Buses, Trains And Automobiles, Oh My!

The daily travel grind is no longer limited to adults. Now high school students have long commutes on their ‘to do’ list.

Drive On and Tune Out: High school commuters such as Joel Goldshlag, a freshman at Ramaz, catch up on sleep during the daily shlep to and from school. Courtesy Derek Fein

by Dan Blas

‘Commuting is like a kosher deli sub. It’s long and cramped, but very satisfying,” said Ramaz sophomore Daniel Robbins, a daily commuter to Manhattan from Westchester.
Long car, bus and train rides into the city are no longer limited to working adults. An increasing number of Jewish high school students face daily commutes of more than an hour each way. For students, commuting means early wakeups, less time for schoolwork, fewer opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities and a strong need for organization by them and their parents.
Jason Brecher, a Ramaz sophomore, from the Five Towns in Long Island wakes up at 6:35 a.m., less than 15 minutes before his bus arrives. Robbins milks every last second of sleep and wakes up

seven minutes before his bus.
Classmate Uri Segelman took the school-provided Mamaroneck bus every day last year until there weren’t enough kids to constitute a full bus. Now he has to take a Scarsdale bus which “forces me to wake up half of an hour earlier at 6.”
Stamford commuters, who ride the Metro North Train, often use the ride to and from school to catch up on much needed sleep. “On occasion after staying up studying for a brutal test I have slept through my stop at Stamford and ended up an hour away in New Haven,” said junior Gabe Felder. “I took the next train back doing everything I could to not miss my stop again!”
Ramaz acknowledges the prevalence of commuting nappers. In a handbook given to freshman titled “Ramaz for Freshies: An Underground Guide to Ramaz Upper School” one of the friendly words of advice is “buy a pillow and make good use of your bus time.”
Esther Garbow, a sophomore at Ma’ayanot High School for Girls who commutes for three hours each day, has adapted this mantra in her own way. “I do a lot of studying on the bus and in the car but other days I just get too tired,” she said about her commute from Brooklyn to her school in Teaneck, N.J.
Commuting isn’t simply draining in terms of sleep, it also limits the prospect of participating in extracurricular activities. Last year Ariel Menche, a 10th grader at Ramaz, would arrive home after chorus practice at 8 p.m. He found this to be such a problem that he slept at a nearby cousin’s house on late nights in school. Hence he took part in only one club per week.
After moving this year to Manhattan from Brooklyn, he wakes up half an hour later than he used to and now partakes in more clubs. He has eliminated an hour and a half of commuting time. “[I’m] glad that I no longer commute,” he said. “I am able to get more sleep and be active in extracurriculars.”
Gabs Charnoff, a Ramaz sophomore, has the opposite situation. Last year she attended the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland and lived a five-minute drive from her school. After her move to Lower Manhattan this year, her commuting time to Ramaz increased ten-fold. “Last year, it was very easy to get a ride because everyone lived close to each other. Now, it takes me so long to get to school!” Her daily ride is a chain of three subways and 10 minutes of walking, resulting in a total travel time of an hour and a half.
Taking the time to travel far distances to and from school is extremely taxing on a busy student, yet it quickly becomes part of a commuter’s daily lifestyle. All students acknowledge the importance of extra-curricular activities for college yet commuters have fewer opportunities to participate; they are limited by their commuting time.
“Some clubs are really late after school and if I were to stay I would get home really late,” said Nathan Katz, a sophomore at Heschel High School in Manhattan who commutes on Metro North from Stamford, Conn.
Some students will compensate by doing activities on the weekends, such as volunteer work, although it can be hard to find the spare time.
Esther Garbow participates in clubs that take place before the end of her school day. However Garbow faces a challenge when she plays tennis. Practices take place at 9 p.m. on Sundays near the school’s Teaneck campus forcing her to commute on a non-school day.
The difficulty in playing sports as a commuter has led Esther’s younger sister, Chana, an eighth grader, to carefully consider her high school options. Their father drives Esther part of the way to school. He maintains that Chana may want to play sports in high school, “and that would require even more logistical planning and commuting if she goes to Maayanot” like her sister, said father Mitch Garbow.
Despite the seemingly hectic and chaotic atmosphere of commuting to school, students find time to enjoy themselves. At times Robbins enjoys his commute. “On the bus kids talk, crack jokes and discuss popular culture,” he said.
Many sacrifices must be made and careful planning must be done yet in Robbins’ words ultimately, “the experience is very satisfying.”
Dan Blas is a sophomore at Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization