51.0°,
Overcast Back to School: what's new?
Posted
Issue of August 28, 2009 / 8 Elul 5769
B'not Shulamith of Long Island
Enrollment is up in the Bnot Shulamith middle school by a whopping ten percent, bringing the total number of students to 163 girls. Despite that, there will be more elbowroom in the middle school thanks to a merger between Temple Emanuel in Lynbrook and Temple Sinai on Washington Avenue in Cedarhurst, where the school currently rents; this year Bnot Shulamith will be the sole occupant of the building.
“We’re looking forward to the students and families of Bnot Shulamith really feeling they have a home,” said Rabbi Nosson Schreiber, principal of the middle school. While uncertainty persists over the status of what it is hoped will be a permanent home, in Inwood, for the entire Bnot Shulamith, it is not stopping the school from continuing its traditional Shulamith pursuit of excellence.
This year the school will inaugurate Y’diot Klaliyot, a school-wide learning program intended to increase the breadth and depth of each student’s general Torah knowledge. Rabbi Schreiber said that the school is also looking forward to defending its title as champion of the Torah Bowl competition. Bnot Shulamith will use E2k, an enhanced math and science curriculum funded by the Gruss foundation, and the seventh grade will travel to Philadelphia as part of its course on early American history.
Also this school year, the sixth graders will perform an off-Broadway version of the musical Anne in the annual Sixth Grade Production.
Yeshiva of South Shore
Yeshiva of South Shore has been selected by Torah Umesorah for a pilot program called A School Where Every Child Belongs that will train a teacher in the yeshiva as a student advocate to work closely with each child to promote values and middos.
The yeshiva has purchased smart boards and is expanding its technology program. Grades 1-5 will present a History Fair, and a Scholars Incentive Program is being inaugurated, according to General Studies Principal Rabbi Meir Wolofsky.
The playground is being expanded and new fences installed, a gift from the Gruss Foundation will allow the yeshiva’s roofs to be repaired and upgraded, and the preschool building is being repainted.
Hebrew Academy of Five Towns and Rockaway
What’s new and exciting at HAFTR?
“Every day is new and exciting,” laughed Head of School Rabbi David Leibtag.
This year HAFTR will extend the Chalav U’dvash (Milk and Honey) Hebrew immersion program to the kindergarten and early childhood classes; the program is already used in the Lower and Middle schools. HAFTR is also implementing a uniform policy to give students pride in the school and to “reflect the values of Torah,” according to Rabbi Leibtag.
The school will place a renewed emphasis on character development in the wake of the Madoff and New Jersey scandals. “It’s a reaction to the unfortunate portrayal of Jews in the news,” explained Rabbi Leibtag. “We need an effort to integrate Torah studies in daily life.”
The Talmud V’sheenantom program, a computer-based program that teaches Mishna and Talmud, will be extended to the seventh grade girls.
Teacher training will address developing question strategies for students and on multiple intelligences, which Rabbi Leibtag said focuses on how children are smart in different ways.
Yeshiva Darchei Torah
Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway reports more students are enrolled this year than ever before, in all divisions but especially in the pre-school, which would seem to reflect the continuing increase in the overall Jewish population of the Five Towns and the Rockaways. Darchei’s new complex continues to rise (top), in this picture taken earlier this week from the the Beach 17th Street side of the campus. The final artist’s rendering courtesy Karl Fischer Architecture PLLC (above).
Hebrew Academy of Long Beach
Ask Executive Director Richard Hagler what he's excited about at HALB this year and you'll get a very interesting answer.
"We're thrilled that the economy is so robust, and people are making money hand over fist, that we're getting cash for clunkers for kids, and we're making a new healthcare plan that will take care of nobody," Hagler said with a laugh. Then he turned serious to discuss the school's efforts to curb the effect of the economic recession.
"For the first time in recent memory we have not raised our tuition," Hagler explained. "Whatever the rates were for the last year, they're the same this year."
He credited the HALB faculty and administration for agreeing to have their salaries frozen and said that the high quality of education HALB provides would remain the same. In addition, Hagler said HALB would be offering more financial aid than ever before.
"We're just going to do what we have to do to make it happen," he asserted. "There are people who we need to help. We stand ready to help our parent body."
HALB will continue upgrading its technology, starting with a new Israel-based language program that will "change the way Hebrew is taught," he said. The school is also installing Smartboards in more classrooms, a prospect the executive director is looking forward to. "They're really cool by the way," he said. "And little kids can run it better than you and me."
ebrew Academy of Nassau County
HANC in West Hempstead is proud to welcome a new assistant principal, Mrs. Barbara Deutsch. She is a veteran of Yeshiva of Flatbush and Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston, NJ. Deutsch, who lives in Cedarhurst, said she’s excited to not have to drive the Belt to her newest job. She was also at Camp Morasha for fifteen years and is happy to see that many of her former campers are now HANC.
“You see a kid and the parent’s faces are the same,” Deutsch said. “It gives me a good feeling.”
Rabbi Benjamin Yasgur, the principal, said the school plans to launch a mezuzah rededication project where students will check the school’s mezuzahs and a sofer (scribe) will meet with students to explain how mezuzahs and tefilin are written.
In November the school will host one of the country’s best-known children’s authors, David Adler, creator of the Çam Jansen mystery series, and a Five Towns resident.
Hebrew Academy of Nassau County Middle School
More classrooms at the HANC middle school will have smart boards this year. Middle School Assistant Principal Karen Slater, who also teaches English, was excited about the technology upgrade.
“Technology is what’s it all about,” she says. “Being able to bring in some live goings on and clips and even transport it to the [students’] home computer; it makes the interaction incredible.”
The Gemarah Berurah program, a computer program designed to aid in Talmud study, will be used.
This will be the third year in which HANC eighth graders take the Earth Regents. According to Slater, at least half of the eighth graders will take the Regents exam; the other students will take a course specially designed to give students an overview of physical sciences.
HANC students will also get a head start in their writing skills as the school begins teaching writing using the SATs’ writing rubrics. “This is the skill that colleges and business are complaining that this generation is losing - the ability to speak correctly and write correctly,” explained Slater. “Instead of waiting for high school we’re bringing it to middle school.
Yeshiva Har Torah
Yeshiva Har Torah in Little Neck continues to expand; a third class will be added to each grade from kindergarten to third grade.
“We’re continuing our strong emphasis on character development, middot, and respect for every student,” said Rabbi Gary Menchel, the principal of Har Torah.
The school is launching an enrichment program for grades 2-5; students on the higher end of the achievement spectrum will study a separate curriculum taught simultaneously with the standard curriculum.
The Tal Am program, a Hebrew language immersion program funded by the Gruss Foundation, will be offered to first graders for the first time. This year also marks the beginning of the V’sheenantom program for 4-5th graders. It incorporates the historical context and terminology in the Mishna as well as emphasizing the study of Mishna by heart.
Report an inappropriate comment
Comments