Bill Cohen

Having recently returned from the outstanding North American Jewish Day School Conference in Atlanta, a number of ideas and thoughts have crystallized in ways that they had not previously. Here are some foundational thoughts: There are a number of Schechter Schools who are oversubscribed, and who maintain waiting lists. Those schools are limited by location or space, and cannot expand. One challenge for these schools is to “select” the best recruits for their long-term sustainability. However, these school are the vast minority of Jewish Day Schools in North America. For a majority of us, growing our schools by increasing new student enrollment combined with better returning student retention is the key to the future. Yes, like you, I spend a lot of my time doing fundraising (both annual campaign and major gifts), Board of Trustees partnership and committee work, and managing our administrative team. But, in the end of the day, I am convinced that growing our school is the key issue to be addressed over the next five years.

This year, we were able to grow our Elementary School by 13% (from 107 to 122), but our Middle School and Early Childhood Education Center remained stagnant and the percentage of families receiving Tuition Assistance continues to increase. So we live in a moment a great challenge to achieve long-term sustainability. And, again, at this moment, I would suggest that growing our school through innovative strategies, programming and efforts are the key to our long-term future.

Our school is working hard to promote ourselves within our community. We spend a lot of time thinking about PR, and have added social media (Facebook mostly) and better connection to our communities Conservative Synagogues (we are an “independent” Schehcter school not located at a Synagogue) to the top of our agenda. But still, it isn’t enough. We need to develop new ways of reaching out to more potential students and families, and to work harder to convince them to enroll at our school. Then, once they are here, our program and community must be GREAT enough to keep them here for many years to come.

So, with this background in mind, I would like to put forward the following ideas and concepts that we are thinking about:

The Schechter Pre-School Network: Thanks to a session that I attended at the NAJDS Conference with Rabbi Shelly Dorph, the idea developed that we need more “feeder” schools that are connected to us and to Schechter. What better way to achieve this than to develop a network of Schechter Pre-schools? These schools could either be connected through Synagogue, or maybe even better, if they are not. BUT, if students attended Schechter Network pre-schools, we could have a whole new method of enticing them to continue their education at Schechter Elementary Schools. One question is “How would these Pre-Schools benefit from a Schechter connection so that they would want to be included in the Network?” And so, we would need to develop a plan for the pre-schools themselves to benefit through the connection.

We need to do a better job of “shining our light” to the broader community. Many of you have seen Jeffery Swartz’s brilliant piece from the PEJE Keynote of 2010 Chazak Chazak V’nitchazek. If you haven’t seen it yet, and shared it with your Board, I highly suggest it. The idea of shining our late, utilizing our facility and “giving it away” by providing free programming or events to the community is a poignant one. What better way to meet “potential” families than to bring them onto our campus and to “give them” a great experience? We will be working hard to develop this concept as a public relations and recruitment tool in the near future. The question is not what you can do for us, but, what can we do for you?

Connections to the PJ Library or other people who have lists of potential students. Wouldn’t it be great to partner with the PJ library to a receive a list of their kids who are receiving books, with the specific thought of “selling” the concept of Jewish Day school to the PJ library families? How about story-time at our school along with a “meet the author” event?

Even though we have a wonderful pre-school of our own, our true long term success will be based on our ability to grow our school in terms of student population. My vision is to be a “two-track” school from K-5, where we currently maintain one class per grade. (although this year we have 30 Kindergarten students). It will take bold steps and creative ideas to invigorate the potential student interest which we need to create. However, everything else, including strong fundraising, payoff of our mortgage, beginning a substantial endowment, and even annual campaign investment, is contingent upon our school, and yours, maintaining student population growth for the next five years. People love to support a thriving institution, and for many, “thriving” is defined simply in terms of students population growth. While we may not agree with this analysis, it is a reality which could be of significant benefit to us.

Rabbi Ellen Bernhardt

Most of us have heard the expression, “A pintele Yid,” literally means the dot of a Jew. What it really means is that there’s a spark of Jewishness inside. I find that working with parents, I need to find that pintele and ignite it. I want to ignite it so that they may feel the passion of being Jewish as I do. I’ve taught many classes to parents in which we go on a (metaphorical) journey to uncover long-lost positive feelings of Jewishness from childhood. Reclaiming the childhood memories is sometimes painful, but usually leads to self-disclosure about how that part of themselves got closed off later in life for a specific reason.

“I hated my Hebrew school teacher.” “My parents stopped talking to me because I was dating a non-Jew.” “I experienced anti-Semitism in college,” and so on. But now I have these young parents sitting with me in a circle. They have their children in my school for some reason that I hope is positive and will lead to positive Jewish feelings and continued involvement in the Jewish community. If I can say or do something to invoke the memory of sitting next to Zaydie in shul and playing with his tzitsis, or eating my grandmother’s chicken soup, or that first experience visiting the kotel, I feel quite certain that we can build on those memories so that they, too, will want to create memories for their own children.

I try to impart the self-awareness that creating Jewish memories is important for them as parents, that looking at life through a Jewish lens can have long-lasting benefits for their children and their children’s children.

One has to be careful in handling these situations so that the parents don’t feel manipulated, but if it successful, it can be one of the most powerful experiences for young parents.

Rabbi Shira Leibowitz

They visit on my facebook newsfeed – playful, thoughtful, thriving – middle and high school friends with whom I have little contact beyond their status updates, but who were once an integral part of my daily life. While I have not reconnected with my teachers, I still often think of them and of my principal, Mr. S. Hirsch Jacobson (May His Memory Be a Blessing). They guided and nurtured me through my adolescent years, ultimately serving as role models for the career I would later embrace. In tribute to them, I choose to write this post not primarily in my capacity as a rabbi, a Ph.D. in Jewish education, or even as Lower School Principal of Schechter Westchester, but rather as a graduate of a Schechter Day School – shaped by an exemplary education for which I am profoundly grateful.

I’ve been associated with Schechter schools for slightly more than three decades, having begun my journey at the then Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, now Golda Och Academy, as an eleven year old sixth grader. Golda Och herself (May Her Memory Be a Blessing) was my high school Jewish history teacher and her impact, like that of so many other teachers in my life, was profound. She, together with Mr. Jacobson, offered me perspective that has enabled me to experience the ebbs and flows of recent American Jewish history at least in part through the lens of our schools.

The age of Soviet, Jewish emigration in the late 1970’s, when I was in middle school, began my experience of connectedness to Jewish history in the making. My school opened its doors wide to embrace new émigrés fortunate enough to have been able to gain the then coveted permission to leave their native land. While I would later become a student leader within the Soviet Jewry Movement, at the time I felt blessed to get to know my Russian classmates who to me seemed like pioneers, part of something that mattered.

Then came the growth years of the early 1980’s when I was in high school and believed all things were possible. Our own school saw the move to a new, larger building needed to accommodate our burgeoning numbers. We experienced the introduction of computers into our school and felt the hope of expansive possibility. We were exuberant to be part of something that mattered.

Soon recognition within the Jewish community of dwindling numbers of Jews and declining Jewish commitment brought the charge to produce talented Jewish educators able to infuse passion and knowledge into the next generation. As a young rabbinical student, my destiny became intertwined with that of the day school movement. I was actively recruited to complete a doctorate in Jewish Education and courted to embark on a career leading Schechter schools. Education was at the time one of the primary communal answers to growing concerns about apathy and assimilation in the Jewish community. Armed with my ordination and my Ph.D., I was sent out into the trenches of the day schools to participate in work that mattered.

With the onset of the twenty-first century came the beginnings of disillusionment, but by no means despair. Day schools were falling from communal favor for a range of reasons and our work, once extolled, felt to me almost at times marginalized. Sometimes lonely, yet committed to our students and our mission, day school educators reached out to connect with the broader world of education in search of insight. Our schools became stronger educationally, reaching ever higher levels of accomplishment while remaining grounded in our enduring Jewish values and tradition. Although at times at least some of us felt underappreciated, we remained part of something that mattered.

Finally, came 2008 and an economic downturn that has impacted not only Jewish day schools, but most schools – parochial, independent and public. The affordability crisis so often pointed to in the news is not merely a day school challenge, but an education challenge. And what have we found? Amidst challenge stems creativity. Lean budgets have by no means limited educational innovation as we have felt the responsibility to continue to strengthen the quality of our schools while managing our costs. And, despite all the challenges, so many of our schools continue to thrive. More than ever, we know we are part of something that matters.

Rabbi Shira Leibowitz, Ph.D. has been Lower School Principal at Schechter Westchester in White Plains, New York since, 2000. She holds a Ph.D in Education and Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as a BA from Cornell University. She speaks and writes on educational topics, with particular interest in character and values education. You can follow Rabbi Leibowitz on twitter @shiraleibowitz or on her blog sharingourblessings.wordpress.com.

Rabbi Fred Elias

Next Monday is our semi-annual Faculty Development Day at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County. Like many schools, these days begin appropriately so with tefillah (a prayer service). For the past couple of years, we have increasingly examined the value of having the entire community together to begin our day. Whether it is for ideological reasons of belonging to a different faith or those who pray in a different ideological setting (i.e. where men and women sit separately) from ours, some of our faculty has felt disconnected to the community by the school’s compulsion on faculty days to attend a mandatory Conservative Jewish prayer service.

On one hand, one could make the argument that as a teaching member of a Schechter faculty at a Conservative Day School, everyone should be expected to attend the tefillah. On the other hand, if our mission is indeed child-centered, shouldn’t we on faculty development days be creating opportunities for our faculty to connect with and understand why every student’s day starts with tefillah? Additionally, if we are also tasked with enriching our students’ tefillah on a daily basis, should we also not enrich our faculty’s prayer experience on our faculty development days?

So, next Monday on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday and the commemoration of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 40th yahrzeit, we will be mandating our entire faculty to participate in one of the following two “Beginning Our Day sessions:”

Option 1:
Shaharit tefillah with Storahtelling Torah Service: This prayer service will have a modified tefillah structure.  It will include all the prescribed prayers that according to Jewish law should be said at a Shaharit (Morning Service) and will focus on an interactive Torah reading and exploration of the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Option 2:  
Discussion Entitled: “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: Thoughts on Educating Students in a Faith-Based Environment.”  This discussion led by Rabbi Elias will not contain any elements of public or private prayer and will take place in the curriculum library.
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, “the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.” By inviting our entire faculty to participate either in a dynamic tefillah or an important discussion of the impact of learning in a faith-based environment, our focus on the experiences of two of the most accomplished and thoughtful people of the 20th century who marched together for the freedom of all will in Rabbi Heschel’s words, “combine loyalty to one’s own tradition with reverence for different traditions.” At the same time, we will have demonstrated and modeled for our faculty that all of us irrespective of religious faith and/or denomination are all responsible for the spiritual and intellectual growth for all of our student body.

Sally Baer

I would like to share with you parts of an article I wrote in September for our weekly school communication, The Shabbat Shofar. The article, entitled Being Bullies; Being Bullied was intended to offer parents and students concrete responses for dealing with bullying issues while cautioning against use of the bullying label too often.

Among the many values we work to instill in our children are those of kindness, respect, honesty, and a sense of responsibility. As Jewish educators and as parents, we know the value of modeling character traits that we want to build in our children. We talk about ways to exhibit these values, and we offer guidance and advice when our children are faced with difficult situations.

The September, 2011 issue of Educational Leadership is dedicated to “Promoting Respectful Schools.” While there is a wealth of material available on social skills, respectful attitudes, and on anti-bullying campaigns I have seen little information that I believe is as specific and properly targeted as the articles in this magazine. In their article What Students Say About Bullying, Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon write what students believe they can do for themselves, what peers can do for one another, and what adults at school can do that helps the most. I would like to share with you some of the beliefs of what children can do for one another.

Children interviewed by Davis and Nixon believe that peers helped one another the most by responding to the child who was bullied in the following ways:

• Making sure the child who was bullied always had friends around
• Paying more attention to their friend
• Distracting the friend so the focus was not on having been bullied
• Listening to their friend and encouraging him or her to ignore the bully.

These are, of course, only a few ideas as seen by students who were interviewed for the article. We continue talking to our students, listening to their ideas, and offering our thoughts to them. As responsible educators, we must ensure that our students feel protected, safe, and supported, but how do we do this?

I have consistently read that students who feel connected to adults whom they believe care and listen have more success in dealing with the problems they face. Children need our help if they are hurt by the way another child treats them or if they witness another child being hurt because they may not know how to respond. Even the child who is hurting others needs our help. Active involvement and listening on the part of adults helps students learn how to communicate effectively and become secure and responsible.
I believe that conversations with our students and teachers are a critical piece of building the bonds that students so desperately seek. We might ask teachers who are most closely connected with their students how they build those relationships. We might ask students what helped to create those bonds that cause them to feel closely connected with adults in the school. We need to continuously revisit active listening. Educators and parents must listen to what their children are not putting into words. We must observe those behaviors that may look innocent on the surface but have hidden meanings and implications.

If you are not already familiar with Facing History and Ourselves, I strongly encourage you to check into it for the sake of your students. Although not originally slated as such, I see it as a current day anti-bullying program. The curriculum and materials that are currently geared toward learners not younger than middle school, are insightful and sensitively handled. Philosophically, the program is intended to teach tolerance, acceptance, and respect. It helps us to look at ourselves and examine our own values while expanding our thinking regarding the impact of others throughout history. There is a particular focus, but not exclusive, on the Holocaust.

As the dynamics of education continue to grow and change frequently, we must not lose sight of the need for every student to feel respected. The integration of respectful attitudes into our Judaic programs comes naturally. Students must hear about respect, observe respectful behaviors modeled by the adults in their lives, and have guidance when putting respectful attitudes into practice. This too is part of their learning experience, part of what a Solomon Schechter education offers.

Arnie Zar-Kessler

I’ve been writing a series of columns on key directions our school is embarking upon to further integrate technology into the educational program, and into the operations of the school. In this column, my second in the series, I had intended to focus on what educational research tells us about the impact of technology on student learning. More specifically, I intended to share the results of research on what the advent of computers in schools and classrooms has on student outcomes, on various measures, including but not limited to, standardized test scores and other established measures of improved student performance.
 
Problem is, there isn’t very much to share.
 
As counterintuitive as it sounds, for all the interest and the extraordinary investment in bringing new technologies into schools, there is precious little evidence that children learn more, or better, or score higher, or get into better schools, or go on to more productive careers, or earn more money, or are happier, or are better people – any of the criteria usually used to measure educational effectiveness – because of the use of technology. And if you think I’m making that up, let me quickly refer to some more authoritative sources:
 
In a September 3 article in the New York Times, reporter Matt Ritchel describes a school district that has invested heavily in computers in classrooms and throughout the school system, only to see its own test scores stagnate, while the scores overall in the state, rose. Ritchel used this school as an example of what seems to be case in many, many other places throughout the country,
  

“But to many education experts, something is not adding up – here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.
 
This conundrum calls into question one of the most significant contemporary educational movements. Advocates for giving schools a major technological upgrade – which include powerful educators, Silicon Valley titans and White House appointees – say digital devices let students learn at their own pace, teach skills needed in a modern economy and hold the attention of a generation weaned on gadgets.
 
Some backers of this idea say standardized tests, the most widely used measure of student performance, don’t capture the breadth of skills that computers can help develop. But they also concede that for now there is no better way to gauge the educational value of expensive technology investments.
 
“The data is pretty weak. It’s very difficult when we’re pressed to come up with convincing data,” said Tom Vander Ark, the former executive director for education at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an investor in educational technology companies.
 
And yet, in virtually the same breath, he said change of a historic magnitude is inevitably coming to classrooms this decade: “It’s one of the three or four biggest things happening in the world today.”
 
Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills – like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools – at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.”

And then, in October, in the next installment in the Times series Grading the Digital Classroom, there is a brief description of software (Cognitive Tutor) that is promoted as a “revolutionary math curricula with revolutionary results.” Yet:
 

“The federal review of Carnegie Learning’s flagship software, Cognitive Tutor, said the program had “no discernible effects” on the standardized test scores of high school students. A separate 2009 federal look at 10 major software products for teaching algebra as well as elementary and middle school math and reading found that nine of them, including Cognitive Tutor, “did not have statistically significant effects on test scores.”
 
Amid a classroom-based software boom estimated at $2.2 billion a year, debate continues to rage over the effectiveness of technology on learning and how best to measure it. But it is hard to tell that from technology companies’ promotional materials.”

 
From a September 1 “spotlight section” in the respected national journal, Education Week:
  

“While there is much on-going research on new technologies and their effects on teaching and learning, there is little rigorous, large-scale data that makes for solid research, education experts say. The vast majority of the studies available are funded by the very companies and institutions that have created and promoted the technology, raising questions of the research’s validity and objectivity. In addition, the kinds of studies that produce meaningful data often take several years to complete-a timeline that lags far behind the fast pace of emerging and evolving technologies”
 
Finally, in a report issued in September, 2010 commissioned by the Federal Department of Education, with Secretary Arne Duncan’s name at the head of the list of authors, a meta-analytic approach was taken to measure the effects of on-line learning. The report notes:
 
“A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 50 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis….”

 
It also notes some modest improvement for a blended approach in many settings:
 

“…An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K-12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education).”

 
In sum, for all the investment, there appears to be little rigorous data – the sort that most parents would want their school to base their decisions, especially significant spending decisions upon – available to be considered when deciding about the how and what and why of new technologies in school. Admittedly, part of the challenge of developing meaningful, rigorously-vetted data is the very newness of computers themselves. For example, what is the likelihood that any longitudinal data could be established about the use of iPads in classrooms, when the product itself didn’t exist five years ago? In other words, one of the reasons we have so little evidence is that the rapidity of innovation is outpacing any attempts to assess the merits of the innovations.
 
While this, and a host of other factors may be true, I know for myself I wouldn’t want the inclusion of new technologies in medical treatment for any of my loved ones to be based upon hopes, wishes, bells and whistles, and one of the common criteria, “my cousin’s kids’ school in New Jersey just bought a bunch of these, and maybe we should, too (or some variant thereof).”
 
Simply put, a thoughtful approach to introducing new technologies in schools has to recognize the allure, and the potential for potential positive impact of technology, but yet still attempt to be rigorous in our assessments, and ultimately sober about how technology can further our mission. Simply put, we have been diligent about making sure that any insertion of new technology is all about meeting the mission of the school (and thus the learning of children) more effectively, and less about “winning the arms race,” as a colleague, a professor of sociology who specializes in assessment protocols for not-for-profits, recently commented.
 
Earlier this fall, I had the opportunity, with a very small group of independent school leaders to be the guest for a day at the Apple Computer Executive Training Center, where we were taken through the paces of all that iPads can do in education, and I was completely wowed. From Khan Academy to QWiki and a thousand other points of light, I felt as if I was privy to a glimpse of the future, and it was stunning. It seems to me that the task of school leadership is both to “embrace the wow,” while charting a course that exercises high standards of accountability throughout the process. I especially like how one of our consultants, who is helping us map out a strategic plan for technology, Dr. Steven Arnoff (of the Center for Leadership and Technology) put it, giving some excellent guidance to shape the next stages of our deliberations, “Like using any good tool, it is not about how much money you spend, but rather about revising the process to effect change.” Dr. Arnoff knows we’ll be spending a good deal of money in the coming years on technology, and he is wise to guide us in remembering that it won’t be the equipment or the software that will make the key difference, it’s the way in which we prepare ourselves, and then apply the technology.
 
Thus, without rigorously vetted data upon which to rely, a school like ours must look carefully first at our own experiences: what is the current state of technology at our school? What seems to work for us and what doesn’t? And what is the situation in schools we respect and may like to model? What is their experience for better and perhaps for worse, from which we can learn? And finally, can we identify gaps that – by addressing them – will help us do an even better job at achieving our vision of “… inspiring, celebrating and nurturing our students, in order to prepare them to become… self-confident, compassionate and practicing Jews and committed citizens, who are prepared to meet the academic and social challenges of the modern world…?”
 
In the following installments in this series, I reflect on how the school currently implements technology, and what we’ve learned from that use. The next columns describe the process we’ve employed to develop a “gap analysis,” and then finally, the steps we are considering, and proposing, to the Board of Trustees to enrich technology here at the school, while both employing rigor in our analyses, and holding true to our mission.

Arnold Zar-Kessler has been associated with Schechter since 1993, as Upper School Director. He was interim Head of School for the 2000-2001 school year, and then became permanent Head of School.?
 
Arnold has completed doctorate work at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus on how children learn the difference between scientific and religious knowledge. He has served as chair of the Association of Independent Schools in New England’s (AISNE) Membership Committee, the group designated to oversee accreditation processes for all member schools and to make recommendation to the Board on accepting or rejecting accreditation and re-accreditation applications, the first ever from a Jewish Day School. He currently serves on the board of AISNE and is leading their strategic planning process. He has also served as an Officer-at-Large for the Board of the Jewish Educators Assembly, the association for all Conservative Movement educators throughout North America.

He recently produced the well-received video for Schechter, featuring Abraham Joshua Heschel “Our Task”.

Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin

Here are some claims I have heard about the arts and the evidence of neuroscience: Music training improves children’s ability to read. The performing arts improve creativity. Visual arts training correlates with children’s enhanced ability to do math calculations. Dance training improves “executive function” (organizing, planning, etc.).

Some of these studies might turn out to be right and others wrong. What bothers me is the assumption behind the superficial news reports surrounding them. They purport that the arts are important only if they make people “smarter” in the way we usually think of intelligence.

The arts are important for other reasons. They put us in touch with the things that give meaning to life. Reading a good novel teaches us about emotional experience, both our own and others’. Music can unfold something profound and joyous in our spirit. Art helps us see the relationships in the world in fresh and unexpected ways. These are all means of developing sensitivity to life’s deeper, more joyous, sadder and more profound levels than we live in everyday life. Technology can act in the service of all of the arts, in addition to its essential information and communication roles. Even physical activity, carried out for its own sake, can elevate while it trains the body.

We all need skills and knowledge, but we also need access to the reservoirs of meaning that varied cultural expressions can open within us. Any education, and certainly a spiritual education, needs to embrace the fullness of human endeavor and expression. This issue of Akiba Achshav describes some of the current programs that extend that embrace to Sinai Akiba students.

Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin

This is the new logo and name of the association of Conservative day schools to which Sinai Akiba belongs. In fact, Akiba was the first Schechter school—and very likely the first non-Orthodox day school—on the west coast.

Having served as president of the Schechter Network from 2008-2010, I have participated with colleagues and lay leaders from around the country in re-thinking the role of the association in an age when, blessedly, the notion of Jewish day school is no longer experimental and when a healthy competition for excellence exists among Jewish day schools of varied philosophies.

The increased emphasis on the name Schechter in the new logo, was symbolic. Solomon Schechter was not only the founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Conservative Movement as we know them today (both pre-existed him, but he gave them their shape and direction), he also embodied the ideal person envisioned by the movement: one who moves easily in the world of general culture while being traditionally observant, and has practical skills together with Jewish knowledge. (An engaging book, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, describes Schechter’s fascinating achievement in uncovering a trove of lost manuscripts that opened previously unknown worlds of Jewish life.)

Approximately 50 schools nationwide are affiliated with the Schechter Network. The Network produces the MaToK Bible curriculum, a wonderful, contemporary yet traditional approach to the teaching of Bible. It is developing a text-based environmental curriculum, provides a fellowship for an aspiring day school rabbi or administrator and provides conferences, webinars and other forums where our schools can learn from each other and from experts.

The first Schechter school came into existence in 1951. With 60 years of history, Schechter day school education is no longer an experiment. Our graduates—SAA’s and those of the other Schechter schools—are inhabiting leadership positions in the Jewish community even as they thrive in business and the professions—engaging the world, as the Network’s new tagline proclaims.
Rabbi Larry Scheindlin
Headmaster

Deborah Grayson Riegel

Medieval Rabbi Yonah tells the story of an elderly sage who was walking along a path with his student when they passed a dog’s rotting corpse. The repulsed student yelled, “this corpse is disgusting!” His Rabbi answered, “but what lovely white teeth it has!”

I could use this Rabbi’s perspective every time a teacher at my kids’ Solomon Schechter school pulls me aside to say, “I wanted to tell you something about your child.” I instinctively brace myself for the bad news (sucking in my stomach, as if that would help), and I must admit, nine times out of ten, the news is delightful.

Every day in our schools and in our lives, we have the opportunity to choose our focus: do we concentrate on what’s distasteful, difficult, or what we want to eliminate – or do we focus on what’s working well, what’s delightful, or what we want more of? Do we expect the worst or do we expect the best? Traditional methods of dialogue, strategic planning or running meetings tend to lean into problem-solving around what’s broken (remember the “weaknesses” and “threats” from a typical SWOT analysis?). Appreciative Inquiry turns tradition on its end, by focusing people, teams and organizations on their positive qualities, leveraging those qualities to grow the group, the person or process, and is – at its most basic level – the study of what works well.

In my session at the North American Day School Conference, we used the challenge of day school affordability as our topic for an Appreciative Inquiry approach. Titled, “Shifting the Conversation from Cost to Value,” this session’s objective was to help school leaders shift their focus from the barrier (cost) to the opportunity (value).

With this goal in mind, started with the the Four D’s of Appreciative Inquiry:

• Discovery: Appreciate the best of what is
• Dream: Imagine what could be
• Design: Determine what should be
• Destiny: Create what will be

At the core of all of these is the “Affirmative Topic” – a positive, appreciative focus for the conversation that drives the process in the direction you want to go. Think about the difference between traditional topics like “Conflict Management” and “Overcoming Donor Objections” and affirmative topics like “Fostering Respectful Relationships” and “Delighting Our Donors”. Don’t the latter make you feel more positive and enthusiastic? Our topic was “Shifting the Conversation from Cost to Value of Jewish Day School Education”. With that in place, we took the topic through the 4 D’s.

Discover: Appreciate the best of what is

In their book, “Switch: How to Change things When Change is Hard,” authors Chip and Dan Heath call this approach “focusing on the bright spots”. Participants were asked to think about a time when they felt like day school education was truly valued, honored, supported and appreciated. What were the conditions that contributed to this? What were they doing? What were others doing? Answers included engaging in community-wide events, press coverage, at a holiday program for parents and grandparents, when the students won awards, and when graduates came back to share how their day school education had prepared them for their futures. While the answers were varied, the mood was uplifted.

Dream: Imagine what could be

Theodore Herzl once said, “If you will it, it is no dream.” But before we could “will” the shift in focus from cost to value, we had to dream it. I asked participants to think about this: “if you had three wishes for how people felt about Jewish day school education, what would they be?” Dreams included “a given”, “highly valued”, “competitive”, “inclusive”, “worth every penny”, “the investment of a lifetime”, “cutting edge” and many more. I used this opportunity to point out that this list of “dreams” allowed us to see what we didn’t have enough of (a sense of value, reputation as cutting edge, etc.) without having to focus on the weaknesses.

Design: Determine what should be

I asked participants to imagine that it is five years from today, and that they had just won a prestigious award for Jewish Day School Recruitment. They were asked to consider what they are celebrating and what they have accomplished, how they have transformed their school, their community and the world, what exists now that didn’t exist in 2011, and what other institutions are looking to learn from them. This gave the participants the change to think about certain “design elements” that might need changing, such as systems, structure, policies, processes, technology, leadership and brand – as well as what was working and should be continued.

Destiny: Create what will be

We saved the best for last. I broke the participants into two units, a “Heaven” group and a “Hell” group. The first group was asked to brainstorm on this: “Imagine you had no limitations of time or money to get people excited about day school education. What would you do?” The list included subsidizing Israel trips, developing staff on a regular basis, high-level recruitment of faculty, technological overhaul of the schools. The second group considered this challenge: “How could you guarantee that nobody wants to enroll in Jewish day school?” This list included focusing on cost (including raising tuition), defacing the schools, recruiting weak faculty, never investing in new technology, etc. Both groups offered a keen insight into what could be possible (even if scaled down to take time and money into consideration) as well as what “sins” they might already be committing that could be driving people away, such as unkempt property and poorly trained teachers.

At the end of the session, participants were excited on two levels: 1) They were energized by the new focus on what was possible rather than on what the problems were, and 2) They were eager to bring the Appreciative Inquiry methodology back to their classrooms and boardrooms to apply this process to a range of conversations.

If you would like more information on Appreciative Inquiry, or how to facilitate an A.I. process in your school for any topic that you have been “challenged” by, please email me at headcoach@myjewishcoach.com.

Uri Cohen

At last month’s day school conference in Los Angeles, collaboration was in the air. In this new era of economic austerity, strategic planning, and collaborative use of resources, the 600+ attendees were focused on how to structure things such that we really can accomplish more together than we can apart. This has never been more true, in theory or in practice – particularly at the Tri-State Schechter Consortium, comprised of 11 Schechter schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

In fact, our world will never be the same again.

Here is a sneak peak at the language you’re going to be hearing a lot more of over the next few months: “Schechter: Engage the world.” As the Director of Development for the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan, that’s a concept with which I am proud to be associated. “Engage the World” – that’s really quite literally what we want our students to do! We want them to be knowledgeable enough, connected enough, confident enough, and smart enough to be able to engage their Judaism with their Americanism and global citizenship, their tradition with their present, and their futures with their values. “Engage the World” means we stand for going out to explore the universal, with the perspective of our Jewish particularism. The idea is “know who you are, and get out there and explore!” To use another very Jewish expression, “Go and learn.”

I bet this sounds familiar to a lot of you – but not necessarily from what you’ve seen or heard either from insiders – those of us engaged in he day-to-day work of running schools – or from outsiders – those from whom we hope to hear praise and receive support. You do, however, probably recognize it from the students, curricula and teachers, the dreams we have for them, and the ways our graduates behave and achieve in their lives already.

Now it’s time for the world to know what we’ve stood for all along.

“Engage the world.” “Learn How to Think, Discover Your Sense of Self, Become a Global Jewish Citizen.”

This all came out of the efforts of the Tri-State Schechter Consortium – a system-level collaboration of the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut Schechter Schools, spearheaded by the Schechter in Queens, and supported by the Solomon Schechter Day School Association. This project has been brought to life further by commitments of professional and lay leadership, as well as significant financial support from the Schechters in Manhattan (NY), Nassau County (NY), Bergen County (NJ), Brooklyn (East Midwood, NY), the Golda Och Academy (NJ), Ezra Academy (CT), Raritan Valley (NJ), and Reuben Gittelman (Rockland County, NY).

Guidance and significant financial support for this project came from the Jewish Education Project and UJA-Federation of New York. Here’s how it happened:

Back in 2006, the folks at Schechter Queens thought, “we Schechter schools should work together to advance our own cause. We share a name and a common educational philosophy, and we should leverage that to our advantage.” They proceeded to devote financial and human resources to developing their idea into an initiative that could achieve its aims. It took some time for this idea to percolate and take a form that caught on with lay leaders and professionals in other schools. Finally in the spring of 2009, a gathering took place at JTS, with representatives from 10 Schechter schools, JTS, United Synagogue, the Schechter Association, and PEJE. Rabbi Josh Elkin (Executive Director of PEJE) spoke with the group about what collaboration could offer us, and Kim Hirsh from UJC in Metrowest shared with us different models of collaboration currently in use in other parts of the country.

Kim challenged us to begin collaborating – no matter how small the scale. “But how?” we said! In New Jersey there is a donor-driven collaboration. In San Diego and Boston there are Federation-driven collaborations. How can we do that here? With 300 day schools in the New York Federations’ catchment area, no donor or Federation could meaningfully support them all.

Kim and Josh told us that people would take notice, but we had to begin ourselves.

Then a magical thing happened – the President of Schechter Queens said, “We believe that we must collaborate. We believe this so strongly, that we are putting $14,000 on the table to get started. Who is with us?” Instantaneously, the meeting now had teeth – not just a bunch of talking heads, but a real working group with real potential to achieve real results. Within seconds we had commitments of another $5,000 each from the Golda Och Academy and Schechter Manhattan. We were off and running with $24,000.

One of the most common pitfalls in any collaboration is teamwork and group dynamics. Teamwork is difficult with individuals, and the effect is only magnified with organizations represented by multiple people. So our first act as a newly formed consortium was to establish a steering committee made up of lay leaders and professionals from a number of schools, and our second act was to hire Deborah Grayson Riegel to be our group facilitator. She led us through a number of meetings in which we explored our shared voice, shared values, and helped us discover that the association between us is strong and potently meaningful.

As 2010 unfolded, Kim’s promise came true. The Jewish Education Project (then known as the Board of Jewish Education of New York-SAJES) heard about our collaboration, and took an interest. As UJA-Federation of New York’s central education agency, the Jewish Education Project (then known as the Board of Jewish Education of New York-SAJES) was seeking to address the challenges put forth in UJA-Federation’s To Go or Not To Go” marketing study, which revealed that most families who have day-school-aged children and do not choose day schools for their children a) do not know that day schools even exist, and/or b) do not differentiate day schools from Orthodox yeshivot.  The Jewish Education Project approached the Consortium with the idea of re-branding the Solomon Schechter day schools, as a major part of an overall project to increase non-Orthodox enrollment in day schools.

This enrollment challenge is, of course, one of the main reasons for our collaboration’s success, by the way. Getting more students in our school’s doors is obviously critical to our success, as individual schools and as a network. Anything we can do to improve our community’s understanding of what we do will help – hence our collaborative efforts. More students means stronger schools, a stronger Schechter network, and a better Jewish community for tomorrow.

And so, a joint effort between the Jewish Education Project, UJA-Federation of New York, and the Tri-State Schechter Consortium was born, and has developed the branding language you’re starting to see, a new logo you’ll see soon, and much more.

We hired a consulting firm called BBMG, which did a lengthy discovery process to uncover the known and unknown truths about Schechter. They interviewed parents, visited secular private and Jewish Community, and multiple Schechter schools, talked with teachers and students, spoke with parents who were Schechter flag wavers and also those who were skeptics, community leaders, outsiders, insiders, and many others. Then they crafted recommendations based on those truths. They said things like, “Conservative Judaism can stand on its own beyond the Conservative Movement. While the Movement (a set of institutions) is experiencing a significant malaise, Conservative Judaism (a philosophy of living and believing) – in its tradition of excellence, exploration based in Judaism and 21st Century America, and significant communal and personal meaning is alive and well. Everyone knows that the modern scholarly Jewish tradition of excellence was born and raised in Conservative Judaism – embrace it!”

Solomon Schechter the man was an explorer of the highest caliber. We run our schools in his image – just like the Montessoris, the Waldorfs, and the Heschels do their namesakes’. Just like Schechter explored the world from a place of confidence, tradition, and meaning – so we train our students to do each day.

Our work with BBMG continues – and there is much yet to do. We are working on an “Engage the World” website that will fully flesh out our new brand, and also help prospective parents find their local participating Schechter school where they can find all this great stuff. There will also be an “Engage the World” brochure that will make the case for why parent should choose a Schechter school, leaving the schools free to make the case for why their Schechter school. We will continue our conversations about co-branding, and will be rolling out more deliverables later this spring, and then beyond into the fall.

I’ll leave you – and entice you – with one of the core statements of this brand strategy – I hope you’ll join us! I’m happy to talk with anyone who wants to listen about this, and I can also share our “Ten Tips to Successful System-Wide Collaboration” document we handed out at the conference in LA.

“Welcome to a place where curiosity rules. Where
children learn to honor timeless traditions and think for
themselves. Where they’re encouraged to ask bold
questions, confront paradox and discover new
connections. Where critical inquiry feels like fun, and
lights go on in unexpected ways.!Welcome to a place
where students see links between Moses and Macbeth,
anthropology and architecture, biology and Bible.
Where children understand empathy so deeply that
they relate to characters — real and fictional — across
every era in time and draw guidance from them for
living today. Welcome to a place where everything feels
accessible, nothing is o!-limits and students yearn to
engage the world!

Welcome to Schechter.”

Feel free to be in touch!

Uri Cohen – uricohen@sssm.org, 646-472-5395.