Jewish Day School Leadership On the Cutting Edge

Lessons in Not So Great Customer Service

2011-07-31T20:49:00.000-05:00

For those of you following my travels, we recently moved from St. Louis to Palo Alto, where I will be assuming the headship of the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School. The transition has kept me busy...and out of the blogging zone. Tonight, I'm wading back in. As part of my move, we had to relocated phone and internet providers. Along the way I received a very illustrative lesson in the do's and don'ts of providing good (or bad) customer service from the service rep who fielded my cable modem application. Let's just say that I learned a lot about how not to treat customers.

For a peek at the conversation...which took place via Comcast's online chat window... follow this link for an actual transcript. I'm going to ask my teachers and administrative faculty to read this, with promises that we'll do exactly the opposite at my new school.

Allen Selis

The Art of Play

2011-07-18T02:02:00.000-05:00

Those who have read this blog over the last year will probably wonder where the following post is coming from. Really, it's not out of the blue. As I sit with my board talking about the various elements of our school program, we have begun to think seriously about the physical spaces of our school as an attribute that either enhances or takes luster away from the quality of our program.

Luckily, a very generous friend of my school offered me the opportunity to ask: Just how does the physical landscape of a school create excellence?

For some illustrative first thoughts on the matter, follow this link.

Purim Torah on Day School Affordability?

2011-03-07T09:00:00.003-06:00

(For our non-Jewish readers out there: The Hebrew month of Adar is a time of celebration in Jewish life, but also a time of good natured joking and sometimes practical jokes. Think April Fools Day, OK? Read on, and you'll get it.)

"Abba, you've got to take a look at this! The Hebrew Academy is cutting tuition to $1,000 per student and giving their staff a 75% raise." My first thought in response to my son was "Well, about time. They've needed a raise. Um...how much did you say tuition was going to be?" I finally looked up the posting on the Young Israel web-site and found the following:

The Hebrew Academy and Yeshiva High School announced today that they have developed a new joint financial plan that will allow them to reduce tuition to less than $1000 per student while increasing faculty salaries by at least 75%. Services will not need to be cut, and the debt should be retired within three months. "In retrospect, it was obvious that we should have been doing this all along," said Epstein President Mark Drazen. "This way, parents will not need to sacrifice any more and we will be on a solid financial footing."

The posting closed with a link that offered "click here for more information." So I did, and downloaded the following text which flashed impishly across my screen: "You've got to be kidding." I smiled. They got me. Yes, it's Adar folks.

Our local synagogue's Purim joke should remind us as educational leaders that the easy solutions around school affordability remain just that...easy answers that don't merit more than passing consideration. Earlier this winter I met with a board president and her treasurer to discuss challenges which their school faced. The most difficult moment in the conversation came when she shared that "We are heartbroken at the idea that Jewish families won't get a day school education. We're offering even more financial aid than we had budgeted, and want your advice." I took a deep breath, looked her in the eye and said, "If you bankrupt your school, I promise you that Jewish families won't get a day school education."

In the coming month (after Purim), I'll be publishing another white paper on day school affordability. I hope to offer a global view that continues to push for outside of the box solutions while remaining focused on responsible fiscal management. Stay posted. In the meantime, before they toggle back to the non-Purim version, have a look a the web page of the Young Israel of St. Louis. And don't forget to smile. It is, after all, still Adar.

Latest in the Public Debate Over Charter Schools

2010-11-06T23:37:00.001-05:00

The Winter edition of the Conservative / Masorti movement’s publication, Kolot, landed on my desk with a thud. It features three articles on the Hebrew charter school movement. Elana Weinberg, who teaches in the Hebrew Language Academy of Brooklyn, marvels at the “tremendous diversity” in her school, where just under half of the enrolled students are not Jewish. Meanwhile, Rabbi Paul Plotkin of Margate, Florida urges leaders to embrace this opportunity raise a “Jewishly literate generation.” (He’s also convinced that aging schuls can make a killing by renting out unused Hebrew school space to charter schools.) Elaine Cohen weighed in last, expressing concern that these schools will not provide the “deep Jewish experiences” of a day school environment.

While I encourage you to read for yourself and comment on this page, I have three immediate responses.

First, the power of day schools is their ability to create immersive environments where Jewish children will have formative experiences in a space that affirms their identity and values. To imagine that Hebrew alone will sustain Jewish continuity is far off-target.

Second, if we are willing to countenance the argument that public funds should be devoted to building Hebrew language academies, then it should be a foregone conclusion that public funds must be available to fully underwrite the cost of general studies instruction in our day schools.

Finally, I take issue with Rabbi Plotkin’s notion that charter schools represent a positive opportunity for non-Orthodox congregations. This community desperately needs a lay leadership that is textually grounded and immersed in serious Jewish learning. The next generation of liberal Jewish leaders will not get their start in the secular Hebrew language academies of Brooklyn and Margate. They will only emerge when community leaders collectively and consistently stand up for day schools as the best and most effective vehicle for developing a strong and coherent Jewish identity.

Please use the comment link, below, and add your voice to the discussion.

The Race Towards Excellence Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

2010-11-04T16:17:00.000-05:00

I have yet to discover a school that does not invoke the language of “excellence” in its viewbook, its annual report or its web site. The claims quickly strain credulity. What does excellence really mean? How does one distinguish between real excellence and mere gimmicks? Within the last two decades, the debate around educational improvement has focused on technology, specific teaching methods and small class size as potential lynchpins in the quest for educational quality. While each approach has its merits, none of them independently has the capacity to create the kind of “excellent” schools that our children will need to make their way in the 21st Century.

Just what would a school for the current era look like? And how might we build it?

Creating excellence is not simple. Educational leaders who truly seek it face a “marathon,” a lengthy and detailed process of school improvement, and not the quick fix of a “sprint.” Those who have the courage to run that marathon should work to build schools that feature exemplary governance, thoughtful educational design and a focus on authentic learning outcomes, all within the frame of a school that takes ownership of a clear and compelling moral purpose. (continued...)

To read the rest of the post, follow this link.

PEJE Session on Affordability

2010-10-23T23:12:00.001-05:00

For those of you who attended my session with David Sharken and Jack Wertheimer on Day School Affordability at the PEJE Assembly and wanted access to the PowerPoint presentation, this link will bring up a copy in PDF format.

For best readability, you will need to download the file onto your computer and then open it with Acrobat. (Use the middle tab on the upper-left hand side of the page where it reads "Download 816KB.")
Your comments and feedback will be much appreciated.

Blogging the PEJE Assembly

2010-10-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

Have a look at the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education web site over the next week. I'm joining ten other lay and professional leaders who will be blogging the 2010 PEJE Assembly for Advancing the Day School Field. A few important posts are already up on the PEJE Blog-- including Yossi Prager's posting regarding government funding for day schools.
My post on vision and technical skills of leadership just went up today. Stay tuned over the next week for input from some very thoughtful colleagues.

Hard Skills, Soft Skills?

2010-10-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

As educational leaders, we should ask ourselves a simple question: How well do we understand the hard skills that guarantee our students a secure and productive future in the coming three decades? It's a question that is at once almost impossible and simple to answer.

What's impossible? Knowing what skills will be in demand over the next three decades. Jonathan Bein, a brilliant computer programmer (and now marketing consultant) in Boulder, Colorado once quipped to me that "the technology shifts about 20% each year. I got my Ph.D. only five years ago, so as of this year, I'm officially stupid...I need to re-learn the whole field." Jonathan was just about to sell his first of three business at that time, so he must have known something. Possibly something simple.

Jonathan's simple lesson was that there is really only one skill worth having, namely, the ability to adapt and acquire new talents. We could do a tremendous service to our students by giving serious attention to a curriculum that develops the habits of mind needed to learn, innovate and adapt to change. In place of recalling information, we should encourage asking questions and drawing inferences. Instead of solving equations, students should be challenged to demonstrate logical relationships. Rather than present, students should be graded on their ability to collaborate, to communicate and to persuade.

If you are interested in one model of excellence for schooling, then have a look at the work that Amir Abo-Shaeer is doing in California. Abo-Shaeer is a physics teacher who created a four year engineering program in his public high school, the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy. His students get hands-on experience building machines that swim, navigate obstacles and interact with the world around them. While the technology they employ is cutting edge, it will one day become obsolete. That's OK. What remains are the true lessons that an engineering curriculum delivers: How to work as a team. How to define complex problems. How to think outside the original frame of a question. How to identify and acquire new skills. As we have all come to learn, this last talent is possibly the most critical of all. The MacArthur Foundation recently recognized Abo-Shaeer for his work with a 2010 Genuis grant.

As we build our academic programs, we should recognize his genius as well.

Lessons in P & A from Parochial Schools

2010-09-21T18:59:00.000-05:00

The first time I met with the Planning and Allocations Committee of our local Jewish Federation, they asked me if I had any input for how they worked. I did. "We appreciate the funding," I assured them, "but what about your planning role? Our community has more schools competing for fewer students than a decade ago. This is not sustainable. Aside from setting allocation levels for the coming year, how will you help us restructure the landscape?" In short, whatever happened to the "P" in P&A?

An article in today's New York Times (Cutbacks Part of Plan to Save Parochial Schools) reminds us of how important the communal planning feature is, and how it can and must drive allocations decisions. The Times reports that New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan is strategically closing schools to reduce overheads and centralize the provision of educational services. At the same time, he is diversifying funding arrangements. In the past, each individual parish supported its own local school. Archbishop Dolan's plan is for all 2.5 million "churchgoing Catholics" in the Diocese of New York to share responsibility for funding the education of its roughly 56,000 grade school (K-6) children.

Within the Jewish community, we should be watching this model very carefully to see what happens. Will schools with different cultures compact and enrollment stabilize? Will areas with differential access to wealth really share their resources? Could the American Jewish community accomplish roughly the same feat for our nearly 230,000 day school students? If so, it would certainly require a high degree of centralized planning, appropriate processes for redefining institutional structures and the capacity to distribute resources across multiple schools in a way that aligns with a broader national view of the role of day school education in supporting our Jewish future.

While it's much too early to determine whether Archbishop Dolan's plan will achieve its goals, he certainly has succeeded in an area where we, the Jewish community, have so far failed: He has brought big picture thinking, a clear vision and rational financial models to bear on a larger system of religiously affiliated schools. Far from "parochial," Dolan has put the "P" of planning back into Catholic "P & A."

So should we.

Early to Market, or Just in Time?

2010-09-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

Last month, our son received an invitation to visit List College in NYC as a prospective student. No surprise that our high-school age son should receive recruiting material from colleges...except for one small fact: He just started ninth grade this year!

Overkill? Not really.

David went to Camp Ramah this summer, attended a Schechter school through eighth grade and his parents are members of three synagogues. There are at least five ways that List could have gotten his contact information--as well they should. After all, our son sits smack in the middle of the sweet spot of the demographic that List should be cultivating: Serious, identified Jews who will be going to college in the next few years. Best of all, List is the first college to reach our son. Their brochure sat on the kitchen table for two weeks, where it sat next to his cereal bowl each day at breakfast. Good job, Shuly.

Those of you who read my earlier post on day school marketing (Is your school late to market?) might well say that List College got to our son just in time.

In my role as Head of School and oft-times "Marketer in Chief," I have begun to practice what I preach. We now send the families of newborn children a certificate wishing them mazal tov...and offering a $1,000 discount on their Gan year of Schechter. Our recruiting program will soon launch for the coming year, and we are targeting the parents of three year olds. Why? We've found that as of early fall, the parents of four year olds have largely made up their minds about kindergarten. We're still running a high-energy open house, but our most important efforts will go into cultivating the interest of families who are just beginning to think about where their children will go to school.

Last week, I invited an expecting mother to come tour Schechter. A little nuts? Not really. She works in the Jewish community, has friends with children. Oh, and her husband is a realtor. "Wow" was her response, "you're the first person who has even thought about where we'll send our child to kindergarten."

Perhaps I got there just in time.

Pedagogy, process and empowerment

2010-08-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

We gathered yesterday for our back to school night, which my school holds two days before the start of the academic year. In the past, the evening has been a “frontal” affair. We welcomed families, applauded the teachers and reminded parents to contribute to the annual fund before sending them to classrooms. This year was different. A lot different.

Our focus for the year is “excellence in educating the whole child.” It’s not just a slogan. We have identified five areas where we have begun to develop benchmarks for excellence. These include a high quality of classroom teaching practice, good communications, effectiveness in meeting the needs of diverse learners, measurable outcomes of authentic achievement and demonstrable achievements in learning social skills. During our back to school night, we spent a valuable evening developing benchmarks around these goals, in active collaboration with faculty and parents.

Having already guided our faculty through one exercise (see my earlier post: How I Got Daniel Pink…), I tried something that felt revolutionary and even a bit frightening. In place of our usual, frontal presentation, we divided the entire parent body into small break-out groups. Each group was assigned a specific topic, for example, “If a child has learned the social and developmental skills that we think are essential, what will that child’s behavior and interactions look like?” Teams of two faculty members led each group, and parents received clear directions. “Tell us what getting it right in this area looks like.” I cautioned parents not to waste time discussing what doesn’t work—and promised that our faculty group leaders would redirect them if they went into negative turf. Finally, group leaders held pink sheets to record comments that were valuable, but off topic, so that we could honor this parent input…but keep ourselves focused.

Once we sent our full parent body into their break-out groups, chit-chat and side conversations faded. Faculty and parents gathered in circles, heads hunched together. As I circled the room, I heard parents speak passionately about knowledge that went deeper than rote learning. Their yearning for more focus on group-building and social skills. Their desire to see portfolios and authentic problem solving instead of numerical test results at the end of a year. The room echoed with good ideas…many that we had been afraid to try for fear that parents or staff would not support them. How wrong we were!

After the breakout sessions, several parents approached me to describe their sense of excitement. They felt activated, listened to and engaged. The ideas we had discussed were inspiring to them. They were ready for our program try new things. Then the real surprise: At the end of the evening, one of my most seasoned, veteran teachers approached me to say “thank you for empowering us to moderate the conversation and speak from our own expertise.” In one fell swoop, the two most important constituencies of my school had bought in to a dialogue that included their input.

Within the next few weeks our snapshots of “getting it right” will translate into a set of rubrics, and by October we will begin the hard work of assessing our own professional and institutional practice. While there is more work left to be done, I am personally impressed at several things. First, I am delighted at the level of sophistication that our parents bring to their thinking about education. We have good partners in our parent body, and have so far demonstrated that we can make the school stronger by listening to them. Second, our faculty feels that they can trust this process of goal setting, since they have been integral partners in it from the outset. Last, I am personally thrilled to see good procedural thought translate into real success in practice.

In the launch phase of an important school improvement initiative, we seem to have gotten several crucial things right. We gave significant responsibility to our key stakeholders at the same time as we vested leadership authority in the faculty. We opened a broad conversation from the bottom up. We created safety for all participants by conducting a dialogue in accordance with well defined ground rules. Ultimately, we took a major step towards diffusing ongoing and ill defined parental concerns about the quality of our program by engaging the issue head-on. And we avoided making our faculty defensive by focusing the conversation on institutional practices…not people.

While it will take several more months to discover how effective this benchmarking process will be in raising the quality of my school's program, we have already built deeper bonds of trust and burnished the prestige of our faculty…simply by virtue of our willingness to listen attentively. Today, in the school parking lot, I bumped into one of my most demanding parents with a smile on her face. “It feels like there is a whole new energy to the faculty,” she noted. Indeed, there is.

For a snapshot of the rubric which framed our discussion, follow this link.

Staffing, 2.0

2010-08-15T01:57:00.000-05:00

Among all the concerns that I face as a head of school, one that recurs with the greatest persistance is the challenge of staffing. In addition to the obvious (picking the right people), there is the larger issue of structuring staffing in a way that best meets the needs of my school. Increasingly, I have come to appreciate the importance of overall structure and role definition in getting this mix just right.

Over the last few months, our work in the strategic planning process revealed some important gaps in functionality. We had a robust structure for general and academic administration, but lacked focused expertise in marketing. At the same time, our admissions office needed to add capacity in the area of recruiting. We needed more staff hours to ensure that each prospective parent experienced multiple "touches" by professional staff and parent volunteers alike as they moved through the recruiting and admissions trajectory. The way that we responded to both of these challenges was somewhat out of the box, but offers examples that small (250 students or less) and even medium sized schools should consider.

I'll start with recruiting. I began by tightly conceiving the core functions of this position. Our recruiting associate would staff a volunteer committee that was responsibe for identifying prospective families and connecting them with peers who enroll children at my school. The recruiting associate would maintain a presence at community events and run in-house programs like our open house. Once I framed this role as a quarter time position, I decided not to piggy-back these duties onto any existing staff positions. Our present staff already had their time divided between multiple and competing priorities, and we felt that aggregating these responsibilities into a larger, existing role risked compromising our effectiveness in a crucial area. Still who wants to apply for one quarter of a job? While this position will post in the coming week as a stand-alone .25 FTE, I have also explored some creative vehicles. Looking out into our local community, I found that several agencies had part-time staff who might be a good fit. I have also opened a conversation with our local Federation about merging this role into the job description of a Federation-based outreach and engagement associate. Same demographic, same skill set...so we offered a defined financial contribution to increment the Federation position to a full time role, including health benefits.

In the area of marketing, the decision was much simpler. We knew that a full-time marketing strategist was a luxury that we simply could not afford, even as we remained aware of how critical these skills were to the school. Rather than looking at a position description, I developed a time-line of actionable goals that our school needed to execute, like updating our web page, developing new printed materials and (most important) defining a strategy for increasing the impact of viral marketing and word of mouth referrals. Once I understood the true objectives that our school needed to achieve in this area, it became clear that we didn't need another employee at all. What we did need was a great consultant who could fine-tune existing materials and kick-start the development of a small number of new structures. This person would need to invest a large amount of time from late summer through winter, but much less as we moved into spring. Those objectives turned into an RFP and eventually a short-term consulting contract that included a flexible allocation of hours and a clear definition of deliverables.

While I am approaching our staffing needs in the areas of marketing and recruiting in two very different ways, both began with a ground-up approach to my school's human resource challenges. A clear, functional view of goals helped me to define an appropriate vehicle for meeting the schools needs without taking other professionals off focus or over-investing in a level of staffing that I did not truly require. Whether it be an out-source arrangement like the one that I developed for our marketing needs, a tightly defined, part-time position or even a position-share with another agency, all of these strategies are tools that school leaders should consider as they work to maximize their organization's success.

How I Got Daniel Pink to Speak for Staff Orientation

2010-08-02T23:11:00.001-05:00

OK, for starters I should set the record straight: I did not secure a huge gift to cover Pink's honorarium. Nor did I discover the "magic ask" that would entice him to help me train my staff pro bono. It's actually much better than that.

Over the summer, I have been catching up on books that will enrich me professionally in areas like marketing, pedagogy and finally, books with big ideas. Pink's A Whole New Mind was on my list, and proved for more useful than some of the "practical titles" (like Facebook Marketing in Thirty Days).

For those just connecting with Pink, he argues that such left brained, technical skills as calculation and memorization will become less important as information is more accessible. In the marketplace, creativity increasingly distinguishes products which are valuable...as opposed to merely useful. (Hint--the big payoffs are in the value department!) In the coming decades, it will be easy to find engineers, lawyers or accountants, but difficult to find people who can collaborate effectively, energize communities via compelling stories or design objects that are artistic as well as functional. People who can work in teams, inspire others or create beauty will be the success stories and captains of industry in the coming era, which Pink declares to be the era of right-brained thinking.

Pink's discussion of design left a powerful impression. Briefly, he suggests that in a marketplace where functional objects can be produced easily and cheaply, new products will have to inspire us with their form, their balance...their soul. Utility and cost won't motivate us as much as the characteristic that Pink describes as "design." Most importantly, Pink reminded readers that good design in experiences was just as critical as objects. Experiences should be coherent, have a logical flow and should leave participants feeling energized.

As a Head of School, I spend most of my time invested in the creation of experiences. But how did those experiences rate for the quality of their design? My draft schedule for faculty orientation and in-service week soon became exhibit "A." How well was it designed? Looking past the schedules and time charts, I gave my left brain a brief furlough, and I took Pink's dicta to heart. How well did the experience flow? Was it elegant? Would it leave my teachers inspired...empowered...or merely tired? A few changes were in order. First, I added a barbecue at my home. The coming year would be full of work. Even before the work began, it was a good idea to say "Thank you," and "I appreciate your efforts." From there I got bolder.

A core target of my school's new strategic plan was the objective of increasing both academic quality and perceptions thereof. My own, personal objective for our faculty was to move them slowly away from a pedagogic style that had become overly frontal and mimetic. The majority of my staff are veteran teachers with superb instincts and a real desire to continue their professional growth. They can definitely succeed in making this shift. During the coming year, we will work from rubrics that will allow faculty themselves to rate the quality of their teaching based upon a number of standards... And here is where Pink came knocking.

I had planned to begin our faculty week with the first of several sessions devoted to "New thinking in teaching and learning." (Read: The head of school preaches about which latest, greatest trend we will chase this year). I had articles selected, reading assignments and homework ready to assign. But then Pink tapped me on the shoulder and asked "If your ideal is constructivism, then why preach? Let faculty discover things on their own. How can you structure a learning experience that will bring them along?"

So here is what we are doing instead, now that I've re-written our plans. Our opening session will ask that faculty divide into groups, with the task of describing educational practices and student outcomes that show evidence of excellence. It will not be until the second day of staff training week that I hand out articles from the Harvard Education Letter about group work, Brooks on the constructivist classroom and, ultimately, a chapter of Pink's book. With Dewey in mind, as well, I will let the hands-on experience of group work come before any theoretical discussion of how to manage a project-based classroom or individualize assignments based upon student interests. By the time we get to theory, my faculty will have discussed the pros and cons of how to make instruction better on their own. And before the first classroom assessment rubric is set to draft, faculty members will have gained ownership of our larger press towards higher levels of quality. After all, they are the ones who are going to write the rubrics--not me.

So here is how Pink came to speak during faculty week. From the very outset, he reminded me that the soft skills of collaboration are on par with technical expertise. That elegant outcomes deserve artistic solutions. And that knowledge, without being activated within human networks, is all but useless.

OK, I confess, I still wouldn't pass up on the opportunity to have Pink speak with us in person. At the same time, I believe that a room filled with the sound of teachers arguing, discussing and collaborating will ultimately serve us better than a space in which the same faculty merely listen.

What Were You Thinking?

2010-07-23T13:42:00.000-05:00

Consulting, collaboration, and the value of difficult questions.

As a recipient of an Avi-Chai Foundation day school collaboration grant, my school in St. Louis has been working through the complexities of how we collaborate with another local day school to raise the level of quality in our program and supporting services while simultaneously managing expenses.

After what seems like a very long process, we just reached a positive new step by securing an extremely favorable licensing agreement for a donor relations and school management suite which will meet the shared needs of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Saint Louis in partnership with the Saul Mirowitz Day School-Reform Jewish Academy.

My day ends with an email from Avi-Chai, authorizing the release of funds to cover our implementation costs. Getting here was not an easy task. For details of some of the missteps we have made and lessons learned, please see my post on the Avi Chai Day School Cost Savings blog.

New Thinking on the Day School Affordability Crisis

2010-07-02T00:17:00.000-05:00

The crisis
There is little doubt that Jewish day school education in America is at a crossroads. Despite the most recent census, which shows continued expansion of day school enrollment overall, it is clear that this trend is limited to the most right-wing Orthodox schools. Non-Orthodox schools enrolled 38,572 students in 2009, roughly 2.6% fewer than the high-water mark of 2004, and anecdotal reports from the directors of both Solomon Schechter and Community day schools point to even further contraction in 2010-11. While the overwhelming majority of families affiliated with these schools remain committed to Jewish day school education, a small but important group of parents increasingly feel themselves to be priced out of the day school market as tuition climbs into the high teens and low twenty thousands of dollars...for Kindergarten. In the Orthodox community, the notion of an “affordability crisis” has become an accepted fact. For the first time in two decades, Jews across all denominations share a palpable sense that we are in crisis, with some sectors poised to dis-invest from day school education while others continue to buy in, but wonder how long their institutions will remain viable. Before exploring new approaches to this challenge, we’d like to share a few anecdotes that highlight the depth and breadth of this crisis in a very personal way.

A question of values
Our collaboration began when Elena wrote a piece for the Wexner Foundation’s weekly newsletter detailing how the day school crisis had impacted her family. Elena, her husband and three children were living in the suburbs of New York City. Despite the combined incomes of two working professionals, both of them physicians, the cost of day school education became so prohibitive that they uprooted their family, left busy practices, and relocated to a more affordable community in Colorado so that they could continue sending all three of their children to day school for the foreseeable future. Allen, the Head of School of a Solomon Schechter Day School, reached out to see what he and Elena could learn from each other.

Our conversation went on to include other equally compelling anecdotes. At Allen’s midwestern Schechter, the day after the coming school year’s financial aid award letters went out, he sat down with a parent in tears over her family’s inability to make their household budget work to include day school. There were no expenses left to cut, and the family began to consider the previously unthinkable option of pulling their kids out of school.

At a bar mitzvah in New Jersey, a conversation with a twenty-something day school alumna went something like this: Alumna: “I had such a marvelous experience in day school -- it really shaped my life and my Jewish identity.” Rabbi: “Wonderful, you must be being planning to send your children there.” Alumna: (heavy sigh) “Well, unfortunately, it’s hard to say if we’ll be able to afford it when the time comes.”

There are so many more stories. We know other parents who have had to choose among their children because they can’t send them all to day school. Others chose a “cut-off” point and made plans for when they would have to pull their kids out. It goes without saying that there is often extensive personal sacrifice -- limited vacations, smaller homes, longer work hours. No matter how high the level of parental commitment to the concept of day school, at some point it becomes easy to ask oneself “Is it really worth all this?”

We propose that the answer is a resounding “YES!” However, the entire Jewish community, including but not limited to educators, synagogues and parents, needs to address the issue in a comprehensive and creative way. We need not only revisit older ideas like increased Federation and national funding, endowments and (yes) advocating for public subsides. We also need new ideas to help parents give their children a strong Jewish education, and propose strategies that may even make us all a little uncomfortable.

Bail faster
We consulted with two national experts in the field of Jewish education. Was there a better approach to day school affordability, some silver bullet that had worked in one community and might be adapted to ours? Dr. Jack Wertheimer, a professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Dr. Jonathan Woocher, the Chief Ideas Officer of JESNA, were both generous with their time. Both left us with the impression that we are still early in the process of moving from strategies to implementation. Dr. Wertheimer argued strongly for the contribution of public funds to Jewish day schools. Dr. Woocher suggested that a multi-pronged approach, including significant fundraising, would be needed.

On the ground, the most prevalent response to the day school affordability crisis boils down to a single idea: raise more-spend less. Some communities, such as Chicago, have embraced legacy initiatives like the Operation Jewish Education campaign to designate five percent of every Jewish estate for education. Others, like Detroit and Boston, have seen important mega-gifts by a small number of philanthropists, while Metro-West has built a fund to provide scholarships for middle-class families. In the foundation world, the Legacy Heritage Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation have targeted impressive sums to meeting families’ emergency needs for a limited amount of time. While these initiatives are impressive, even if they were replicated across the country they still might not address the underlying dynamics of the day school affordability crisis. Short term responses simply don't reduce the fixed overheads of day schools or change the macro-economic reality that many families have lost ground financially and cannot shoulder the burden of a thirteen year commitment to day school education. Adding more money helps, but it is akin to the captain of a leaky boat commanding his crew to “bail faster.” The reality is that even after raising a tremendous number of dollars, our system is still precarious. Bailing faster will help, but it might not stave off the inevitable need to change boats.

In search of a better model
The current day school system must change in order to survive. Some ideas, like the experiment with less expensive, no-frills yeshivot in the New York area, are valuable but have limited appeal outside the Orthodox community. Others, like the growing interest in school mergers or the back-office partnerships that the Avi-Chai Foundation has piloted, can save overhead costs but will never change the fundamental reality that high-quality independent schools are expensive to run and will likely continue charging tuition in the teens to twenties of thousands of dollars. Is there another way to go? We think so.

Our proposal borrows a page from the curricular notion of “backwards-mapping” by envisioning what outcomes we want our children to achieve and planning in reverse towards the beginning of their educational experience. We identify four crucial goals for Jewish education: 1) identity development and religious formation; 2) skill building in the language of Jewish text; 3) social and interpersonal development within a Jewish framework; and 4) the development of methods and habits of mind for thinking critically about Jewish tradition. We also assume a gradual shift of emphasis along a developmental trajectory, so that from early childhood to teenage years, children move from identity formation to skill building and finally arrive at a point of intellectual synthesis.

At the risk of telescoping a long and nuanced discussion into just a few sentences, we would like to imagine the following: If families have a limited budget to devote to Jewish day school education, they should spend it all during the middle and high school years. This is the developmental period when social issues like dating and relationships take center stage, but also a period in which students are most prepared for serious and thoughtful intellectual discussions. Our ideal school would also provide a solid grounding in the skills of Hebrew language and ritual leadership that have stood at the core of Jewish cultural and textual literacy for millennia. Instead of watching families invest in a day school education that tapers off after five or six years of primary education, we ask the larger community to imagine what our Jewish future could look life if we invested in the most complex, challenging and formative years of a young person’s life during grades Six through Twelve.

That leads us to one additional question: What to do for our children from grades Kindergarten through Five? Recognizing that great leaps forward sometimes demand looking backward, we ask what has become of the Talmud Torah that Samson Benderly once promoted with such passion during the early 20th century. We imagine the return of a learning space that would serve children on weekdays, four days a week. Tuition would be set at several thousands of dollars, a sufficient level to provide outstanding staffing and materials. A foundational and ongoing commitment to Hebrew language from Pre-Kindergarten on, combined with a curriculum that balanced experiential learning with serious and skill-centered textual instruction would offer students an ideal space to answer three questions. 1) What is unique about my identity? 2) What language, rituals and behavioral norms define me? 3) What knowledge and skills must I posses in order to demonstrate my belonging to a community? While we don’t (yet) endorse a specific, existing framework, the Boston based Kesher program is worth exploring as a starting point for discussion. We think that a network of high quality afternoon programs which fed students into Jewish day school for grades Six through Twelve might consume fewer dollars while simultaneously expanding access to the highest quality Jewish education at precisely the time when it will make the most lasting difference.

Would this paradigm require a change in the way elementary school parents think? Absolutely. There certainly would be sacrifices, particularly in structuring children’s afterschool activities. There is no question, however, that any solution to this growing problem will require a shift in our priorities and life patterns.

No Silver Bullets
At this point, a few caveats are certainly in order. First, we both are loyal supporters of Jewish day schools. One of us is the director of a K through 8 school who changed careers to enter the day school headship, while the other is a savvy community leader who has made important sacrifices to send her children to Jewish day school from grades K through 12. Neither of us wants to see day school enrollment decline, but we are both well aware that this phenomenon is already under way and escalating in parts of our community. As much as we want to see the current day school strengthened and expanded, , we want even more to know that the coming generation of Jews will receive a serious and impactful Jewish education in whatever venues best serve their needs. We feel that the ground is shifting under our feet, and urge our community to get out in front of the change by creating new models that will complement or even reinvent, but not replace, day schools.

Add your voice
Ultimately, we hope that this paper will stimulate discussion and debate about how the Jewish community should invest its time, effort and dollars. We believe more than ever that citizenship in the modern world requires a high quality Jewish education for all children, for as many years as we can provide. We invite others to comment, to think aloud and ultimately to join us in tracing the next steps that our community should take.

We have set up a web-link to record feedback on this essay. Your input, guidance and critique are all welcomed. To respond, open this link.

Background
Allen Selis received his rabbinic ordination and an MA in Jewish studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1994. He served as a rabbinic leader for congregations in Boulder, CO and Rockville, MD. Allen has led the Solomon Schechter Day School of St. Louis as Head of School since the fall of 2007, and recently completed a Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory and Development through the University of Maryland’s School of Education Policy Studies. You may reach him directly at aselis@ssdsstl.org.

Elena Weinstein is a Wexner Heritage alumna from Westchester, NY. Elena is a board certified rheumatologist in private practice in Littleton, Colorado. She has served in a variety of Jewish leadership positions, including those dedicated to furthering the cause of affordable Jewish day school education and is currently on the development committee at Denver Jewish Day School in Denver, Colorado. Elena can be reached at elenajonw@hotmail.com.

What makes a day school inclusive?

2010-02-15T13:39:00.000-06:00

Among the most important values that define my school, inclusiveness ranks among the top. I am proud that we have a diversity of races, ethnic origins and economic backgrounds. In many ways, my school is much more diverse than any other Jewish day school in which I have worked. In addition to all of this diversity, we also welcome a tremendous breadth of religious identities under one roof. We include students from Reform and Orthodox households alongside our base in the Conservative Movement. Just how does that diversity work? Yesterday, I (literally) got a taste.

As a reward to our fifth grade class for some of their achievements over the last month, I offered them a hot dog barbeque. (Yes, I cooked!) As we sat down to eat, one student came to me with a question “I just had milk chocolate as part of my snack. May I still eat a hot dog?” What followed was a great conversation.

Even before we discussed the traditional practice (most people will eat meat after a diary snack, but wait anywhere from one to six hours after a meat meal before having dairy), we had a more important conversation about keeping Kosher. Some students do. Some students don’t. Some of those who don’t keep kosher avoid certain foods like pork. At the same time, those who do keep kosher do so in a range of very different ways. No two students did exactly the same thing. Our student discussed what the school’s policy should be, and everyone seemed to agree that whether a family does or does not keep Kosher, everyone needed to respect the fact that they made an informed choice.

Finally, our fifth graders agreed that the school made a good decision in its policy for school lunches, school events and birthday parties (don’t forget about them!). They felt that we were a stronger community if we made sure that everyone, from the child who kept kosher to the child who did not, was equally included. To the kids, it made perfect sense.

As adults, it should be equally clear. Attending a Jewish day school is an opportunity to explore Jewish life. Each household has to do this on its own terms. And each person has a unique choice about their Jewish life that only they can make. I personally see that many of our families are on a journey to enrich the level of meaning in their Jewish lives. That’s the whole reason that many of them come to a Jewish day school in the first place. By creating an environment in which we provide knowledge and the confidence to make Jewish decisions that are authentic for each individual family, our school fulfills its mission of strengthening Jewish life in St. Louis.

I see a deep respect for the individual journey of every person as a cornerstone of our institutional commitment to “Excellence, Israel and Tradition.” Our school should be a place where every child and parent comes to discover something deeper about their identity. Yesterday, with charcoal blazing and questions flying, our fifth graders took one further step on that journey. We should be proud of all they have learned.

What Do We Want From Jewish Day Schools?

2010-01-08T09:41:00.000-06:00

Originally Posted Erev Shabbat of Hannukah, 12/18/2009

At present, St. Louis is in the midst of evaluating the role and function of our Jewish Day Schools through the creation of a Federation-based Day School Task Force. This process has posed critical questions about the configuration of the entire sector based upon a detailed examination of our schools’ programs, finances and underlying demographics. It is clear that St. Louis has the capacity to support a well organized network of schools that serve many different constituencies. It is also clear that some important features of our schools must change to enable the day school sector to thrive. The Task Force will be making recommendations to the community in the next few months, and I look forward to receiving their input. In the meantime, I am writing to address an issue that is critical for us as Schechter parents to understand as we communicate with our community’s leadership.

Just what does our community want from Jewish day schools? As a parent, I know that I want my children to become capable and confident adults. I want them to learn critical thinking skills, to appreciate the racial, economic and cultural diversity of our world. I also want my children to become ethical people, who make choices based upon a deep sense of what is right and wrong and who take responsibility for the obligation of tikkun olam. Finally, I want my children to develop a sense of spirituality which will make moments of joy sacred and give them support in times of grief. I want my children’s souls to grow as strong as their brains, perhaps even stronger.

As a communal leader, my answer is very different. I want us to create leaders. In the last several years, social scientists have studied Jewish educational institutions ranging from pre-schools to camps and Israel trips in order to discover which programs do the best job of maintaining Jewish continuity. Continuity is essentially the promise that you will have Jewish grandchildren. We all know that in 21st Century American life, Jewish continuity is not something to take for granted. A range of very powerful forces including the relatively small numbers of Jews and the overwhelming impact of market driven culture pose real challenges to Jewish survival. While this discussion is critical, it misses an important point: Continuity is not enough.

Continuity just means that our team has made it to the field. That’s wonderful—but how will they do in the game? For us to succeed as a Jewish people, to fulfill a destiny that is ancient and compelling, we must start with our belief that the Jewish people has something special to offer the world. We have a keen sense of social justice. We have a commitment to defending the rights of the weakest members of society. We believe that individuals and societies can be more fulfilled when they connect to their spiritual roots by way of study, through worship and by sharing rituals that we inherited from our ancestors. When we realize this potential for engagement, for justice and for spiritual connection, then our people is truly thriving. Any less is just getting by; staying in the game without scoring points. To reach this vision of a vibrant Jewish community, we don’t just need Jews. We need passion. We need values. We need a commitment to hard work. In short, we need leadership.

I believe passionately in our Jewish day schools for the simple reason that they create leaders. Children in our schools can discover that organic farming connects them with Torah. They can see adult role models who pray with spiritual depth and conviction. They can imagine themselves living and working in Israel as they acquire the Hebrew skills to do so. They can also discover that they are fluent in the language of ethical discussion that our ancient Sages left us as a legacy. Children who have grown up with these experiences will certainly become our future leaders. They will be the Temple presidents, the religious school principals, the Rabbis and Cantors…perhaps even the major donors…of our community’s next generation. They will become leaders because they grew up with Hebrew language, Jewish text and Torah values as a daily component of their formative experiences.

As our community and its leaders continue to discuss what “thriving” looks like for the Jewish community of St. Louis, what “sustainability” implies and what “community” really means in the first place, we should make our voices clearly heard as day school parents. In the end, our religious schools, youth groups, college programs and day schools all share the same goal. We want the largest number of Jewish men, women and children to live satisfying lives by maximizing their connections to our community and its values. That only happens when we have passionate leaders who view Jewish values as essential to their being. The leaders of our next generation are sitting in the classrooms of our community’s Jewish day schools today.

As the St. Louis Community’s Day School Task Force moves ahead with its work, I call upon all of our schools to work together in order to maximize their impact. It’s a much more effective and strategically powerful option than dividing and dissipating our energies. Tomorrow, on the final day of Hannukah, we read from the Torah about Moshe’s work of dedicating the sanctuary that he and the people of Israel built in the wilderness. During each step of this ceremony, a representative of one tribe would bring offerings and sacrifices. But at the end of each offering, nothing happened. Finally, at the end of the day, after each tribe of Israel had made its contribution to the sanctuary, Moshe entered and heard the sound of God’s voice speaking. It took the combined energy of an entire community working together to allow Moshe to be effective as a leader—to truly hear God’s voice. As we conclude our celebrations, let us make sure to remind our larger community what it gains from Jewish day schools: A place to train the leaders who will hear new voices and set new agendas for the Jewish people.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Allen Selis

Dear Faculty... What Do We Really Want From Classroom Observation?

2009-11-20T11:45:00.000-06:00

I just sent the following note to my faculty in preparation for classroom visits by our academic administration team. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Dear Faculty,

Lesson Observation Sessions (and I choose my words quite deliberately) will take place during the next two weeks. I will ask our admin team to have brief pre-lesson meetings with you, followed by observations and a post-lesson conference. We've been meeting to discuss upcoming faculty observation, and wanted to share some important notes that frame the entire process.

We know from the educational literature that the act of reflecting on instructional practice is a critical component of sustaining quality instruction. The experience of Dr. Lee Shulman on this topic has become legendary. Shulman is one of the most distinguished thinkers in the realm of teacher training, evaluation and is the creator of a paradigm of thinking known as pedagogical content knowledge-what we would call the “tricks of the trade” that are unique to teaching varying subject areas. After years of outstanding work, Shulman was awarded tenure at Stanford, arguably one of the best universities in the world. Shulman refused to accept tenure, and sent a note to the chancellor of the university declaring that he would never serve an institution that refused to evaluate and help him think critically about the quality of his own work on an ongoing basis. The discussion ended with a compromise. Shulman would accept tenure if Stanford would create a panel of advisors to evaluate his work.

In elementary and middle schools, I have been dismayed to see evaluation poorly deployed and therefore undervalued. When I used to speak with fellow teachers who worked in public schools, they described unhelpful policies in which supervisors entered their classrooms (often arriving late enough to miss the “best” part of the lesson) armed with check lists and seeking such banal accomplishments as “objective is clearly written on the board” or “teacher is covering curriculum at an acceptable pace.” These are worthless evaluations and bring no sense of improvement or added value to the learning process. Worse, they contribute to a trend that my PhD advisor, Dr. Steven Selden, describes as the “de-skilling” of the teaching profession. What is really needed?

At root, evaluation and assessment of classroom instruction can help schools the most when it focuses on the formative aspects of assessment. Trying new ideas. Reviewing how one’s approach is working. Sharing technique and perspective with another individual. This happens to reflect my own ideal of how a community of educators should work together.

In meeting and speaking with the administrative team, I have asked them to create a process that will allow us to maximize our opportunities to reflect on practice, while preserving reasonable oversight of the classroom. I asked members of our administrative team to use the following process:

Set dates for classroom visits.
Schedule a conversation with you to understand the goals of your lesson prior to visiting.
While visiting, take open notes about the lesson.
Follow up by sharing those notes with you and engage in open reflection about the lesson.

This is not a summative evaluation. Our desire is for us to have a chance to speak about teaching and learning, while giving the administrative team a better sense of what work you are doing, what techniques you are using and what future objectives you set for yourself. I feel that this approach is in line with the best practices in the field of education, and offers maximum benefits both to you as a faculty and us a learning community.

Best,

Rabbi Selis

Sometimes You Have to Get it Wrong

2009-06-24T18:01:00.000-05:00

Why a leader should never be afraid to do these three things: Face up. Fess up. Fix up.

Originally published August 13, 2008

In the summer of 2007, I assumed the headship of a Jewish day school in St. Louis. I spent that summer working nearly around the clock—scheduling, connecting with donors, clearing up problems in the school administration. Meanwhile, some of my most important constituents were huddled in strategy sessions. By the poolside, parents speculated about how this year would turn out…how this headmaster would turn out…and ultimately, how the school would fare. It was a tall order for me to fill, given that some things had not run smoothly in the past. With no track record of my own, how would I inspire confidence and win the trust of my school community?
As the school year began, I decided that each and every day I would stand in the carpool lane at dismissal time—rain or shine. The first day of dismissal, I put a smile on my face, walked outside and chatted my way down a line of cars. I had many wonderful conversations that helped me get to know my school community better. But I also heard a lot of complaints. Some of the issues were old, maybe even long gone…but not to my parents. Others related to scheduling decisions that were made months before I signed my contract. What was I to do?

One day, I spoke to a parent in the carpool lane, upset almost to tears about an incident which took place years prior. On an inspired whim, I decided that I would get it wrong.

With a sense of calm and assurance in my voice, I looked back and said, “It sounds like the school made a huge mistake on this one. I’m so sorry it happened. Would you come into the office so we can talk?”
Both of us were a bit shocked…I had just blown my line. Mom was supposed to be upset. I was supposed to get defensive. Then she was supposed to get angry…at the school, and at me.

But suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t on the line. The school had made a mistake, one which I could never fix. All that I could do was communicate honestly. It was so easy! After all, I wasn’t even there at the time. Mom and I met the next day. She left my office in tears, thanking me for listening, and for caring about her family. She has become a wonderful ally of mine, and remains a true supporter of the school.

As the weeks went on, I embraced this position. If something wasn’t right, I gave my honest opinion. When parents brought me complaints, I smiled and said, “That’s really important for me to know. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to fix this.” In past years, the parking lot had served as the unofficial grape-vine of the school, where rumors were spread and discontents were fomented. One month into the year, another parent came to me and said, “Rabbi, something is strange…no one is complaining in the carpool lane!”

I have come to believe that when individuals approach leaders with complaints, they want three things, two of which are critical.

First, they want to be heard. If people take us at our word on the nature of our organizations, then joining one is like becoming part of a family. If they are not treated well, they suddenly question whether they truly belong now…sometimes whether they ever belonged. It is important to listen. When someone complains, that’s a good sign. It is a statement that “I still care about my connection to the school.” People who don’t care walk away. That’s why I love complaints, because the bearers of complaints are (mostly) looking to restore the quality of their connection with my organization. Even better, they are helping me find problems that I can fix, assuring that others don’t fall into the same pitfalls. So I always listen to complaints. Sometimes, it’s actually the listening part that people want most.

Second, people want leaders to take responsibility. They want to know that some sense of larger values guides the organization. If you are a leader, at any level, you constantly have an opportunity to affirm your organization’s values. But that only happens when leaders own up to this role. By taking responsibility, we assure people that the school has a real face, and behind that face, a conscience. As long as people still know that you are willing to represent the larger values that justify your existence, then they will stick with you…even if you have just made a mistake. When leaders have the guts to take responsibility, the question of an individual decision fades. Your dedication to core values comes to the fore.

Lastly, people do want you to get it right. When it is possible to fix problems rapidly, do it. One parent spoke to me at back to school night last year, frustrated that her address had not been updated in our roster. I looked her straight in the face and said, “That’s totally unacceptable. This will be fixed by 8:00 tomorrow morning.” At 7:59 the next day, I reached her sitting down to work. “Problem solved.” I had another ally. Sometimes it’s not so simple, and I have seen my share of errors that could not be fixed. But I rarely find a case where the school can do nothing. If you care enough about your parent, your donor, your client… you’ll find something to do. So find it. And do it.

I won’t claim that the year went perfectly. It had its ups and downs. But something important had changed regarding how people viewed the school. While we managed to repair some real and valid operational problems, the change in organizational climate was the bigger victory. We began to give the message that our parents mattered more than our pride, that a strong core of values guided us, and that we cared about relationships within our community.

For a school that spent the first month of the year “getting it wrong” we had gotten a tremendous amount right.

Rabbi Allen Selis,
Head of School
The Solomon Schechter Day School of St. Louis

Is Your School Late to Market?

2009-06-24T17:56:00.000-05:00

Originally Posted on June 30, 2008

Several years ago, when I served as part of the administrative team of a large day school on the east coast, our entire middle school team was called to meet with the head of school. We received a list of fifth grade families, and the charge to make personal phone calls to each and every household before the end of November, in advance of our middle school open house. Our task was to begin selling elementary school families on the merits of our middle school, so that we could retain as many of these children as possible. We hit the phones, initiating lovely conversations…and perhaps even leaving a few well placed voice messages. Open house came. Open house went. In the end, it seemed as if the hours of “personal touch” we had invested had not done much good. It hadn’t. We were late to market.

I now know that we weren’t alone. In fact, many schools seem to share this dynamic—they create wonderful programs and compelling admissions materials, but get their message out too late to fully capture the attention of the families they seek to attract.

Another story-
Earlier this year (and now working as a sitting head of school), I got a call from a dedicated board member and the parent of a child in my school’s third grade. He was an avid supporter of our middle school program. And he was concerned. “Allen, my son’s friends are already making their decisions about middle school. Some of them are picking soccer and little league teams so that their kids will have friends when they leave Schechter at the end of fifth grade. What are we doing about this?”

My board member’s question is one that should provoke serious thinking among day school professionals. There is a growing and welcome knowledge base of expertise within the day school community on how we might reach out to prospective parents and what strategies can help control attrition. (See the PEJE website’s knowledge base, in general and Rheua Stakely’s articles on preventing attrition, in particular.) Still, I find that the question of timing is sometimes overlooked. I have seen many schools begin recruiting prospective middle school students at the start of their fifth grade years, or Kindergarten applicants from the “fours” classes of the local preschools. In each of these cases, the recruiting effort is too late.

Even if families have not made a decision about where their children will attend school, it seems that by the Fall of the year prior to Kindergarten, most households have dramatically limited their choices to a small number of options. Internal profiling at my school revealed that a significant proportion of parents who came to Schechter knew that they would do so even before they had kids. A larger number enrolled because friends, rabbis or pre-school cohort groups collectively encouraged them to look at our school. Our information (still highly anecdotal) suggests that two years prior to the start of Kindergarten is a critical time to reach parents who might consider our school. For middle school decision-making, the effective window of influence seems to begin closing at the start of fourth grade. (It is reasonable to extrapolate the same for high school, with the added complication that children’s input takes on even greater prominence in making high school decisions.)

At Schechter in St. Louis, we have recently begun to explore ways in which we can re-tool our admissions outreach process to better match the dynamic of our parent community’s decision making. We secured a generous donation from a supporter of Schechter, with the instructions that the funds must be used to “think out of the box in our marketing.” After some intense back and forth with both the donors’ representative and local institutions, we emerged with a pilot initiative.

As part of this initiative, Schechter is partnering with a local early childhood program to offer enrichment programming in Hebrew for their three year old children. Schechter will pay for materials, and will subsidize the compensation of a staff person from our faculty to work in this partner institution’s preschool several mornings a week. The curriculum we will use spirals from three to six years of age, and is also used in our Kindergarten. By sharing staff and curriculum, we hope to offer two years of experiences that can serve as a bridge to Schechter, where students may continue learning the same material, perhaps even with the same teacher that they have come to know through their early childhood experience.

(For other ideas about building bridges between schools and ECE programs, listen to Cheryl Finkel under this link:)

I don’t believe that our “out of the box” initiative is all that radical. We simply attempted to connect with potential families at the time that they are actually shopping for the services that we provide. To the extent that we had some data about parent decision making, we acted on it by creating a marketing vehicle that would reach families of three year olds—since that is when they appear to start making decisions about Kindergarten. If we waited until later, we surely would have missed the mark—and the market.

My questions for you are as follows:

My school’s strategy is based upon real but limited anecdotal evidence. Do you have more reliable data about how and when parents make enrollment decisions for their children’s education? If yes, kindly forward this to me, and I will gladly share the knowledge. If no, then we should ask ourselves—how valuable is this information, and can we make a compelling case for funding a vehicle that will allow us to gather it?

Shalom u’Veracha to all.
Rabbi Allen Selis
Head of School – SSDS of St. Louis