Tag: Jewish Schools & Educational Services

You may recall that JRS stands for Jewish Resource Specialist, a teacher - leader in an Early Childhood Education (ECE) program that holds an additional role added to the ones s/he already has. The JRS is a professional embedded in a school who is asked to focus on how to: Deepen the Jewish engagement of their school families AND Deepen the Jewish learning in the ECE- for teachers, children and families.

Whether you are having a seder involving early childhood, elementary, middle, high school students or empty nesters, or any combination thereof, making your seder interesting and interactive is a worthy and attainable goal. All you need is some inspiration, motivation, and time to prepare.

The last one [aspects that need improvement in the day school system] that I'll talk about is the pipeline of educators for Jewish Day schools. There is clearly pandemic fatigue across the board. I'm sure that we all feel it. I know it's difficult to come to another Zoom. The pandemic fatigue is very real and it has raised the conversation about mental health and wellness in schools, now even more important than it had been before. Mental health and wellness was a topic of conversation before the pandemic; and now, we have heard more conversations about anxiety among students particularly in the high school level.

There's been so much loss and trauma that will follow us as we slowly move out of the pandemic but I think that there is a collective sense of optimism about Jewish day schools right now. I would like to focus on three particular areas and to give a quick overview of what we're seeing from the national perspective at Prizmah. They are the value proposition of schools, collaboration and coordination on the community level, and the pipeline of educators for Jewish day schools.

The education world has experienced change over the past year in unprecedented and deep ways. In education, we often talk about how we are called upon to metaphorically drive the bus while changing the tires, looking under the hood and getting people on and off safely. This holds true during the pandemic more than ever.

Close to a year ago, as our entire world was thrown into a new reality, the world of Jewish education was compelled to pivot into this new reality as well. Our Miami Jewish day schools had to instantaneously become adept at new ways of teaching and learning. At first, the approach was “do the best possible,” given the situation and hope that things would go back to “normal” soon.

Words from Our Hearts: A Prayer Exploration for Early Childhood offers an opportunity for our youngest learners, their teachers and their parents to immerse themselves into the spiritual language of prayer. Prayer concepts are introduced to the children through simple everyday words like: Todah- gratitude, B’vakasha- please, S’licha- forgiveness, and Halleluyah- praise and wonder.

Covid-19 has changed the way we do many things. Yet one factor remains the same: our early childhood educators’ commitment to the children and their families and to creating and nurturing relationships that become the beginning of many family’s Jewish journey.

JNTP is a national Jewish day school program adapted from the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz, California. Through JNTP, CAJE develops veteran teachers into mentors who work specifically with novice teachers in their first 1-3 years in the field. Mentors learn about the specific challenges faced by novice teachers and develop the skills and dispositions needed to guide them through their first years of teaching.

Dr. Susan Jay grew up in Brookline, MA in a family that was very active at their large Conservative congregation. Her mother served as sisterhood president; they observed Shabbat, and most of all, she loved attending religious school. How fitting that Susan is the chairperson of the Congregational Education Committee!