Tuition Assistance

Chicago Jewish Day School is a proud participant in the JUF Right Start program.

A gift to your family from Chicago’s Jewish community. 

Jewish Early Childhood Education... the Gateway to Jewish Life

We believe that Jewish early childhood education is so important that we created JUF Right Start to make Jewish preschool and daycare more accessible and affordable for Jewish parents.

The program’s centerpiece is a gift voucher - the first of its kind nationally - that will substantially offset the cost of Jewish early childhood education. The voucher can be applied to the tuition of the first child in your immediate family to attend a participating Jewish preschool or day care.

The Bernard Heerey Family Foundation Scholarship Program was established to meet the needs of middle income families with multiple children in day school, including at least one child in middle school. We are grateful to the Bernard Heerey Family Foundation for providing generous tuition assistance to eligible CJDS families.

If you are interested in learning more about the Bernard Heerey Family Foundation Scholarship Program, please contact Liz Erlich, Director of Finance, at 773-271-2700.

"Empower Illinois: Applications for the 2023-24 tax credit scholarships open on Wednesday, January 18, 2023"

The State of Illinois legislature passed an act in 2017 called the Invest in Kids Act (35 ILCS 40/1), which creates scholarship opportunities for families with limited financial resources to attend private schools, such as ours. These scholarships do not come from CJDS, but rather, will be disbursed by a non-profit Scholarship Granting Organization (“SGO”). The SGO, Empower Illinois, will be administering scholarships to qualified CJDS students.    

Applications for the 2023-24 tax credit scholarships will be open on Wednesday, January 18, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. CT. Like previous years, families can visit empowerillinois.org at 6:30pm to access the reservation form before submission at 7pm.  Updated resources will be shared once the application for the current school year closes on December 12th. Please reach out to the helpline (schools@empowerillinois.org; 800-616-7606) with any questions in the meantime.

All families that applied for the 2022-23 school, should submit an application for the 2023-24 school year. If a family is deemed eligible by the Tuition Assistance Committee based on information submitted via FACTS, Tuition Assistance award will be contingent upon Empower Illinois receiving a completed application. Please refer to the website for eligibility requirements."