for select classes, the new school could have the critical mass it needs to survive. He also wants to keep tuition at $12,000 per year — about half the annual fee at KSA.
“I want every kid who wants a day school education to receive it,” Ariel Margolis said. “We fully believe that this is going to happen, that this is going to emerge.”
The odds are not in Ner Tamid’s favor, Preuss suggested.
“It’s a tough model. A lot of schools that are smaller than 125 or 100 students struggle financially,” he said. “Small schools need to be very lean in terms of overhead and facilities. They’re in a very tough situation in competing for families and providing a high-quality education.”
With barely 100 days left before the start of the new school term, Ariel Margolis figures he has two to eight weeks to figure out whether the plan is viable. The school is already scouting out possible sites at area synagogues — Temple Israel is one location being considered. Twelve families showed up to New Tamid’s first parlor meeting on Sunday, and another meeting is planned for Thursday.
“We’re very hopeful, but we’re being very honest when we talk to perspective families, telling them not to put all your eggs in one basket,” Ariel Margolis said. “We have our work cut out for us.”
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