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The Mission vs Admission Challenge in Jewish Day Schools

Rabbi Jim Rogozen   Almost every Jewish day school has a Mission Statement. It usually appears on the school’s web page and in marketing materials. It explains what the school is about, its target audience, and the nature and goals of the school. Some of these Mission Statements are very specific about the families they serve and the religious nature of the school, while others are broader in scope, hoping to attract families with a wider range of Jewish practices and beliefs. A school’s religious policies, curriculum, program, and faculty will (or should) reflect what’s contained in the Mission Statement. A school’s ability to accomplish all the elements contained within its Mission Statement depends on several factors: enough students to constitute each grade of the school, sufficient revenue from tuition and fundraising, a group of qualified teachers and specialists, trained administrators, a facility that supports the school’s program, and the support of the Board and paren
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A New Kind of Idolatry

For many people in the world, no matter how Israelis fight back against Hamas (and Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, etc.) they will be accused of genocide. Expelling Hamas from Gaza comes with the price of lives lost on both sides; a price that is extremely high because of the way Hamas has used its citizens as human shields. But the way protestors frame their opposition to Israel’s war on Hamas in such a narrowly focused way (genocide), ignoring larger context and realities (as well as the death cult that is Jihadism) speaks to a troubling belief system. In a way, it’s a new kind of idolatry. We usually think of idolatry as worshipping idols, but in the history of religious thought, there are deeper understandings of idolatry. When we see only one side of a person and mistake that for the whole person, we ignore the full reality of who they are. When we take a small part of the world and say, “This is God,” or “This is the meaning of life,” we elevate that one part, and mistake it for
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Beyond Clean Bathrooms: Some Thoughts on School Management

When I first started out as a school administrator I read an article in a parenting magazine about choosing the right school for your child. The first piece of advice: go check out the bathrooms. The writer wasn’t claiming that clean bathrooms led directly to quality learning, but that a school that paid such close attention to bathrooms would, no doubt, be very careful when it came to educating children. In a previous blog post I wrote that if a school is serious about setting learning goals, the staff need to have clarity around what they consider to be “good” or “excellent” in those target areas.  The next step is to be just as serious about what is “good” or “excellent” when it comes to the school’s organization and management. Just as Disney World creates a Magic Kingdom for visitors by using its behind-the-scenes Utilidor System for cast members, and cruise ships use their Deck 0 utility tunnels (called “I-95”) to ensure a wonderful experience on the upper decks, schools have
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Where's the Vision?

Where’s the Vision?  Rabbi Jim Rogozen In Ian Symmonds’s April 2022 blog post 1 he observes that, unlike the ubiquitous Mission Statement, fewer than 20% of independent schools and colleges have a Vision Statement. The reason partially lies in the inconsistent use of the terms Mission and Vision . For instance, some schools use the word “vision” when what they are describing is the “mission” or, in some cases, the learning environment. As Symmonds noted, such descriptions are neither “missions” nor “visions,” but fall into the categories of branding or messaging. So let’s do a quick review: A Mission Statement explains why you open the doors to your school each day; it’s your purpose, your intention. It’s what you do, who your audience is, and (as one consultant put it) the next hill you want to conquer.   Some examples, starting with three non-school organizations: ·        To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.  (Tesla) ·        To give customer
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Predictions, Agendas, and Paradigm Shifts

In the first year of COVID, organizational leaders were engaged in a three-sided intellectual tug of war between understanding, interpreting, and predicting. The first two items were crucial as Rabbis, educators and executive directors were called upon to make immediate and practical decisions for their communities.  The needs of “today, tomorrow, and next week” took precedence over long-term predictions or scenario planning. Others, however, took up the slack in the prediction department. Rather than following a line of reasoning that extends from “what is” to “what might be,” many blog posts were filled with dramatic pronouncements.  Three of the most common claims looked like this:  Nothing will ever be the same!   It’s the end of [fill in the blank] AS WE KNOW IT!   We need to create an entirely new [fill in the blank]! We are now entering a phase in which things are beginning to “bounce back.” While some things have clearly changed, and will continue to do so, the big predict
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Tea and Empathy - Turning Towards Normal in our Day Schools

In a season 6 episode of the TV show M*A*S*H ( Tea and Empathy ) a British officer (Major Ross) visits his wounded soldiers in the hospital, telling them they are needed back in the war. He loudly criticizes the doctors for “molly-coddling” his men, and insists they are ready to get back to the fighting. Later in the episode he returns and the doctors see him listening while his smiling soldiers read letters from home. When asked about his change in approach, Major Ross explains:   “If I come in here breathing fire they realize they’re going to be all right….my men know I wouldn’t shout at them unless they knew I expected them to get well.   They believed it because I believed it.” Before COVID, schools addressed classroom management issues using a variety of approaches, based on their understanding of children and how they function in school settings. Whether it was the way classroom culture and learning were constructed, or by understanding individual student strengths, learning st
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Know What's Good

  As a child, if I ever said I didn’t like something my mom made for dinner, she would reply, “That’s okay; you just don’t know what’s good,” and then point to the cereal cabinet. While one could argue whether the quality and taste of food could be objectively measured, her point was that I would eventually learn what was “good”- not just in food, but in other areas of life as well. (Full disclosure: the foods I hated back then, such as stuffed cabbage, are now my favorites!) I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept and how it applies to schools.  Here’s a common scenario: Teachers have just read the weekly staff memo and they are up in arms about something the administration decided on, without teacher input. They look at one another and, in unison, shout, “What were they thinking?!” or “Why did they think that was okay?!” The administrators, of course, think the teachers just don’t get it. With such a polarity of views, it’s possible that each side (perhaps using other words) woul
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