Amid rising Jew-hatred since Oct. 7, 2023, Jewish day schools in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania are spending almost 85% more on security, per an April 2025 report from Teach Coalition, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish educational advocacy group.
Each of the 63 Jewish day schools in those states, which the report covered, spent $184,228 annually on security on average during the 2022-23 school year, or about $445 per student. They charged some 40% of students a separate security fee, and overall, spent some 1.85% of their total budget on keeping people safe.
By 2024–2025, that figure rose sharply to $339,297 annually per school on average—an 84% increase—or $807 per pupil.
Gabriel Aaronson, director for policy and research at Teach, told JNS that security costs for Jewish day schools are rising almost 10 times faster than other school expenses.
“Overall, budgets for these schools went up by about 9% over the course of two years,” he said. “But security expenses ballooned by 84%. It’s not like all costs went up evenly. Security is what has really skyrocketed.”
Jewish schools are carrying a heavier financial burden, which is unrelated to general inflation or rising economic costs, according to Aaronson.
“Non-Jewish schools don’t face this kind of extra cost,” he said. “It’s almost like an antisemitism tax. Schools are paying more just because they’re Jewish, through no fault of their own, and that’s a really powerful point when we talk to legislators.”
Families ultimately assume the burden via higher tuition fees.
“In the 2022-23 school year, about 40% of students were paying a separate security fee,” Aaronson told JNS. “Now, in the 2024-25 school year, it’s 52%, and another 26% of students attend schools where tuition increased directly because of higher security costs.”
“Ultimately, every additional dollar that schools spend on security ends up coming from parents,” he said.
The 26,473 students at the 63 schools covered in the Teach survey represent about 10% of the Jewish students in the four states. Some of the schools have fewer than 100 students, and others have more than 1,000.
Rabbi Dani Rockoff, head of school at the Westchester Day School, told JNS that the Modern Orthodox school in Mamaroneck, N.Y., with about 320 students, had to increase security personnel since Oct. 7.
“The security that we provide is above and beyond what it already costs to run a school, from dealing with facility costs to having excellent teachers, so the fact that we need to provide all these other measures on the security front for a school is quite onerous,” he said.
“Security is important in any school, not just Jewish day schools, but as Jews and supporters of Israel living in this country who are proud Zionists, we recognize the sad reality that this fact makes us a target to some,” Rockoff said.
Government support via federal and state funding has been critical in helping the school defray security costs, according to Rockoff.
“We don’t want our students to worry about security. We just want them to feel safe,” he told JNS. “For parents, sending their most precious possessions—their children—to a Jewish day school to learn the values of Judaism and supporting Israel, it’s critical that they can trust that the school is an environment where they can express their identity freely.”
