Day school fees vary across Canada

Tuition fees tend to be highest in Toronto and Vancouver.

Parents of children in Jewish day schools – and likely many grandparents as well – will open their wallets wide this September to meet the tuition fees being charged.

A survey of Jewish day schools in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver indicates that tuition fees for children attending kindergarten to Grade 8 range from a little more than $5,300 in Montreal to nearly $17,000 in Toronto. High school tuition at the Anne & Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (TanenbaumCHAT) comes in at $24,900 per year.

And fees are going up this year. In Ottawa, the increase is being held to three per cent, while Toronto’s Associated Hebrew Schools is raising tuition by 4.73 per cent for those attending grades 7 and 8. Tuition at the Robbins Hebrew Academy in Toronto is going up 3.25 per cent in grades 6 to 8 and 3.5 per cent for the full-day kindergarten program. Interestingly, fees for kindergarten programs are lower at Associated than at Robbins, higher in the older grades.

Tuition fees across the country vary, but generally are less than in Toronto. In Quebec, where the province funds 50 per cent of the secular portion of the education curriculum, the savings are more than $5,000 per child.

Still, for a private school education, Jewish parents in Ontario may be getting a bargain. Private preparatory schools in Toronto, such as the Sterling Hall School, Bayview Glen School and Crestwood, charge tuition exceeding that faced by parents in day schools – at least at the elementary level. A year at Bayview Glen for kids in grades 3 to 5 runs $20,600; at Sterling Hall, it’s $26,500  per year, plus an additional one-time admission fee of $4,000; and Crestwood prices vary by grade, but for  grades 3 to 12, the cost is $23,400.

With nearly 10,500 youngsters attending day schools in Toronto alone, and attributing an average cost of $15,000 per child, the total out of pocket, mostly after tax layout, by members of the community would exceed $157 million. However, the tuition of 2,300 students is subsidized in part by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. In 2013, that financial support ran to $10 million.

Most schools offer some break on fees for those unable to pay the full amount. Generally these are geared to income and parents must divulge intimate financial details in order to qualify for subsidies.

One school in Ottawa has taken fee abatement to a whole new level. The Ottawa Jewish Community School is continuing with a program introduced two years ago of varying tuition according to income. Families with a gross income less than $100,000 pay the least: $11,125 for the first child in elementary school, $10,300 for the second child and down to $8,035 for the fourth child.

Tuition increases in lockstep with income, maxing-out at $13,285 for the first child of families with incomes over $250,000, $12,500 for the fourth child. A similar grid applies to high school tuition, with a range of $11,825 to $13,985 for a family’s first child.

Expensive it may be, but nobody is demanding Jewish children attend day schools. Families clearly believe it is money well spent, if it means their children are raised in a Jewish milieu with exposure to Jewish history, religion, culture and thought.

According to Daniel Held, executive director of UJA Federation’s Julia and Henry Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Education, about 32 per cent of school-aged children in the Jewish community attend day schools in Toronto. That figure has remained fairly stable over the past 20 years, though it peaked at 35 per cent in 2001-02.

“The fact that our day school system is stable is phenomenal, based on the comparison to other Jewish communities,” Held said. The Toronto system offers a range of schools, from Orthodox to Conservative, Reform and others. “The participation within the non-Orthodox community is remarkably high,” compared to cities south of the border, he added.

Nevertheless, there are issues confronting day schools. “One of the challenges our system faces is that increases in tuition are generally higher than inflation and the growth of household income,” Held said.

Altogether, about 56 per cent of 14,405 Jewish youngsters of day-school age in Montreal attend day schools. Twenty-eight hundred receive financial subsidies through  Federation CJA, totalling some $3 million.

In Ontario, parents get a tax credit for fees covering the religious portion of a school’s curriculum, which can amount to a few thousand dollars. There’s no direct provincial financial support for religious schools.

In Manitoba, however, all independent schools receive 50 per cent of the provincial funding that public schools receive per student. 

With files from Janice Arnold, Jodie Shupac and Sheri Shefa


 

A sample of Jewish day school tuition

• Toronto’s Robbins Hebrew Academy: $14,270 for a full day of senior kindergarten (SK) to $15,980 for grades 6-8

Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto: $13,800 for a full day of SK, $15,500 for grades 7-8

Bialik Hebrew Day School: $14,600;

Leo Baeck Day School: up to $14,300; 

Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School: $15,500

The Toronto Heschel School: up to $16,975

Winnipeg’s Grey Academy of Jewish Education: SK to Grade 12, $9,900 for first child, $9,007 for a second child, $6,000 for a third

Calgary’s Akiva Academy (the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Torah Centre): SK to Grade 9, $8,000;

Calgary Jewish Academy: grades 1-9, $9,416

Edmonton Talmud Torah School, Menorah Academy: kindergarten to Grade 6, $4,050; grades 7-12, $4,250

Vancouver Talmud Torah: SK to Grade 7, $13,696

In Montreal, tuition at Herzliah High School and Talmud Torah Elementary School is broken down into secular and Judaic studies categories:

Herzliah’s secular studies’ fees are generally set at $2,450; fees for Judaic studies range from $7,170 to $7,670, depending on grade, for a total of $10,120 in Grade 5;

Talmud Torah: secular fees, $2,235; Judaic studies range from $5,360 (kindergarten) to $6,520 in Grade 6, for a total in Grade 6 of $8,755;

Solomon Schechter Academy: SK $7,690 to Grade 6, $8,500