Solomon Schechter Day School Association

How Would You Like Your Students’ Books to Talk to Them?

We all have students who comprehend better when they hear and not just read.

We all have students who could engage effectively with Torah study, but find the Hebrew instructions too great a challenge.

Now, with the wonders of technology, we can make it possible for those students to learn more independently.

Try it yourself! Download the Sample Differentiated Instruction pdf. On the first page (page 55), put your cursor on the blue “ear” icon and double-click, to hear the text read aloud. On the second page (page 56), put your cursor on the blue “loudspeaker” icon, and double-click, to hear the instructions translated into English.

Now picture your students receiving this help in your classroom.

If you would like to learn how to acquire “talking PDFs” of MaToK materials, please send an e-mail to Dr. Deborah D. Miller at demiller@jtsa.edu.

Day School Leaders to Gather in Los Angeles
A Follow-up to January’s Unprecedented Success
Save the Date: February 6-8, 2011

Building on the momentum begun in January at the first North American Jewish Day School Conference, the “quartet” of PARDeS, Solomon Schechter Day School Association, the University-School Partnership at Yeshiva University, and RAVSAK will again convene Jewish day school leaders from across North America and across the spectrum of Jewish life for an extraordinary 3-day conference on education and school leadership.

Slated for February 6-8, 2011 in Los Angeles, CA, this convening promises to be a professional development opportunity like no other, with intensive focus on the unique value proposition of day schools: ensuring a vibrant Jewish future through Jewish literacy, commitments, and values.

Hotel information and a timeline for registration will be available at the end of the summer. For more information and regular updates, please go to: www.jewishdayschoolconference.org

If you are a school rabbi or a director of Judaic studies, please fill out the following survey.

This survey is for Teaching Rabbinic Literature II, which is a program the SSDSA will be holding on August 9th and 10th. Your feedback will help us plan the program in a way that will meet the needs of your school, so please respond to all the questions in this survey.

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Solomon Schechter Branding and Marketing Project – a Collaborative Initiative for Schechter Schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The partners in the collaborative initiative, the NY-NJ-CT Schechter branding and marketing project, are BJE-SSAJES (New York), United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Solomon Schechter Day School Association. A number of individual donors from participating Schechter schools helped to launch this project in 2008. In late 2009, the Consortium’s work was given an enormous boost thanks to a significant allocation from a grant to the BJE-SAJES, awarded by UJA Federation of New York.

On Tuesday morning May 11th the Steering Committee of the Tri-State Schechter Consortium will meet at the BJE- SAJES to vet the proposals firms that have been received for a collective branding initiative from a number of full-service marketing firms.  All members of the Consortium are invited to join this meeting. 

The next full Consortium meeting will take place on May 24th at USCJ. At that meeting, we will have the opportunity to review the finalists, who will have been selected on the 11th. All participants will work together to reach a consensus and build enthusiasm for this exciting initiative, which is about to move to the next stage of implementation after many months of discussion, deliberation and planning.  For more information, contact education@uscj.org

We have gathered information from all our member schools and tallied the total number of Schechter students who have visited Israel this year on a school trip.

We are happy to report in all 1113 students from 32 SSDS schools have enjoyed an Israel experience with their classmates during the school year 2009-2010. It’s compelling evidence that a dynamic connection to Israel is a core value of a Schechter education.

The majority of trips are for 8th graders who travel in the spring on a two-week program. One school sends their 5th and 6th graders. The high school programs for seniors are for a more extended period of time, from 7 weeks to almost 4 months.

The Schechter Association is delighted to announce that we have awarded the SREL Fellowship to Rabbi Eve Bethany Posen who will be working at the Nate and Ann Levine Academy in Dallas, Texas, as the school rabbi. Rabbi Posen will be ordained by the Rabbi Posen will be ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in LA in May and holds a Masters degree in Jewish Education from the Fingerhut School at AJU. She will be the first female rabbi to serve at the Levine Academy. .

The Schechter Residency in Educational Leadership program is designed to create a career path to day school professional leadership. It has been designed to ensure that SREL Fellows will receive guided and structured practical experience as a member of a Schechter school’s leadership team. The grant from the SREL endowment goes to the residency school to be used to support the capacity of the school to provide the Fellow with professional experience in various aspects of school administration and leadership. Learn more about the SREL program »