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Somerset Collection (248) 637-3060

1999
14 Detroit Jewish News

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,

community resources and dollars."
Krugel said the idea of merging
the two high schools might come up
again if Akiva's enrollment drops.
There has not been any discussion of
merging Akiva's high school with the
high school of Sally Allan Alexander
Beth Jacob, Yeshiva Beth Yehudah's
school for girls. (Yeshiva Beth
Yehudah's boys' program runs only
through eighth grade, after which
boys either attend Yeshiva Gedolah
or out-of-state institutions.)
"If numbers continue to fall at
Akiva we may very well get to a criti-
cal mass situation where they can't
function. You can't run a school with
eight students per class — that's a

as well as parents
who took their chil-
dren out of Akiva,
said they would have considered a
community or Conservative Jewish
high school had one existed.
A group of primarily Conservative
and a few centrist Orthodox people
is currently trying to start such a
school with a start-up grant of
$750,000. It was granted by the
United Jewish Foundation,
Federation's real-estate arm. Some
$500,000 of the funds is contingent
upon the new school recruiting at
least 25 students per grade.
"We were hoping the commu-
nity high school would be
opened by now," said Sarah
Gordon, whose daughter recently
enrolled in West Bloomfield
High School. "It would be good
for the Detroit community to
have a quality Jewish high school,
one that stresses academics and is
for college-bound kids."
Despite Akiva's struggle to keep
its high school solvent, it has been
unreceptive to suggestions that it
consider joining forces in some
capacity with the new high school.
Dr. Richard Krugel, chair of
Federation's planning and alloca-
tions steering committee, said he
would like to see the schools
merge to some extent. He said ,
that when the issue was broached A class in progress at Akiva.
last year, representatives of both
institutions were unwilling to
self-defeating system," said Krugel.
consider even sharing non-religious
"Whether students are Orthodox,
resources, such as secular classes
Conservative
or Reform, they are still
and extra-curricular programs.
teens
with
social
needs and all kinds
Divisive issues included dress codes
of needs that I don't think can be ful-
and the extent to which classes and
filled unless there's a viable number
activities could be co-educational.
of
students."
However, Krugel expresses skep-
Would Federation bail out Akiva
ticism that either school will be
financially, should it become unable
viable on its own. "I don't person-
to function yet remain opposed to
ally think Akiva has the critical
merging high school programs with a
mass to run a high school pro-
Conservative or community school?
gram," he said. "With 50 students,
"Federation would have to seriously
it's hard to run a quality program
talk
about it," said Krugel.
and it's hard to get quality teachers.
"It's
a very complex situation and
If we could somehow bridge the
we don't want the school to fail," he
denominational differences and
said. "The community has put in a
halachic differences enough to
lot of dollars toward making the
combine into one high school pro-
school successful, but at some point
gram, then it would probably make
it becomes an issue of viability and
more sense for the community and
that's for Akiva to deal with." I I
would be a better spending of

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