How many of you walk through your day schools and think, “I wish I could go back to school. I would have loved this environment: the hands-on learning, the singing in English and Hebrew, the community, the holiday celebrations, the art, the soccer games, the Israeli dancing, the projects, the field trips, being in an environment where I am valued, even celebrated, where I make lifelong friends”?

Students are our reason for being. Judaism includes the instruction to teach one’s children in a prayer recited twice daily. Our forefathers declared that a city without a school should be destroyed. For the Jewish people, the transmission of our heritage across the generations is sacred. As educators and leaders of Jewish community day schools, we see the entire Jewish tradition reverberate in the interaction between teacher and student.

Broyde and Bedzow argue for the continued relevance of teaching Halakhah as a core subject in day schools to students of all ages, albeit for novel reasons.

A senior day school administrator encourages schools to design schedules that not only impart a range of content but address student needs with balance and creativity.

Kramer and Lev, pioneers in Jewish project-based learning, describe initiatives in different subject areas that help students integrate Jewish teachings into their lives.

A mother and daughter who both teach in Jewish day schools show how social action can enlist student passion for causes that exemplify their Jewish values.

The author examines the ways that her school’s programs in peer mediation have a powerful influence in developing student responsibility and self-esteem.

RAVSAK’s Hebrew acronym is not well known. The letters (רבסק) stand for: רשת בתי ספר קהילתיים (Reshet Batei Sefer Kehilatiim), meaning the network of Jewish community day schools. That first Hebrew word, reshet, means network. And now the overarching reshet of RAVSAK is creating networks within that greater one, connecting colleagues from multiple schools to facilitate learning from one another, and to further our growth as professionals.

Dickstein, an experienced Jewish studies teacher and administrator, describes a method for using the exploration of challenging biblical stories to cultivate students’ Jewish identity.

Changes in family dynamics are affecting the way students need, and parents expect, schools to attend to them. Levy proposes ways that schools should consider student needs beyond the curriculum.