Every Child Has Their Own Path
Posted on 09/04/2026 @ 06:30 AM
By Audrey Maman Bensoussan, Director of Day School Programs and Services, CAJE Miami
What if the key to helping a child succeed is not asking, “How do we get this child to fit into our classroom?” but instead asking, “How can we shape our classroom to help this child thrive?”
This question is at the heart of Al Pi Darko – Hebrew for “according to his/her path.”
It reflects the idea that every child learns differently, and that our responsibility as educators is to understand each child and find the approaches that allow them to learn, participate, and succeed.
Last year, CAJE Miami brought this philosophy to our Jewish early childhood centers through the Al Pi Darko initiative, in partnership with Matan.
The initiative was met with tremendous enthusiasm and demonstrated the power of giving educators practical tools to better understand and support children with diverse needs.
The success of that initiative left us asking: How can we continue this important work as children move from early childhood into our Jewish day schools?
This year, we are excited to take the next step.
CAJE Miami is partnering once again with Matan, an organization with more than 25 years of experience helping Jewish educators create meaningful and inclusive opportunities for people with disabilities and their families.
Together, we are launching the Al Pi Darko Matan Institute for Day School Educators, a year-long cohort focused on strengthening inclusive practices and creating school cultures where every student can belong and succeed.
This is not simply another set of strategies.
The goal is ambitious -- to build a shared understanding among educators and administrative leaders that inclusion is a school-wide responsibility.
We are proud to launch this initiative with six participating Jewish day schools: Hebrew Academy (RASG), Gordon School, Pardes Day School, Scheck Hillel Community School, Yeshiva Elementary School, and Yeshiva Toras Chaim Toras Emes.
Each school brings together a team of three to four educators and leaders. These teams will learn together, identify an inclusion goal for their school, implement change throughout the year, and receive ongoing support from a Matan mentor.
The learning will be practical and responsive to the needs of our schools. Topics may include: differentiated instruction, executive functioning and ADHD, mental health, autism and neurodiversity, family partnerships, and school culture and organizational change.
But the real work happens beyond the training room.
It happens when a teacher sees a student struggling and adapts their lesson to reach them.
It happens when an administrator can support a teacher who is navigating a challenging situation.
It happens when a family feels that their child's school understands them and is working in partnership with them.
And it happens when a student realizes that they do not have to learn, communicate, or experience school exactly like everyone else in order to belong.
That is the vision of Al Pi Darko.
We want our Jewish day schools to be places where every learner is recognized, supported, and able to thrive.
This initiative is an important continuation of the work CAJE began in our early childhood community.
Inclusion should not be something that begins and ends at one stage of a child's education. When we invest in educators across the educational continuum, we create a stronger and more responsive Jewish educational system for our children and families.
Ultimately, Al Pi Darko asks us to shift our perspective.
Instead of asking, “Why can't this child learn the way we teach?” we begin asking, “How can we teach in a way that allows this child to learn?”
That shift can change a classroom or a school but most importantly, it can change a child's experience of education.
We are excited to begin this next chapter with our six participating day schools and with our partners at Matan.
Together, we can continue building Jewish schools where every child has a place, every educator has the tools to support them, and every learner has the opportunity to discover their own path to thriving.
For more information about the Matan Institute for Day School Educators, please contact Audrey Maman Bensoussan at audreymaman@caje-miami.org
