In the Jewish day school ecosystem, schools can range from a few dozen students to more than a thousand. How does school size impact education, school governance and administration? Articles in this issue address a range of challenges and successes found in small day schools, while looking at the issues large schools face as well.
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This article was adapted from a post that appeared on eJewish Philanthropy.
Forty-two of the 130 schools in the RAVSAK network of Jewish community day schools are considered “small,” enrolling fewer than 100 children. Yet the role they play in the bigger picture of Jewish education is just beginning to be recognized and appreciated.
In small Jewish communities, day schools and federations need to work together fully as partners that strengthen each other. Here are a number of important ways to connect these silos.
While this portrait is adapted from a larger case study project developed for the AVI CHAI Foundation, which focuses on strengthening the Judaic mission of day schools, all articles in this section are studies of day school adaptibility, ingenuity and foresight.
The head of a new school for students with language-based disabilities explains the kinds of conversations, choices and relationships that have informed the school’s vision and formation.
Within a 50 mile radius of my school are a number of other Jewish day schools and some private, independent schools as well. I am discovering that young and talented educators with great potential start their careers in my school, where we nurture and train them, and then accept positions in other schools in the community, when the possibility of career advancement appears.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” Mark Twain
Two leaders of large schools in Canada exchange reminiscences about their careers and thoughts about the components that have enabled them to succeed and their schools to thrive.
Malkus, a new head at one of the largest American day schools, has undertaken an initiative to engage leaders of large schools in a discussion to share challenges and successes. Here are some common threads thusfar.
This section features articles about the challenges facing large schools. In this first piece, the authors describe the administration of the largest RAVSAK member, Cape Town’s Herzlia with 10 campuses.
Raviv portrays the different ways that a school endowment can strengthen a small school. Besides sustainability, endowments can drive educational growth, community building and much more.
The move from one campus to two solves space issues while challenging a school’s sense of unity and intimacy among students and faculty. Greenstein describes changes and innovations her school developed to meet these challenges.
The joy of watching a day school grow comes with a great many challenges that are often unanticipated and difficult to prepare for. Alter offers a roadmap based on his school’s own navigation of this process.
The Jewish community in Quito, Ecuador, has found an original formula for preserving its values in the conception of its day school: combining top-level education for all with a distinctly Jewish secular atmosphere.
The letter C appears to have assumed an especially prominent place in discourse about education today. There is, of course, the Common Core, the latest attempt to define and implement a set of national standards for what students should know and, even more importantly, be able to do with that knowledge, with a strong emphasis on so-called higher order thinking skills. And, there are, in various configurations, the four (or five, or six, or seven) Cs that name critical “21st century learning” skills, items such as creativity, collaboration, curiosity, communication, critical thinking, cross-cultural understanding, and others that have been suggested, seen as vital for students to be able to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
