Pandemic again disrupts plans for Jewish services
As customary, there will be celebrations and somber reflections as American Jews observe the upcoming High Holy Days — their faith’s most important period. There also will be deep disappointment, as rabbis once again cancel or limit in-person worship due to the persisting COVID19 pandemic.
The chief culprit is the quick-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus, dashing widespread hopes that this year’s observances, unlike those of 2020, could once again fill synagogues with congregants worshipping side by side and exchang- ing hugs.
“I’m crushed emotion- ally that we’re not able to be in-person,” said Rabbi Judith Siegal, whose Temple Judea in Coral Gables, Flor- ida, will hold only virtual ser- vices for the holy days as the pandemic’s upsurge buffets South Florida.
“For many rabbis, this is our favorite time of the year — we’re extroverts who love to be with people,” Siegal said. “We really miss being able to be together.”
Instead, Siegal and her staff are filling the synagogue’s sanctuary with cardboard cutouts of congregation mem- bers, including children and pets.
At many synagogues, such as The Temple in Nashville, Tennessee, there will be a mix of in-person services, including indoor and outdoor options, and virtual offer- ings for people staying home. In many cases, plans keep changing with the approach of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which starts the evening of Sept. 6, followed by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on Sept. 15-16.
“There’s an asterisk by everything,” said The Temple’s senior rabbi, Mark Schif- tan. “We’re not even send- ing out more than very tentative information about Yom Kippur because that’s too far out.”
At Temple Beth El in Char- lotte, North Carolina, Rabbi Asher Knight and his staff have planned meticulously for holiday services, requir- ing advance registration for congregants whether they want to participate in per- son or online.
Everyone attending in per- son must wear a mask, and vaccinations are mandatory for all those 12 and over.
“Everything we do leads to the preservation of life,” Knight said.
Another Temple Beth El, in Augusta, Maine, also will require masks inside the syn- agogue. But workers have erected a big tent in the yard for an outdoor service Sept. 7.
“The ability to see people face to face is wonderful, whatever way they choose to come,” Rabbi Erica Asch said. “But there’s a little bit of sadness that we can’t all be together the way we’d like.”
At Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles serving about
10,000 people, no unvaccinated worshippers will be allowed on the campus during the holy days. That includes all children under 12 because they’re ineligible for vaccinations, a decision Rabbi Noah Farkas called “the saddest thing we did this year.”
“All of us were hoping this holiday season was going to be a do-over from 2020,” Farkas said. “After all the pain, all the distancing, I was hoping we could shake it off and everyone could come back and give each other hugs. That’s not going to happen.”
Another emotion — sorrow — pervades the 2,000-strong congregation at the Shul of Bar Harbour, an Orthodox synagogue in Surfside, Florida, the city where 98 people died when a condominium collapsed in June. Rabbi Sholom Lipskar estimates that 40% of those killed were Jewish.
“There’s no question that this tragedy, and its lingering pain and anguish, is part of the community at this point,” Lipskar said.
“At same time, recognizing who we are as Jewish people, we have learned to live with the most extraordinary adversity.”
BOSTON — While many schools scrambled to shift to online classes last year, the nation’s virtual charter schools faced little disruption. For them, online learning was already the norm. Most have few physical classrooms, or none at all.
Yet when Congress sent $190 billion in pandemic aid to schools, virtual charters received just as much as any other school because the same formula applied to all schools, with more money going to those in high-poverty areas, an Associated Press investigation found.
“It’s scandalous that they’re getting that much money,” said Gordon Lafer, an economist at the University of Oregon and school board member in Eugene, Oregon. “There were all kinds of costs that were extraordinary because of COVID, but online schools didn’t have any of them.”
The infusion of federal relief has inflamed a decades- long debate about the role of the nation’s 200-plus fully virtual charter schools, which are publicly funded schools that operate independently or under the umbrella of pub- lic school districts. They generally offer classes through online learning platforms provided by private companies.
Leaders of online schools say virtual charters offer a valuable option for students who don’t do well in traditional classrooms. But critics say they drain money from other schools and often lead to poor outcomes for their students.
Using data provided by state governments, The Asso- ciated Press tracked more than $550 million that went to virtual charters across the country over three rounds of pandemic relief. The analysis, which covered allocations to 76 virtual schools in 10 states, showed that some online charters received among the highest funding rates in their states, getting as much per student as some of the poor- est districts.
The federal government has not released nationwide data on the money given to virtual charters. Some states, including Wisconsin and Texas, said allocations for online schools were managed by local districts and not tracked by the state.
Most of the pandemic aid was distributed using the same formula as Title I money, the largest federal funding source for public schools. But some states also used discretionary pools of federal money to send addi- tional help to virtual char- ters, including in Idaho, Minnesota and Ohio.
Of the 76 virtual schools tracked by the AP, more than a third are operated by the industry’s two largest com- panies, Stride Inc. and Connections Academy. Others
are run by different for-profit companies, while some are run by nonprofits or state or local governments.
Officials at virtual schools say the money was needed to serve a wave of students who transferred from traditional schools during the pan- demic. But leaders of some traditional schools wonder why any aid went to virtual charters that were mostly conducting business as usual.
In Philadelphia, the Espe- ranza Cyber Charter School received $11,300 per student, the highest rate among virtual schools tracked by the AP. That’s compared with $12,300 in Harrisburg public schools, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest districts, and $7,500 in Pittsburgh schools.
Jon Marsh, the school’s CEO, said he sees both sides of the debate over federal relief. His school’s transition to pandemic teaching was relatively smooth, he said, but there were some new costs. The federal funding helped purchase computers and monitors for teachers, for instance, and new soft- ware to help students who are learning English.
Still, Esperanza’s funding was immense for its size. It received nearly $9 million, more than the school spends in a typical year. And so far, it has spent less than half of that sum, leaving school officials wondering how to use the remaining $5 million.
“I would love to have the ability to distribute this money to families in need, but you can’t. That’s not on the list,” Marsh said.
Other states with online schools include Ohio, where virtual charters received $101 million in federal funding.
Pennsylvania, long a battleground in the cyber school debate, saw the largest sum, with $235 million going to 11 virtual schools. Those allot- ments rankled leaders of some traditional schools who said the money was desper- ately needed in public districts.
“It just doesn’t add up to me when you look at the intent of the legislation,” said Chris Celmer, who until recently served as acting superintendent in Harris- burg. “Those dollars could have been distributed across
the other 500 school districts across the state of Pennsylvania.”
Commonwealth Charter Academy, the largest virtual school in Pennsylvania, saw its enrollment double last school year, to nearly 20,000 students.
Co m monwealth was awarded about $4,000 per student, totaling more than $60 million. Much of the early funding was used to hire new teachers and buy laptops for students. More recent funding will be used to help students who are behind in reading, said Timothy Eller, a school spokesperson.
“Cyber charter school students are not second-class students,” Eller said. “Just because they attend a cyber charter doesn’t mean they should receive less funding.”
For the online schooling industry, the pandemic has delivered an unprecedented financial boost.
In April 2020, as students flocked to online charters, the financial chief for Stride Inc. told investors that COVID-19 would bring “a lasting tailwind to online education.” Virtual schools, some of which spend millions a year on advertising, promoted themselves as a better alternative to public schools that were struggling to offer online classes.
Stride’s latest financial reports showed a 48% increase in revenue since last year, with most of it coming from contracts with schools.
The cost of adding new students is typically covered by schools’ state funding, Lafer said, and virtual schools are designed to scale up services at a low cost.
“As far as I can see, the money is 100% pure profit,” said Lafer.
Recognizing that virtual charters have lower costs, some states routinely fund them at lower rates than traditional schools. Some states applied the same logic when they disbursed discretionary pools of pandemic aid.
In South Carolina, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster gave charter schools $9 million to offset enrollment increases. But while traditional charters received $220 per student, virtual schools were given $116 per student.