It is working well here, and I feel two crucial factors contribute to the success.

Firstly there must be a code of conduct that is implemented. This should be done in a manner that makes the children feel they are special and makes them feel proud of themselves and their school.

Secondly, at all levels of management (from class teachers through to the governing body) all parties must be very sensative to this issue and must actively work towards maintinaing a sense of achdus. This is not too difficult if extra curricular activites are made regular.

As soon as each child feels wanted, your education will be easy and successful regardless of standards and general differences. Isn’t this the meaning of ‘chanoch l’naar’?

I wish all educators much hatzlocho.

The Yeshivos and Beth Jacob schools had great difficulty in integrating these new students, with their weak backgrounds.

However, they rose to the ocassion by establishing special classes to ease these students into the mainstream.

This kind of two-track system makes sense.

Standards of Yeshivos have been raised over the past decades. This can be both a positive and a negative thing. I know of a Talmid Chochom who is responsible for disseminating a large amount of Torah who stated that he would not be able to get into some Yeshivas today with the standards that currently exist. Also, fifty years ago, New York Yeshivos purposely went to small towns to recruit additional students. On the other hand, there are today Yeshivos that specialize in only educating people from weaker backgrounds, so this might be one solution.

Even as we experience growth in the Torah community, we should still try to satisfy the needs of as many different students as possible. There was an article about a year ago in the Jewish Observer that made the point that while today we can set our standards high in educational matters, we should remember that not everyone belongs on one track. There can be high schools today with no secular studies, as well as those that still have.

I don’t know the exact answer to how to balance educating weaker students while still keeping a strong atmosphere in the school. But I think that as we raise the bar in Chinuch anew, we should be aware of the needs of all students, whether in the same or in different schools.

When I was in high school, the school was swinging to the right hashkafically (and pretty hard, at that). I said to my rebbe at the time, “What’s going on? This school used to serve the greater community, yet now we seem only interested in the right-wing bit of it.” (This was true - there were non-observant kids who had gone there in the 80’s, and even part of the early 90’s, I think.)

He responded in an idealistic, but (I think) unrealistic way: “But, they can still send their kids here! It could still serve everyone!”

I thought he was wrong at the time, and I still do. Jews who are non-observant tend not to be just “non-observant Orthodox folks”. They’re people who usually _don’t agree_, rightly or (IMHO) wrongly, with Orthodox ideals and philosophy. This is not just a matter of parents slapping tzitzis and a kippah on their kid before going to school, and, oh yeah, don’t tell anyone we eat traife or go to soccer games on Shabbos. This is kids telling their classmates why homosexual sex isn’t really a sin, and why women should wear tallesim. If only the biggest issue was lack of observance…

I’m reminded of a play I just saw, G-d of Vengeance. I won’t go into details (the well-educated amongst you will know why), but one of the main themes of the play is that you can’t separate what goes on upstairs and downstairs - eg, what happens at school, and what happens at home. Maybe some non-Orthodox kids could make the separation. I’m doubtful. It seems like, from the linked blog entry, this is mostly correct. I also got the sense that some of the folks favoring tossing the secular kids were looking for a scapegoat.

If it were up to me, though, I’d accept any kid, and hold them to standards equally. No surprise, given my background, but denying people based on their families is what leads us down that lovely slippery slope to “kollel-only schools” and all sorts of ugly inquisitions into family lives. If they’re bad influences, toss them out - but give them a chance, first.

-DMZ