חזק חזק ונתחזק from strength to strength Vision 2015 for Krieger Schechter Day School
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch This quote conveys the feeling one gets when walking around Krieger Schechter, and it relates to my vision for Krieger Schechter Day School and Jewish day school education in 2014. Now that I have had time to assess where our community is and needs to be, I am ready to work with the leadership team and faculty of the school to inspire us to move forward to be stronger than we have ever been before. Building relationships within the KSDS community has been so important. One of my primary responsibilities is to build trust among all of our constituencies as we move the school into its next exciting chapter. Through my numerous conversations with many of you, I have learned so much. Krieger Schechter has been strong for many years, and that is the foundation on which we need to build. The students of this school are the fortunate recipients of a unique education delivered by a cadre of committed educators in Baltimore. Throughout its history, our school has had a fabulous reputation, both locally and nationally. Time after time, our alumni remark that it is their Krieger Schechter education that solidified who they are as students and people. Learning has never been about filling a vessel, but rather, about captivating the mind. We are ready to renew our vision for 2014 and beyond - to look honestly and thoughtfully at our opportunities. There is no “perfect school;” it is our job to celebrate what is working well as well as to refine. For our school to be extraordinary in the future, we must be ready to update our practice. Robert Evans, author of The Seven Secrets of The Savvy School Leader, writes about school change: “The art is to combine reach and realism.” The next chapter for Krieger Schechter is finding the right balance of reach and realism. It behooves us to think carefully about what our children will need to know and be able to do in the year 2029. (That is the year our two-year-old cohort graduates from high school.) The objective of this essay is to inspire us all to take a journey together. These are conversations that have been happening throughout the faculty. Below, I highlight five concepts on which I believe we should focus as a Krieger Schechter community. When introducing each concept, I provide an example or two of what I call “Capstone Aim Projects” (CAPs); these should be considered as incubator ideas. Some CAPs will come to fruition, others may not. These ideas are intended to spark debate and discussion within our community of educators and parents. Over the coming months, we will continue to develop these CAPs; some of this development will occur as we work on an updated strategic plan. This planning initiative will be co-chaired by Marshall Haine (Madison ’14) and Becky Schwartz (Talia ’08, Josh ’10 and Merav ’13), and we will look in-depth at how we as a school community can continue to create an excellent school that cares deeply about our students. Through the Kolot and my blog, we will be updating you regularly about the process.
Relevance Make sure Jewish life has meaning in its many forms. Relevance – We have to make Jewish life relevant.
A challenge of Jewish Day Schools is how to instill a deep appreciation for Jewish life. Judaism is complex. This is one reason why so many of us appreciate being Jewish. Our job as a Jewish day school is to engage our students in Jewish life and learning and to enable them to see themselves as lifelong learners. In a society that values multiculturalism, our task is to ensure that our students can contribute by truly knowing who they are as Jews. Edgar Bronfman, in his essay “Through the Giving Pledge,” writes, “I feel strongly that in a modern world where it is easy to lose sight of where we come from, it is vitally important for young Jews to learn about their history, texts and traditions. An educated Jew is an empowered one, and confident enough to move the Jewish people forward and expand the boundaries of how Judaism interacts with the world.” Enrollment in a Jewish day school prepares students to graduate with a self-assuredness, confidence, and knowledge base that many of their peers do not have. With this idea in mind, Krieger Schechter has the challenging task of making vibrant Jewish life relevant to its students. A KSDS education must be awe-inspiring and capture the heart and the mind. Over the coming months and years, we are going to continue the conversation about how to ensure that both the heart and mind are nurtured equally. Jewish life is not the only component of day school education that must be meaningful for our students. Being a student in a Jewish day school continues to be about Jewish knowledge and literacy. KSDS educators take our job of teaching Judaics and Hebrew seriously. How will we ensure success and enhance what is being taught in our classrooms? Our commitment to text study and Hebrew language, while creating a knowledge base that is relevant, will remain a cornerstone of our Judaic studies curriculum.
Capstone Aim Project #1
Analyze how and when we create Jewish moments at KSDS.
A hallmark of a KSDS education has always been the special milestone events that our students cherish. Graduates often talk about the big ones – the Grade 8 all-Hebrew musical, the Israel trip, Grade 1 Siyyum Hasefer to name just a few. These moments, while significant in stature, are elements of a greater Jewish journey for our students and families. We want each of our students to create Jewish memories that lead to Jewish life. We are planning to assess each Judaics program in our school to ensure that our students are actively engaged in the learning, that we are creating lifelong Jewish memories, and that they are mission- and age- appropriate.
Capstone Aim Project #2
Connect the Judaic and General Studies curricula in meaningful and intentional ways. Our school has a “dual curriculum.” It is our job to identify areas of symmetry in our curricula. Grade-wide teams already find ways to integrate different aspects of our studies. Our plan is to ensure that every grade in our school has at least one unit/area/time when they are benefitting from cross-curricular work. For example: Zionism is an integral part of our school. Israel is at the forefront of engineering in the world. Let’s look for ways to introduce and infuse engineering programming into our curriculum, weaving Hebrew and STEAM organically while studying Israel.
We already have some excellent examples of cross-curricular work. When our Grade 8 students, two years ago, participated in the Henrietta Lacks project, they made connections between science, Jewish history, and Social Studies in organic ways.
Capstone Aim Project #3
Continue to create the strongest bilingual school in greater Baltimore. When I walk with visitors around our school, they are often stunned by our students’ capacity with Hebrew language. I firmly believe that a deep connection for Jewish life is Hebrew literacy. One cannot have a true appreciation for Hebrew without weaving Israel, Bible, and Jewish history into the conversation. By the time our students finish Grade 8, they are Hebrew-articulate. They can easily conduct a conversation, and many have a deep understanding of how the language is structured. Our students are challenged to live in two worlds every day. Learning a second language intensively from the age of five gives our children an edge that many of their peers have not been afforded. Krieger Schechter has always taken seriously our job of teaching Hebrew to our students. Our Hebrew and Judaics faculty members are a deeply dedicated team who share their love of the language with our students every day. This commitment has created one of the top Hebrew language programs in North America.
critical thinking Build a school community that prepares our students to be responsible citizens in a global environment. Critical Thinking – KSDS has to prepare students for the 21st Century. This concept encompasses two themes: 1) 21st Century Learning - Technology – In the 21st century, it is clear that technology must have a significant presence in our school. It behooves us to think about what investments are necessary to position our school on the cutting edge of technology in education. I believe that we must take steady and calculated steps to integrate technology so that it supports our pedagogy and mission.
Capstone Aim Project Idea #4
Develop an integrated technology plan. As an administrative team, we are willing to be adventurous and creative about integration. We know that technology can provide access to our global community in ways we have not yet fully realized. We need to show our students how technology helps us to develop relationships, build understanding in collaborative ways, and demonstrate the 21st century skills we are seeking to enhance. For all of these reasons and many more, we as a team believe that a robust technology plan must be developed. We must remember that technology is not the goal, it is the tool, and, with this tool, we can empower our students as learners.
In educator circles, “21st century skills” is a term that gets bandied about quite often. Our job is to assess how we will make sure that our students are well prepared for a rapidly changing global environment. This is one area that we will explore as educators, starting with visiting schools that are leaders in teaching 21st century skills and using that as a foundation for building our own vision of 21st century learning. 2) Social Justice/Service-Learning KSDS students care. This is one aspect of what makes our community so special and strong. Understanding our role in the greater society will always be of major importance to us. As defined by service-learning.org, “Service-Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” Service-Learning needs to be systemic and have a lasting impact on our students.
Capstone Aim Project #5
Create Service-Learning experiences for our students. What is our responsibility to the greater community? Students need to be engaged in community service to be able to genuinely answer this question. Can we find ways to re-envision required Hesed hours (Middle School) so that our students are engaged in projects that are of interest to them, perhaps encouraging them to immerse themselves with one meaningful project? Over the course of this next year, we will consider integration of Service-Learning on a school-wide level. Answering the questions above and finding meaningful ways to engage our students in our greater Baltimore and global communities, Service-Learning should be more than “one shot” deals. It is about creating enduring understanding for our students.
Passion Have access to a superb, state-of-the-art General Studies education. Passion – KSDS needs to be forward-thinking and find love in learning.
KSDS is an excellent school. We must continue to strive for academic excellence in all aspects of our program. Outstanding standardized test scores and high school acceptances (95% of the Class of 2013 KSDS graduates were accepted into their first choice.) are benchmarks that we are quite proud of, yet they only tell part of the story. As we move forward, the faculty and administration are committed to looking at all aspects of our curriculum to make sure that we are offering a comprehensive and high quality approach to General Studies. Our challenge is to welcome the benefits of the present without discarding what is useful from the past. When looking at excellence in General Studies, we have to look at the Common Core Standards, which have been developed by some of the greatest minds in education today. What can we learn from the Common Core and other well-researched standards? What are the best aspects of these and how can we capitalize on them? How do we exceed those standards, and what does that mean?
Capstone Aim Project #6
Develop an updated scope & sequence curricular guide with benchmarks. As we look carefully at each subject area, in both General and Judaic Studies, we are creating an updated, dynamic scope and sequence curricular guide. This guide will be accessed by all members of our community (faculty, students, parents) and will allow all to see what our expectations are, grade by grade and by subject area. Our first areas of exploration will be Language Arts/Literacy and Modern Hebrew in the Lower School. In the Middle School, we use NETA to teach Hebrew language and have been touted as one of the best innovators of that curriculum. NETA, produced by highly-regarded educators in Israel, has given us a scope and sequence for Modern Hebrew. As a school, we have closely examined NETA’s curricular goals and have adapted and enhanced them to meet our high standards in Hebrew language. Spearheaded by a group of General Studies faculty members, we are also continuing to create a scope and sequence for literacy and language arts. This will help all faculty members move our students to even greater success at KSDS. Over the course of the next three academic years, we will have a complete curricular document, supported by the hard work that we have already done through the AIMS accreditation process, which will cover every subject area within our school. Along with the curricular guide, we are concentrating our time on reviewing what skills we want our students to master by the end of each grade level. This work has started and will be a beacon for the curricular standards that we are setting for the school.
Capstone Aim Project #7
Approach aspects of learning at Krieger Schechter through the lens of Understanding by Design (UbD) and Essential Questions. One hallmark of education today is the theory that we should be taking our students deeper into their learning. “Teaching for understanding” is a basic premise of Understanding by Design (UbD). It demands that we seek to fully understand what we are studying through assessment. Assessment doesn’t mean just tests and quizzes but the framing of essential questions and planning with the end goals in mind. “What are the points we want to have our students grasp?” Gone are the days of giving students wide survey classes, peppering them with data and information in hopes that wide exposure to many different subjects will lead to greater curiosity. It begs the debate of depth versus breadth, passive versus active, uncovering versus covering. UbD takes the student on a journey that allows him/her to think more deeply and make connections across all learning. A good example of how essential questions are used in a school setting occurred. this past trimester. I had the privilege of teaching a Thursday morning Grade 8 Parsha class, and I framed the trimester with one essential question, “What is love?” Every week, we looked at the Torah portion through the lens of love. As 8th graders, they have had much exposure to Tanakh, and I wanted to take them to the next level of inquiry and debate. The question framed our discussions and led us to other essential questions such as, “What happens when one takes love too far?” or “Can one love and hate at the same time?” These are not simple questions to be easily answered. We often went back to the original essential question and brought in other references from history that helped frame an answer. At the end of the trimester, I asked the students to assess the class; their answers were insightful, but more important, they began to answer the question “What is love?” in a deeper way, connecting text, life, and ideals.
Over the coming months, we will create a road map to assist us with how to look at aspects of curriculum through a lens of Understanding by Design and Essential Questions. It is our hope that this framing will lead to deeper connections and learning.
Engagement Meet the needs of an academically rich student body.
Engagement – School has to thoughtfully inspire different types of learners. From the moment I stepped onto campus, it was apparent that this was a high priority for many of us as a community. Should Jewish day schools inherently be community organizations? We have to be prepared to differentiate instruction for many different types of learners. Today’s classroom is a laboratory for independence. Teachers and students are partners in the learning process. We are moving away from teacher-centered education toward student-centered learning. This shift in focus has become an essential component in successful classrooms and has been occurring at KSDS for several years. It is our responsibility to meet the needs of students who bring many different strengths and “not yet strengths” to our classrooms. In order to accomplish this successfully, there must be effective, sustained professional development for our faculty.
Capstone Aim Project #8
Create a robust plan for support services. KSDS has always strived to recognize and support the diversity of students’ learning needs. Every child has gifts, but they don’t all present them in the same way. Over the coming months, the administrative team will look at the skill sets of our current faculty and staff and identify the areas where we need enhanced support services. Our goal is to create a comprehensive plan that keeps our entire school population (K-8) in mind.
Capstone Aim Project #9
Explore the opening of the Exceptional Learners Project. We must also serve the needs of our students who are exceptional learners in any one subject area. Through a variety of initiatives, we will work with students to foster their creativity and passion, giving them the opportunity to learn more deeply in an area of interest. Some examples come to mind: we may have a group of 3rd graders who are budding engineers, who want to explore entering a national contest for STEAM,(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math); we may identify a student who has a true gift for 3D drawing, and we find a local artist who will work with that student to continue to build this child’s portfolio; we might encourage our native Hebrew speaking students to develop their Hebrew skills in a deeper, more enhanced way.
Craftsmanship Give access for students to work with teachers whose passion is to teach and who see themselves as constant reflective practitioners. Craftsmanship – KSDS must continue to fill teachers’ toolboxes by providing opportunities for improvement.
It is my driving belief that the more support we give teachers, the better the classroom environment will be for our students. Teachers go into teaching because they have a deep passion for education and learning; they understand the concept of lifelong learning and model this concept for their students on a daily basis. As educators, we aspire to impart to our students an appreciation for seeking knowledge. The best schools demonstrate a strong commitment to teacher learning and professional development. Our focus must be on creating a system of robust professional development opportunities. Our newly created position, Director of Teaching & Learning, is key to the success of this plan; she is working with our division directors to create long-lasting and sustainable professional development opportunities. Teaching is a craft that becomes mastered over time by consistently looking to improve practice leading to better results in the classroom. The more we invest in allowing teachers to improve their craft, no matter how long they have been teaching, the more our children reap the benefits.
Capstone Aim Project #10
Make KSDS the “it” school when it comes to professional development of teachers. As we strengthen our commitment to the professional growth of our teachers, it will be our goal to tout the school’s focus to the greater community. We look to continue our stellar reputation – that, teaching at Krieger Schechter is a rewarding and fulfilling experience, and that we are a school that continuously strives to seek and support excellence among its teachers. How will we do this? Our teachers offer a wealth of knowledge and are exceptional leaders in the classroom. We will continue our mentorship program, peer coaching, and commitment to a strong team approach in grade-wide teaching. It is my hope that other Jewish day schools and independent schools will take notice and observe what makes KSDS so outstanding.
Five big concepts that shape our future… Now how do we get there?
All of this work has been based around two essential questions. What do the teachers and students have to know and be able to do? How will we get to the implementation stage of this vision? Good essential questions have multiple answers. They inspire more thinking. We believe that the new ideas that we are putting in place are supporting that strong foundation set for many years. The concepts that I have laid out speak directly to my ideals and values as an educator; more importantly, they have been generated through conversations and discussions that I have been part of since I accepted this position. However. these five pillars only paint part of the picture of where the school is heading. What excites us about working at KSDS? One word – students. Having our students at the center has always been and will continue to be the hallmark of our school. It is our approach to the whole child that is essential to the success of our school. There is a dynamic thoughtfulness around every aspect of learning that happens at KSDS. It is this reflective practice that will continue to make KSDS a strong school. Educating our children is an awesome task. The vision laid out in this paper will take a lot of hard work, dedication, and the support of our entire community. Unlike public schools, KSDS relies on many funding sources to create the valuable education that we aspire to provide to our students. Our current parents invest daily with tuition dollars. Alumni parents are the backbone of our annual campaign. Foundations and The Associated are proud and important investors in our school. All have challenged us to create ways to establish meaningful financial sustainability. One of the most crucial tasks that I have assumed is to consider opportunities to improve our financial sustainability, including widening our fundraising circles. This is imperative to assure a bright future for Krieger Schechter. Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei Avot wrote, “You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from trying.” From a very young age, our children are taught that concept of social responsibility. From its inception, Chizuk Amuno Congregation has continually and proudly held up our school as a crown jewel in the congregation. Rabbi Joel Zaiman and Rabbi Paul Schneider continue to support Krieger Schechter and care deeply about its future success. Rabbi Ron Shulman’s commitment to our school is apparent from the many dialogues and think-tank sessions we have had about our future. These community leaders stand poised to embrace the new vision outlined in this paper. They remain passionate advocates and have affirmed Rabbi Tarfon’s words. Having a strong and successful egalitarian Jewish day school in Baltimore is essential for the continued growth of the greater Jewish community. While proudly being a school governed by Chizuk Amuno Congregation, we are a true community school with students and families spanning the entire Jewish spectrum – modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and Unaffiliated. Now is the time for our entire community to recognize and acknowledge that Krieger Schechter Day School is proudly THE community’s school. What will be your part in it? As always, my door is open to continue the conversation.