School Mid-Winter Broken

My sons started their mid-winter break from high school today; it runs through the end of next week. They will be spending most of it hanging out at home, probably mainly in front of the TV, computer, or Nintendo. Partly this is because Debbie and I can't take so many days off right now. But even a minimal family vacation during this period is also impossible, because my daughter's school has its mid-winter break at a completely different time, several weeks from now. In fact, my kids haven't all been off at the same time in the winter since Aaron started high school in 2001.

Though I've had to deal with this for years, it is really ticking me off today. Why is it that the BJE-schedule ("centrist") and the Lakewood-schedule ("frum") yeshivas in this state are so polarized that they can't even come together on a frikken winter vacation date? Specifically, since the BJE schools always establish their schedule much earlier, why can't the Lakewood schools just line up with them?

It's not as if the BJE schools were scheduling their break over the Christmas - New Years week, like Jewish day schools used to do when I was a kid (we had a Judaic-studies half day on Christmas itself to make a "statement", and then winter vacation until after New Years). I can understand the hashkafic argument against doing that, though it also inconveniences parents to some degree. But this situation is just lihachis [out of spite] with no good reason whatsoever.

Though I can think of a bad reason. The "frum" schools dafka don't want their kids chas v'shalom fraternizing with the kids from the "modern" schools over vacation.

I would never want to suspect fellow religious Jews of such disgusting attitudes and behavior, but I have heard from friends in the same situation, that they were told this in so many words when they asked administrators in one of the Lakewood-schedule schools.

And people wonder why the Moshiach hasn't come yet. Disgraceful.