Benefits Lag for Teachers at Jewish Schools

More than 80% of the teachers in 10 Orthodox Jewish day schools in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside receive no medical benefits from the schools where they work, according to a survey by the Assn. of Educators in Jewish Schools of Los Angeles.

The association, a group of 80 teachers and school administrators, sent questionnaires to the principals of the 10 schools last month.

“We undertook the study to gain a better perspective of the working conditions for our educators in the local Jewish day schools,” said Rabbi Moshe Amster, the group’s president. “The situation is even worse than we expected.”

In contrast, the 3,000 teachers in the Catholic school system of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are covered by medical insurance, according to the archdiocese.

Amster’s organization did not poll the 13 Reform, Conservative and other Jewish day schools in the area, but officials at those schools said their faculties get somewhat better benefits than at the Orthodox schools.

Appeals to Federation

The association has appealed to the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles for financial help to provide the about 1,000 teachers who work in the Orthodox Jewish day schools with health-care coverage. The federation is an arm of the United Jewish Appeal and the central nonprofit agency in the Jewish community, with more than 150 affiliate groups.

Emil Jacoby, director of the Jewish Federation Council’s education bureau, said his organization is sympathetic to the need to provide better health insurance. “We are working on it. There are proposals being discussed, but there isn’t the money to do it,” he said.

The Jewish Federation Council provides $1.5 million a year to about 50 Jewish schools in the Los Angeles area.

“The schools are independent,” Jacoby said. “We work with the school administrators and we advocate medical plans, but we don’t hire the teachers or pay their salaries. We are a coordinating agency.”

Amster, a teacher of Jewish studies at Yavmeh Hebrew Academy, said the Jewish Federation can do more. “We can’t lay fault on the schools because their budgets are limited,” he said. “We feel we have to turn to the community, to the Jewish Federation.”

$1,200 Annual Cost

He estimated that it would cost close to $1,200 a year to provide medical insurance for a teacher. Teachers at all Jewish day schools earn an average of $15,000 a year. (Starting salaries in the Los Angeles Unified School District are about $20,600. The district also provides medical insurance.)

“The individual schools are in no position to underwrite the cost of instituting medical benefit plans,” said Rabbi Heshy Dacks, principal of Yavmeh Hebrew Academy. “The federation is the body that oversees the Jewish community in financial matters.”

Dacks and other association members said many families would not be able to afford the cost of expanded medical coverage for teachers. It costs $2,500 to $5,000 a year to send a child to the private religious schools.

“There is no question that teachers are not being treated fairly,” Dacks said. “When you consider that a janitor working for the Los Angeles Jewish Federation receives a better health-benefits package than teachers teaching Jewish children for the community, then there is a bit of a problem.”

Personnel Director Comments

Rabbi Joseph Feinstein, director of personnel for the Jewish Federation, said he suspects that Amster’s survey overstated the consequences of teachers not receiving benefits. A study his organization conducted in 1985 found that teachers at seven of 11 non-Orthodox schools surveyed received at least some health benefits. In addition, the report concluded, medical benefits were given to teachers at five of nine Jewish Orthodox schools surveyed.

Yonaton Shultz, vice president of the Assn. of Educators in Jewish Schools, said his group is not seeking a “confrontation with the Jewish Federation.”

“Having medical benefits is one of the basic requirements that people need in this society,” he said. “If you want to attract and maintain quality educators, then you have to provide decent benefits.”

“It’s hard to imagine how the Orthodox Jewish day school intends to attract and retain committed and professional educators when they cannot offer them even the most minimal of medical coverage, something which is taken for granted by every employee in America.”

Shultz said the problem of poor benefits for the teachers involves more than health insurance.

Retirement Plans Lacking

“I would venture to guess that only one or two of the area’s Jewish schools have a retirement plan for its educators,” he said, asserting that teachers have not been “aggressive in asserting their economic rights.”

By contrast, full-time teachers in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ schools have a retirement plan.

Shultz said that, although the Assn. of Educators in Jewish Schools is attempting to improve working conditions for teachers, it is not a union.

“We’re not opening this issue in a confrontational manner,” he said. “We are doing it in a sincere desire to improve the entire educational system. . . . Unions put things in an adversarial position. We’re trying to stay away from that.”

Of the 10 Orthodox day schools surveyed in Los Angeles, only 18.5% of the teachers receive medical benefits. Of them, 1.5% receive full medical coverage, 5% receive 50% or more and the remaining 12% receive 30% or less.

There are between 2,000 and 3,000 students attending the 10 Orthodox Jewish day schools, including Valley Torah Center and Emek Hebrew Academy in North Hollywood.

The other Orthodox schools, situated on the Westside, are Bais Yaakov High School, Hillel Hebrew Academy, Sephardic Hebrew Academy, Toras Emes, Yeshiva Gedola, Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon Chabad, Yeshiva University of Los Angeles High School and Yavmeh Hebrew Academy.

3,000 in Non-Orthodox Schools

Amster said about 3,000 students attend the 13 non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in the area, including Kadima Hebrew Academy in Woodland Hills, Valley Beth Shalom in Encino and Abraham Joshua Heschel in Northridge.

“It’s not a clear-cut 90% to 10% kind of thing. But in general it looks like the non-Orthodox schools are better in providing medical and health benefits,” said Rabbi Feinstein of the Jewish Federation.

All teachers at Stephen S. Wise Day School, a Reform Jewish school in Bel Air, receive full medical benefits, said Metuka Benjamin, the school’s director of education. Its enrollment of 850 elementary and middle school students is by far the largest of any Jewish day school in the region.

But officials of other non-Orthodox Jewish schools said many of their teachers receive no health benefits.

“The Orthodox schools are in basically the same situation as the rest of us,” said Ron Davis, principal of Golda Meir Day School, a Conservative school in Van Nuys. “We’re struggling.”

Many Jewish schools are economically strapped, Davis said, in part because they give “extraordinary” financial aid to students from poor families, many of them recent immigrants.

Besides, students at Jewish schools usually have a longer school day than pupils at public schools. The cost of the increased course load, Davis said, means there is less money for benefits.

Davis said medical insurance is given to general studies teachers at Golda Meir, but not to Jewish studies instructors.