Because old software never dies - it just becomes impossible to find when you really need it unless of course you know about this site!
I have never been one who has been happy at Shomrei and have probably only been there 4 times in the past year, but I do go for the High Holidays to sit with my dad. This year he was not there as he is still in Levindale, but I did go to Shomrei anyway for Kol Nidrei. I was trying to occupy my time so did an informal demographics survey and what I noticed is that there seem to be about 280 - 300 seats on the Mens side in the main sanctuary and most of them were occupied. Out of all of those seats there were only about 15 married people under the age of 35 (and I may be generous there as I assumed a few people are younger than they really may be). Of those 15, at least 9 of them were there only because their parent or family were there. I am pretty sure the majority of them (including myself) would not have choosen to go there as their first option. If I were the administration of the shul I would be pretty worried about what this means for the future long term stability of the place.
This is something that has been bothering me for awhile and maybe someone can come up with some explanation other than the only one I can think of.
Yeshivat Rambam has a really good ECC program. When kids finish the ECC they start Elementary school. For some reason this transition from ECC to ES takes place in Gan (kindergarten) and this is what I fail to understand. Sure the educational structure of Gan has more "real" education (i.e. structured classroom time) than the "learning through play" style of the ECC, but it is still a much more relaxed and playful type of setting than 1st grade or the rest of the ES. Anyone who is part of the school will notice that many of the events geared toward younger students are advertised as being for ECC and Gan. Also, at the end of the Gan year they have graduation. Not sure I get this - wow, you managed to make it through your first year of ES! No - it is obviously meant as the end of the younger stage of education prior to entering into 1st grade and the true start of ES.
So why is it that Gan is considered ES and not ECC. The only explanation I can come up with is a financial one. ES school tuition is consideriably more than that of the ECC. Additionaly, the parent obligations (such as the journal) start in ES and do not apply to ECC parents. One thing I wonder is if there are any potential parents who are wavering between Rambam and another school for Gan and end up going elsewhere because they really weren't sure and don't want to "try things out" at the higher cost. If there are, then this move of having Gan in the ES may end up costing the school students who may have decided after Gan they wanted to stay longer.
If anyone has any other ideas on this please let me know!