Who hates parents? Schools do!

Every society has a way of punishing those they dislike. The U.S. taxes the poor, Iran taxes infidels, and France taxes Americans. (Well, they should, anyway—what self respecting American would live in France?) The pattern is fairly logical—we don’t like you, you’re a drain on society and a general nuisance, so you get taxed. Why then are yeshivas taxing their students’ parents?

I’m not talking about the astronomical prices of yeshiva tuition, because that can be factored into the base cost of frum life with children. I’m talking about the practice of giving kids a knas (fine) for disobedeience. Let me give a little background. Much has been said about the yeshiva tuition crisis. The consensus is that with growing family size and increasing cost of tuition, middle class families are drowning. The yeshiva administration insists that rising tuition reflects rising cost of running the institution, while parents insist that they are being punished for being religious and having large families. In short, it’s clear that many families are unable to meet the cost and even if they do, it comes at the cost of something else. So the context is a very tight money situation where every penny exchanged between parent and school is done under large strain and difficulty.

Along comes a child who has a hard time getting to class on time or has ADD and can’t sit still in class. Maybe the kid is truly a problem and doesn’t follow any of the yeshiva rules. Every school has its tough cases. How do certain yeshivas handle these kids? They slap them with a fine! The yeshiva I’m thinking of in particular has a schedule of fees that looks something like this:
1 class lateness = $20
2 class lateness in one week = $50
Late to curfew = $100
etc…

Add to this chart that the fines are not fixed and can be doubled or tipled at the discretion of the teacher or administration member. So if you’re late to curfew because you were playing basketball in the yard *gasp*, expect a $200 fine, because playing ball makes the lateness much more egregious. It doesn’t take much to figure out that the entire cost of the fine gets passed on to these kids’ parents. It’s virtually impossible to expect a kid who’s in yeshiva from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. to have any time to make the money to pay off the fine. If the yeshiva intends to punish the student, then by all means, inconvenience them and make then do something unpleasant that would lead them to think twice about repeating their bad behavior (was the dishes, memorize mishnayos, term paper, lose privileges…). But give them a monetary fine and in most cases the young bochur can’t even appreciate that it’s a punishment. The worst part about getting the fine is having to face your parents when collecting the sum. That’s about as effective a punishment as having the parent sign a note that says s/he is aware of what their child did.

But wait, that isn’t all. The way I’ve seen this policy upheld is that the student is given a day or so to produce the money or they cannot return to class. Again, what kind of punishment is that? A trouble making kid is more than happy to goof around during school hours and the parent is forced to pay up pronto unless they want their kid out of school. Given how much sacrifice goes into paying for the kid’s basic attendance, I doubt most parents can whip up the amount of the fine every time the kid messes up. Which begs the question, why is the yeshiva punishing the parents? Does the school expect a kid to behave based on the guilt of costing their parents hard earned cash? Can anyone really expect a 16 year old to appreciate the value of money or how hard it is for his parents to put him where he is? Tuition is by all accounts one of the most burdensome and difficult costs of frum life. Is just isn’t fair that we jack it up with hidden charges and unnecessary fees only because the school can’t bother coming up with a meaningful and effective punishment.

Update: My husband just pointed out to me that my post will make absolutely no sense to anyone that hasn't been through a lubavitch boy's yeshiva. It turns out that no other yeshivos fine their students for misbehaving. Well what do you know--we are crazy after all. In all seriousness though, is it true that only lubavitch schools use this system? If so, why in the world? How do other yeshivos punish their students and why don't lubavitch yeshivos do the same?