What should I ask at a Bais Yaakov open house? 12 questions that get real answers
Skip the brochure questions. These are the ones that tell you how the school actually runs.
Open houses are designed to make you feel good. That is fine; it is their job. Yours is to leave with information. Here are twelve questions that get real answers, grouped by who to ask.
For the principal
- What kind of girl does not do well here? A thoughtful answer means the school knows itself.
- What changes between 9th and 11th grade? Schools often describe their freshman year and stop.
- How do you handle a girl who is socially on the edge?
- Who decides a girl's track or class placement, and can it change mid-year?
For a teacher
- What does a regular Tuesday look like in your class?
- How do you communicate with parents, and how often does it actually happen?
- What do you wish parents asked you?
For the office
- What is the full-year cost including fees, trips and uniforms, and how does assistance work?
- What is the daily schedule, start to finish?
- How many girls are in a typical class, and in the grade?
For a current student, out of earshot
- What do you wish you knew before you came?
- Who do you go to when something is wrong?
Afterward
Write the answers down in the car, before the next open house blurs them. Compare notes between schools question by question rather than by feeling. The right school is usually the one where your notes are specific and calm.
Written by the ChinuchPlace team
Educators and administrators who work in yeshivos and mesivtas, writing what we tell friends who ask. Nothing here is sponsored, and no school is named.
Questions parents ask
- Should my daughter come to the open house?
- Yes, and if the school offers a shadow day, take it. One ordinary morning tells her more than an evening presentation.
- Is it rude to ask about tuition at an open house?
- Ask the office, not the principal, and ask for the full-year figure and the assistance process. Every school expects the question.
- How many open houses should we attend?
- Two or three. Beyond that the evenings blur together and the notes stop being useful.
Ready to look?
Every program on the shelf, with the facts families ask about first.