Saluting Day Schools for Managerial Excellence Part I: Jewish Schools

by Dr. Harry Bloom. Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Achieving consistently strong performance in private school management is an enormous challenge. Schools that do so deserve our approbation and emulation. In this post we will salute three Jewish day schools that have achieved consistent, excellent performance in four areas that speak to overall marketplace appeal and the loyalty they have inspired on the part of their communities.

Among roughly 100 Jewish day schools that submit data to NAIS’ estimable DASL information system David Posnack Jewish Day School in Davie, Florida; Emery Weiner School in Houston, Texas, and Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School in Toronto have illustrated consistently strong performance over the period 2019/20 through 2022/23 in the following key areas

1. Annual Enrollment Growth that is consistently up year after year and is an all round testament to managerial excellence.

2. Student Retention Rates consistently in line with top quartile private day school performance of ~95% and well above median day school performance of 91%. This speaks eloquently to the satisfaction of parents and students with the educational experience they are receiving.

3. Net Tuition Realization (as a % of Gross Tuition and Fees Charged) of 86-91% relative to a day school norm of ~80%. This demonstrates the high value parents believe they receive and their willingness to stretch to pay tuition charged.

4. Annual Campaign Growth over the period of 38-300+% relative to top quartile day school performance of +23%.

While there are numerous Jewish day schools excelling in one or more of these areas, the consistency of top level performance in all of them warrants (a) our collective approbation of these schools and their leaders and staff members, and (b) our in depth attention to identifying and implementing the best practice methods and processes–that represent the heart of Benchmarking for Good’s work and its grantmaking.

Future Posts will feature excellence in other segments of the nonprofit world where exemplary excellence abounds.