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The new building at Farber Hebrew
Day School in Southfield will be ready
for students after winter break.
Inset: Architect's rendering
Some Farber Hebrew Day School families are scrambling
to make ends meet and keep their kids in the school.
Ronelle Grier | Contributing Writer
W
hile the newly named
Farber Hebrew Day
School-Yeshivat Akiva in
Southfield welcomed students this week
for the school year, a 31 percent shortfall
in expected tuition assistance is caus-
ing some families to scramble for last-
minute loans or make alternate arrange-
ments for their children’s education.
Established in 1964, Farber Hebrew
Day School is a dual-curriculum Ortho-
dox Zionist day school for students in
grades N-12. Parents uphold the institu-
tion’s long-held reputation for providing
Jewish studies and secular education
steeped in strong Torah values and high
academic standards.
In 2012, two generous gifts from the
Audrey and William Farber Family
Foundation ($3 million) and the William
Davidson Foundation ($2.25 million)
allowed the growing school to embark
on an ambitious $15 million 50th
anniversary improvement plan that
included expanding and renovating its
physical space and updating its academic
programs, with guidance from the Bar-
Ilan University Lookstein Center for
Education in Ramat Gan, Israel, which is
dedicated to enhancing Jewish education
in the diaspora.
An additional gift of $5 million from
the Farber Family Foundation, combined
with fundraising efforts by parents and
other supporters, has enabled the school
to build its 68,200-square-foot building,
expected to open to students after winter
break, that includes distinct wings and
classrooms for each of the school’s four
divisions as well as room for new staff
members, increased professional develop-
ment opportunities and technological
improvements that include Chromebooks
and other electronic enhancements.
For some families, the excitement of
the new-and-improved version of the
school was dampened by an Aug. 8 letter
(received via email on Aug. 12) explain-
ing that the pool of available tuition
assistance dollars had decreased by 31
percent this year. That fact, combined
with an increased demand for financial
aid, resulted in the school’s inability to
meet all of the families’ requests.
Some of the parents were awarded
one-time “Gesher Grants” from a special
fund designed to soften the blow of this
year’s reduction in aid, but the letter
made it clear this fund would not be
available for the 2017-18 school year.
Families unable to meet their tuition
obligations for this year were directed
to contact other community resources,
such as Hebrew Free Loan.
While some Farber families have
contacted Hebrew Free Loan, the agency
is not necessarily the best option for
families with ongoing needs for tuition
assistance, according to HFL Executive
Director David Contorer. The maximum
loan amount is $7,500, the usual repay-
ment period is one year and each loan
requires two Michigan-based co-signers
with credit scores above 620.
“It is not a solution for everybody, but
we would be happy to talk to anyone who
comes in. We realize these are very chal-
lenging circumstances,” said Contorer.
An email from Malkie Rosenbloom,
Farber’s director of marketing and
communications, stated that “well over
half ” of the school’s approximately 300
students receive some level of tuition
assistance; however, school administra-
tors declined to comment on why the
Aaron Pergament
Shortfall In
Tuition Assistance
school was experiencing the shortfall in
tuition aid dollars.
Farber’s allocation from the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit for
2016-17 has not decreased since last
year, according to Linda Blumberg,
Federation’s director of Planning and
Agency Relations. In fact, it was slightly
higher.
The following is an excerpt from an
email statement sent by Board President
Leah Ann Kleinfeldt in
response to JN inqui-
ries about the tuition
aid reductions.
The school very
much values every
student, regardless of
financial resources. The
vast majority of Farber
Leah Ann
students receive tuition
Kleinfeldt
subsidies; however,
there are limited tuition
assistance dollars available. A careful
review of the school’s accounts receivables
concluded that in the best interest of the
school and all of its families, we need to
be more diligent about the level of tuition
families are required to pay. To maximize
the assistance available for those most in
need, like all Jewish day schools, we utilize
an anonymous process that takes into
account several factors.
Following the implementation of that
process, we also provide an appeal oppor-
tunity so that factors that cannot be seen
from the hard data can be taken into con-
sideration. The result is a tuition assistance
allocation for each family that is not in a
position to pay full tuition. After difficult
deliberations, the financial aid committee
concluded to observe more faithfully the
determinations of the analytics (subject to
an appeals process).
These matters are emotional and seri-
continued on page 14
12 August 25 • 2016