Baltimore Jewish high school shutting down

A Baltimore Jewish day school will close its high school division at the end of the school year due to financial problems.

Yeshivat Rambam, which opened 10 years ago, announced Sunday that it would close its high schools for boys and girls while working to strengthen the enrollment and retention of its middle and elementary schools, as well as its kindergarten and early childhood programs, the Baltimore Jewish Times reported.

Sixty-three students are enrolled in the boys’ high school and 33 in the girls’ school. The total enrollment at Yeshivat Rambam is 350.

Working to keep the high school going could jeopardize the entire school, school president Abba David Poliakoff told the newspaper.

In recent years the school has suffered cash flow and debt problems, the Baltimore Jewish Times reported.

Poliakoff sent a letter home to school parents on Jan. 13 announcing the closing of the high school, saying that it has become apparent that the school could not financially sustain its current structure.

“Rambam is laboring under a mountain of debt that has accumulated,” he wrote in the letter, which was reprinted in the newspaper. “The school struggles month to month, in uncertain economic times, hampered by cash flow deficiencies. All this and more prevent growth and effective maintenance of staffing and programming excellence in the high school and other divisions. A point has been reached where Yeshivat Rambam must be restructured to survive.”