Friday Letter - February 8, 2013

This week I had the pleasure of attending the North American Jewish Day School Conference in Washington, D.C along with Dr. Dolgin and SSLI Board President Ira Balsam. Over 1,000 people were present representing hundreds of schools. The conference is a collaboration between two of the organizations that our school is a member of, the Schechter Day School Network and Ravsak, along with PEJE, Yeshiva University, and Pardes, the Reform day school association.

One of most encouraging things about attending a conference like this is seeing how vibrant Jewish day school life is and how energized and committed our colleagues are to continuing to grow and innovate within the field. Workshops focused on enhancing our schools through a variety of tools, many of which we have already begun to work with here at the Schechter School of Long Island.

Even more powerful, though, is the ability to engage in conversation with colleagues about the challenges that each of our schools face. Through this dialogue, I gained new insights and ideas into issues like scheduling, tefillah, special programs, and blended and online learning.

The challenge following any professional development opportunity, like any new learning experience, is in applying the knowledge back at home. Over the coming days and weeks, I am looking forward to the individual and collective conversations with our faculty as I partner with them to continue to grow and enhance our school using my experiences at the day school conference as a catalyst.