Background checks: We are all aware of the current controversies involving teachers with questionable backgrounds – controversies that often include allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.
Why are we exposing our children to teachers who have been accused but not investigated? What if allegations about an individual teacher happen to be true and our children are being abused under our very noses? Why isn’t someone stepping up and saying this is unacceptable? Why are parents who complain about a teacher’s abusive behavior to school authorities likely to be told, “If you don’t like it here, go to another yeshiva”?
Who is seeing to it that allegations are investigated rather than swept under the rug? Why are community members using anonymous public letters as a last resort to bring attention to the matter? Anonymous letters can get out of hand and hurt innocent people. If we had a central, objective committee to whom we could turn, these problems would be addressed without the need to resort to extreme measures.
Does anyone doubt that if a string of accountability were tied to school funding, things like this would no longer go on?
Teacher training and continuing education: Teachers should be required to attend workshops and ongoing training and education classes on a regular basis, whether through Torah U’Mesorah, CAJE, or other qualified organizations.
Just as learning evolves for children, so it does for adults. No matter how experienced a teacher may be, there’s always something new to learn. Seminars would include such topics as special needs, effective communication with parents, new ways of teaching math, Hebrew, etc., science updates, interactive instruction of Tanach, incorporation of art projects into a curriculum – the list is a long one.
There is much that is new and innovative in education, but all too many of our teachers are none the wiser, because once ensconced in their jobs and curricula assume an attitude of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, that’s not good enough for our children.
Transparency of Finances
Where is the tuition money going? How much does each book cost, each salary, each piece of chalk? Who is making sure there is a fair and equitable distribution of funds? Stories abound of administrators with high lifestyles and questionable practices whose teachers are told there is no money for salaries. We’ve all heard of schools getting funds for new books while students continue to use torn 15-year-old books filled with outdated information.
A principal should not be in charge of a school’s finances – he is, after all, an employee. An objective board should be overseeing the finances in every school, and every penny should be accounted for. Because the potential for abuse is so enormous, handing out blank checks to schools is a clear case of lifnei iver.
Social Services
Social workers, therapists, nurses and other mental- and health-care professionals are no longer a luxury but a necessity. They need, however, to work for the children, not the school. Administrators who hire and supervise mental health professionals may not always be objective enough to have the best interests of the child in mind. Because of confidentiality and other sensitive issues, it would probably be best if such professionals were assigned from an independent authority, with supervisors who are qualified professionals rather than yeshiva administrators.
An ideal situation would be a board made up of frum professionals whose credentials are impeccable and universally recognized by the yeshiva community. Only these types of professionals can be entrusted with the secrets of the hearts of our children – their fears, their innermost feelings, their struggles in growing up. These professionals would not be afraid to advocate for the child over the needs of the yeshiva, nor would they be afraid to call for the dismissal of an abusive teacher or the removal of a child from an abusive home.