I wanted to respond to Michael Gottlieb’s letter in The Jewish Link, “After Eighth Grade Comes Ninth Grade” (March 31, 2022.) Thank you for writing this very necessary letter and bringing attention to a major issue in our community.

In your letter you wrote, “The Modern Orthodox schools rejecting your child would never have the courage to present public school as an alternative option…” However, being a parent of one of these children I beg to differ. My experience has been that you get your “no,” and none of the schools seem concerned about where your child will go. So the way I see it, they are basically leaving families with no other choice and they might as well present public school as an option.

You also stated that people will respond to your article by saying that everyone will end up getting admitted somewhere. I am here to say this is false. You talk about how hard this is on the families; it’s unimaginably painful. You are on pins and needles for months. It’s gut-wrenching.

It’s humbling to have to reach out to every yeshiva high school and ask if they still have room. You wonder what is wrong with your child, your family, and start to doubt yourself as an upstanding member of the community. Is my child not worthy of a Jewish education?

I’m not talking about extenuating circumstances here. Can you imagine what this child feels like? Everyone is talking about next year and your child is left feeling worthless, asking you what is wrong with them that they are in this situation. Can one even imagine what this does to a child’s self esteem?

There is this rumor that the schools get together to discuss the kids that were not accepted anywhere; to my knowledge this has not happened. Even if this does happen, wouldn’t it be smarter and less painful to have this “meeting” before acceptances go out? There must be a better way. We should not be surprised when more of our children do end up going to non-yeshiva high schools. I had an easier time getting into graduate school.