Category: Jewish Education

The very first thing we do at the beginning of each school year is gather together as a school community and celebrate the ceremony of Havdalah.  Havdalah literally means “separation” and is the ceremony that marks the transition between Shabbat and the weekday.  Because of its length (short), melody, and prominence in Jewish camping, Havdalah is a relatively popular ritual even with those who are less ritually observant.  Part of what makes any ritual powerful is its ability to infuse the everyday with transcendent meaning.  My small way to lend transcendence to the typical “Back to School” assembly is to use the power of Havdalah to help mark the transition between summer and the start of school.

And so this past Monday morning, the students and faculty of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School marked the transition between the summer that was and the school year that is presently unfolding with a heartfelt Havdalah.

I told my faculty during “Pre-Planning Week” (click here for a reflection of that week) that I had never been this excited for the start of a school year in my 8 years as a head of school.  All the work of the last two years combined with a cast of talented, dedicated, loving, enthusiastic returning and new teachers (click here for a list) has led us to this point.  We are as ready as we have ever been to deliver on the the promise of “a floor, but no ceiling”.  And this first week has more than lived up to my expectations.

It has been wonderful to walk the school, to feel the positive energy oozing through the walls and see the smiling faces of our students and parents.  As we say this time of year, “Shofar so good!”

Our newest faculty members are acquitting themselves with great aplomb and our returning teachers have plenty of new tricks up their sleeves to mix with their tried and true excellence.  We are focused on ensuring that we take the time at the beginning of the year to create classroom communities of kindness.  We have added 33% more faculty to lunchtime supervision to make sure the good work of the morning doesn’t fall through the cracks of lunch.  The first week of the departmentalization of Grades 4 & 5 has been a success (with the normal amount of confusion newness brings) and evidence of the power of looping (click here for a fuller description of how we approach Grades 4 & 5) is already manifest.  Dedicated science instruction in the Lower School (click here for our Lower School schedule and rationale) is a success.  And in my meetings with faculty to lay out their professional development plans for the year, I can see the impact their summer reading (click here) is already having on their practice.  If the next thirty-nine weeks go as well this one, the 2012-2013 school year will, indeed, be a very special one.  Be excited.

 

Two business notes and a personal one…

Our annual PTA Magazine Drive kicks off next week with an assembly.  This year’s drive, one of our biggest fundraisers, will take place over two weeks.  It will, like last year, have incentives to encourage student participation.  [It won’t be frogs this year and no one is being “kidnapped”, but I can’t give the schtick away here!]  We took in a lot of feedback last year, the first one in which the administration and faculty actively participated, and based on that feedback have made a few adjustments to ensure the most positive experience possible.  Although it is a fundraiser and the only way those funds are raised is through the selling of magazines, we have worked with our vendor to put “literacy” out in front as the primary motivation for purchasing a magazine.  It will be, we hope, as much a literacy campaign as anything else.  And, therefore, in addition to earning tokens through sales, students will also have opportunity to earn tokens through reading.  In addition, we have scaled back the opportunities for trading and the overall length of the drive to reduce distractions and to prevent student enthusiasm from encroaching on academic time.  Finally, in a developmentally appropriate way, we will explore how to explain to students why our schools, like most schools, engage in fundraising activities.  That will, we believe, provide meaningful context.  We are looking forward to our best magazine drive yet!

 

The “book” on edJEWcon is out!  Thanks to Silvia Tolisano for compiling this amazing  document of edJEWcon 5772.0’s tremendous success.

edjewcon5772-0

Save the date: edJEWcon 5773.1 – April 28-30, 2013!

 

And on a personal note, lots of people have asked me if the cover girl on the newest volume of “Voices of Conservative Judaism” (click here for the whole PDF) is my oldest daughter, Eliana.  It, in fact, is!  United Synagogue asked all the Schechter schools to submit photos over a year ago for possible publication and without any notice, my daughter wound up in people’s mailboxes this week.  I can ensure you that no nepotism was involved, but we certainly appreciate seeing our daughter (circa two years ago when she was in Kindergarten) on the cover.  As you can tell from the picture above, she gratefully takes after her mother.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let us know that they saw it!

Personal Note:

Thanks to all who reached out over the last week or so to see how I was faring after having undergone my personal “Fifty Shades of Ow” early 11th anniversary gift to my wife of having a deviated septum repaired along with the ever-popular “uvula shave”.  I was always told that “eleven” was the gift of “elective, non-cosmetic survey to reduce snoring” and I am an excellent listener.  My nose is back to its normal shape with the added value of being able to breathe out of one side of it for the first time.  My throat?  I am just about able to swallow without wincing.  Another week or so and I should be as good as new.  Will it actually reduce the snoring?  Stay tuned.

Coming Attractions:

I hired a new Middle School Math Teacher as well as a new First Grade Teaching Assistant this week!  Next week, I hope to secure new Kindergarten and Fourth Grade Teaching Assistants as well, so we will be fully staffed!  Our new transparent schedule will also be finalized, so you can look forward to a final “Transparency Files” blog post sharing the new schedule and its rationale.

I will also be finalizing a VERY exciting “Creating a Community of Kindness” (click here, here, and here) announcement that will be the subject of a blog post, press release, etc. Please be on the look out for this first-ever Galinsky Academy initiative in the weeks to come!

I wanted to take a moment in the calm of summer to reflect on some thinking we’ve been doing in the area of “gaming” and “gaming theory”.  It reflects experiences as far back as last January’s North American Jewish Day School Conference, which I blogged about here.  The end of that blog post was my reflection on my experience facilitating a session for Barry Joseph of Global Kids on Gaming 101.  He gave a wonderful overview on the impact of gaming on education and provided lots of rich resources.

I have been influenced by this TED talk by Jane McConigal: “Gaming can make a better world” which has been among their most viewed:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

I have also been inspired by thought-partner Rabbi Owen Gottlieb:

And I have been recently working with Nicky Newfield, Director of Jewish Interactive, on potential new projects.

 

Although I have no groundbreaking program or initiative to announce at present…I am quite confident that all this thinking and collaboration will yield exciting fruit, and soon. Here is where I think we are heading:

White Paper: Gaming & Jewish Education

The last three years in my position as Head of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, a K-8 Schechter Network Day School of nearly 130 students located in Jacksonville, Florida, has overlapped with an explosion of interest in 21^st century learning and educational technology.  In large ways, our school has been shaped by the works of leading figures in this educational movement – Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Angela Maiers, Alan November, Mike Fischer, and Chris Lehmann to name a few.  And in small ways, I believe our school has contributed to the movement as well, by serving as a living laboratory and our creation of edJEWcon – a yearly institute for 21^st century Jewish day school education, launched in 2012 with 21 Jewish Day Schools throughout North American and representing the full ideological spectrum.  As our work in this area deepens each year, new opportunities for innovation arise.  It has become to clear to us that gaming and gaming theory represent the next frontier.

A leading feature of 21^st century learning is giving students the opportunities to own the learning.  Knowing that Bloom’s Taxonomy recognizes “creativity” as the highest rung on the ladder, we are interested in giving our students opportunities to create meaningful, authentic work.  From a motivational standpoint, gaming provides us with a tangible example of our target audience spending hours upon hours failing to achieve!  But rather than becoming despondent, kids find this kind of failure motivating – they will spend hours and days working on new skills and seeking new discoveries in order to accomplish their goal.  Deep gaming allows for the possibility of harnessing students’ desire for creativity and motivation for success to the curricular aims of a school.

Although this would apply to any aspect of the curriculum, it is in Middle School Jewish Studies where perhaps the greatest opportunity lies.  It could be because the current quality of curricular materials is less.  It could be because student motivation for Jewish Studies is oftentimes less in, at least, some kinds of Jewish day schools.  It could be that for some students virtual Jewish experiences may the only Jewish experiences (outside of school) available.  For those reasons, and for the benefits of creating integrated curricular learning experiences between secular academics, STEM and Jewish Studies that many Jewish Day Schools find desirable either for expediency, mission or both, we believe the creation of a virtual gaming environment built around key periods of Jewish history has the greatest academic and commercial potential.

We envision our Middle School students having the opportunity to build upon existing curriculum by creating avatars who can interact in key periods of Jewish history.  It would call upon skills taught in Bible, Rabbinics, Social Studies, etc., and also include opportunities for remediation and enrichment.  We envision our day school students and faculty perhaps integrating their 21^st century learning skill set in mastery levels by creating new events, periods, storyboards, characters, etc.  This provides the greatest range of differentiation possible, from playing the game to co-creating it.

As an additional footnote, because of our school’s location within an educational academy at a large Conservative synagogue, we recognize there are yet additional applications of a game such as this with a larger population of supplemental school students.  We can imagine a game which allows the player to experience key moments of Jewish history being desirable either for the schools, parents and Jewish students who would unlikely be able to experience that subject matter (at least to day school depth) with the limited hours and curriculum supplemental schooling provides.

Flip flops.

If I only had one image to distinguish between the school year and the summertime, this would be it. My goal each year is to wear no socks between the last day of school and the first day of Faculty Pre-Planning in mid-August.  This is typically the only summer goal I am guaranteed to meet as I, like many, have a stack of books and projects on hold from the workaday school year to make my way through.  But in the spirit of buying new running shoes to shame oneself into exercising, I thought I would publicly out my summer agenda with the hope that it will similarly inspire me to make some headway.

First up?  Hire the rest of the faculty!  I blogged, here, about our amazing lineup of teachers and staff for 2012-2013 and the few positions still to be filled.  We wrapped up Faculty Post-Planning on Tuesday and began interviews yesterday.  We have some good candidates and I expect to have two or three out of the four openings filled within a couple of weeks (Kindergarten Assistant, Fourth Grade Assistant and Middle School Math).  One takeaway from the process is how much clearer I am able to be about who we are as a school and who we think would make a good fit for our faculty.  I am pleased after two years to have such clarity and am grateful to our faculty and lay leadership that we have reached this place.  As the names become finalized, I will share, but this is one summer goal that will rightfully be achieved as quickly (and correctly) as possible.

Speaking of “Post-Planning”…earlier this week we had a wonderful two-day seminar with new and returning faculty to plant seeds to be sown upon our return in August.  Topics included:

• End-of-Year Reflection
• AR/STAR Reading
• “Learning to blog FOR your students”
• iPads in the Classroom
• “How will I spend my summer vacation?”

The last session involved a conversation about our mutual responsibility to continue collaborative professional development through the summer, which for us will include required participation in one of four Summer Book Clubs that we have created and added to our faculty ning.  Each Book Club will be moderated by a member of our 21st Century Learning Team.  Each teacher will be required to create a product (they choose the form) that demonstrates their professional learning that will be shared during Pre-Planning.

If we ask all of our students to do “Summer Reading” and “Math Review” and we are the role models for lifelong learning, do we not have a responsibility to do no less?

So what will we be reading this summer that will positively impact our craft?

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.  –Amazon

by Alan November [Spoiler Alert: Our school is mentioned in the book!]  Learn how to harness students’ natural curiosity to develop self-directed learners. Discover how technology allows students to take ownership of their learning, create and share learning tools, and participate in work that is meaningful to them and others. Real-life examples illustrate how every student can become a teacher and a global publisher.  Link to Amazon (Paper Book) Link to Amazon (Kindle Edition)

I am going to do my very best to read all four this summer in addition to my own professional development reading, which I’ve been tweeting about and will blog about later on down the road.

What else is on tap?

Preparing for the official launch of Galinsky Academy!

I blogged at length about the vision for our new “academy” approach to Jewish education at the Jacksonville Jewish Center, here.  It is amazing that one year after the dream was dreamt it will come true this July.  In addition to all the other tasks required to successfully launch, our summer will be spent thinking, planning and developing a branding and marketing approach for the academy and its member schools.  It is an extraordinarily exciting time as our newly named DuBow Preschool is being physically transformed this summer so its facility’s excellence matches its programatic.  Renovation moves to the second story of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School to match last summer’s amazing transformation.  The Bernard & Alice Selevan Religious School will add its very own support staff person this July to enhance customer service and is working this summer to build on last year’s successful launch of a pilot program in Grade Three modeled after the successful Project Etgar it already uses in middle school grades.  And our Makom Hebrew High looks to build momentum heading into its third year.

Sounds like a full summer!

And since this is the first summer since 2003 (!) that I will not have the psychic weight of working on my doctorate…I guess I’ll also spend time with my wife, daughters, friends and family.  [Insert gratuitous photo.]

Yes, summer vacation has officially begun.  But the learning and growing never ceases…it just goes barefoot.

 

[NOTE: This was originally published on 6/6/12 on the PEJE blog and on 6/7/12 on the eJewish Philanthropy blog.]

I am sitting at JFK International Airport typing on my iPad, charging my iPhone, and missing my iFamily. But airports are sometimes ideal places for forced reflection, and these hours waiting for my flight home have provided me some much-needed time to reflect on the relationship between the recently held edJEWcon conference and a meeting I was privileged to attend this morning at the AVI CHAI Foundation.
edJEWcon, which was sponsored by AVI CHAI and the Schechter Day School Network, was an attempt to bring 21 Jewish day schools and 14 partner agencies together for an “Institute on Teaching & Learning.” If you look through all the sessions offered at edJEWcon, you will not find one that deals with “financial sustainability.”

So why would the good folks at PEJE ask me to blog about how edJEWcon impacts financial sustainability?

I believe it is because the field has been keenly interested in seeing how educational technology might positively impact the budgets of Jewish day schools, and not just the quality of instruction. If online, virtual, or blended learning can reduce the cost of Jewish day school education while increasing (or at least maintaining) the quality of Jewish day school education, we might find a so-called Unified Theory of Jewish Day School Affordability.

There are two assumptions about this theory and the AVI CHAI-sponsored meeting I attended this morning, to my surprise, challenged both.

1. It could be that outsourcing content creation (including course instruction and assessment) to online vendors—and here it could be either General or Jewish Studies—will in fact lead schools to reduce their faculties. It is not clear that Jewish day schools, unless they are start-ups that see outsourcing content creation as part of their core mission, are prepared to really reduce their faculties. It could be that the content is not yet sufficiently adequate. Or that the content is not yet sufficiently adaptable. Or that a lack of sufficient benchmarks across all forms of Jewish day schools allows for the creation of affordable content.
2. And it could be that, when push comes to shove, we really do believe that teachers make a huge difference and we aren’t ready yet to make painful decisions.

Judging from today’s conversation, the answer appears to be all of the above.

If the rush to embrace 21st century learning and educational technology does not lead to cost-cutting for Jewish day schools, it’s hard to imagine it contributing meaningfully to a conversation about financial sustainability. In fact, if not managed appropriately, 21^st century learning even runs the risk of making schools less financially sustainable because of increased technology costs.

My “a-ha” moment came in conversation with Rebecca Coen, founding head of a new high-tech Orthodox Yeshiva in Los Angeles called Yeshiva High Tech. We were talking after the meeting, and it occurred to me that part of the dissonance I experience in these meetings comes from different markets, given that non-Orthodox and Orthodox Jewish day schools are all scrambling to maintain and add to their student populations.

From Coen’s perspective, her population cannot afford the tuition of Jewish day school, period. They are choosing public school over Orthodox Jewish day school. Her only option is to provide the best possible education for the lowest possible price (that is my interpretation not her words) and educational technology may, indeed, allow her to do this.

For me, however, even though there are plenty of families who cannot afford our tuition and are choosing public school, there are also plenty of families who can afford our tuition (or more), but are choosing to spend it on elite secular independent schools. Lowering my tuition is not going to attract them. Increasing the quality of my school hopefully will. Investing in 21st century learning and educational technology may, indeed, allow me to do this.

These are just the experiences of two schools. I want to know more. Have birth rates changed this conversation? Do Orthodox families have more children to the degree that Jewish day school is simply not affordable regardless of the means of the family? What is the percentage of non-Orthodox families who have the means, but choose to spend it elsewhere?

Twenty-first century learning may indeed provide important paths toward the financial sustainability of Jewish day school, but it might take more than one form depending on the model or movement. These are exciting times, as schools, agencies, and foundations are ready to dream dreams. The crisis of day school affordability is very real. The promise of 21st century learning and educational technology is equally real. I look forward to more conversations, more experiments, more research, and more sharing. Whether there is one answer or many, it will take us all to discover them.

edJEWcon.

Wow.

How’s that for an honest and succinct reflection!  But that is truly how I feel coming out of an experience unlike any I have ever had.  I feel equal parts “proud parent”, “exhausted midwife”, “exhilarated student”, and “inspired principal”.

First, here are some facts:

We had twenty-one amazing school teams for this first conference on 21st century Jewish day school education:

• Community Day School
• El Paso Jewish Academy
• Fuchs Mizrachi School
• Gann Academy
• Golda Och Academy
• Gray Academy of Jewish Education
• Greenfield HebrewAcademy
• Gross Schechter Day School
• Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor
• Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School
• Jewish Community Day School of Boston
• Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island
• Kellman Brown Academy
• Lehrman Community Day School
• Margolin Hebrew Academy
• Metro West Jewish Day School
• Perelman Jewish Day School
• RASG Hebrew Academy of Miami Beach
• Schechter Westchester
• Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Monmouth County
• Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley 

We had amazing sponsors:

• AVI CHAI Foundation
• Schechter Day School Network

We had amazing partners:

• Yeshiva University Institute for University-School Partnership
• Day School Leadership Training Institute
• Behrman House
• CAJE Miami
• JESNA
• The Jewish Theological Seminary

We had amazing major keynotes: Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Angela Maiers.

http://youtu.be/Xcw8hCljj5I

http://youtu.be/dc9AOfIXPxg

We had one extra-special partner, Mike Fisher, without whom the conference would not not have been the same.

I had a team unlike no other.  I use the word “midwife” to partially describe my experience, because truthfully this was conceived prior to my arrival.  It began with Andrea Hernandez and moved forward with Silvia Tolisano.  I was blessed to arrive in the right time and in the right place.  I’ve played my part, but without the foundation they built over the last four years, none of this would have been possible.  Our story and the story of edJEWcon 5772.0 is partially contained in our opening keynote:

http://youtu.be/qtf4_YALfHY

You can begin to grasp the impact of the conference by flipping through the blogs written by the school teams (here) and the partners (here).  Angela Maiers shocked the house and stimulated the most amount of tweets and “ah’s” when she showed us a site that tracks Twitter activity that showed us that our conference of under 100 had reached over 117,000 people within 24 hours.  The outpouring of positivity is extraordinary.  The proud parent in me is thrilled to see so many firsts – first blog posts written and first Tweets abound.  It is a cornucopia of shehecheyanu moments – blessings of firsts and blessings for having been there in that place and at that time.

My full live blog of Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ keynote (here) is a series of exclamation points from a breathless schoolgirl.  [Much less sophisticated than Mike Fisher’s! (here)]  Here is the exhilarated student in me:

• What an extraordinary thrill to have Heidi Hayes Jacobs speaking at our school and at edJEWcon!
• She opened by giving a shout out to the MJGDS Middle School!
• The Hebrew root for “teach” is also to “learn”.
• “Strategic Replacement” – Remember it!
• All MS students have been paired with an adult to help them use TodaysMeet – edJEWcon.  We are all now all on TodaysMeet and beginning to dialogue.  She is sharing why TodaysMeet is better for some functions than Twitter.  It is closed and temporary.
• You can save the transcript and use it in the future!
• Next bookmark is the Curriculum 21.com/clearinghouse.
• People are now moving into groups of three or four for an activity.  Prezi.com is a new site for many.  It is also an app for the iPad.
• The goal for everyone is to leave “emotionally disturbed”!
• Who owns the learning?  The student!
• The back-channel conversation on TodaysMeet is dynamic.  I am selfishly proud of our students who are contributing great feedback
• Heads of schools should have steering wheels to give them illusion of control.
• …this is about adult discomfort.  Ammend your mission statemetnts and be honest about what year are your educating your children for.
• “Democratized socially created knowledge”
• All students should learn to create their own app before they graduate.
• No one learns in a straight line.
• What you study matters.  Content matters.  And it cannot wait.
• Text messaging as note taking – great idea.
• Quality counts.  The tools are great, but we still have to teach quality – quality blogs, quality movie-making, quality Skype – quality, quality, quality.
• We should eliminate Facuty Meetings and turn them into opportunities for teachers to explore new tools.
• Teachers have to be learners in order to teachers.
• There is no closure!

As for the inspired principal?  I’m over the moon.

This was a tremendous validation for our faculty, parents, students, stakeholders, and our community that the path we have chosen is indeed the right one.  This “21st century learning” thing is no fad and no slogan.  We can become a school who prepares our students to be successful in these modern times.  Or not (as Heidi Hayes Jacobs would say).  We can provide our students with authentic tasks that motivate them to learn and be their best.  Or not.  We can recognize what technology allows us to do.  Or not.  We can take the ideas, suggestions and inspiration from edJEWcon and use them to move our school down the 21st century learning road.  Or not.

We could start planning for edJEWcon 5773.1.  Or not.

What do you think?

It seems reasonable that since we are in the season of housecleaning in order to get ready for Passover, I would take care of some housecleaning of my own by providing updates on important activities:

We have successfully completed this year’s standardized testing!  Congrats to all our students and teachers for getting all those bubbles bubbled in properly with #2 pencils! We eagerly await our results and using those results to improve.  For a thorough review out how our school treats the testing process, please click here.

For useful suggestions on preparing to facilitate or participate in an active, engaging Passover Seder experience, please click here.

Still awaiting our official FCIS (Florida Council of Independent Schools) report to share with y’all…

Cannot be more excited for next week’s “No Office Day – Part II: The Student-Principal Swap” taking place on Wednesday!  The idea was the subject of last week’s blog post, here, and the reflection will hopefully be the subject of next week’s.

edJEWcon has officially been born!  We had our first webinar yesterday with all 21 school teams and a webinar for our 13 patterning agencies is coming soon.  It was so extraordinary see this dream become a reality and the excitement for the conference was (and is) palpable.  The website for edJEWcon has really taken off and, in the spirit of transparency, you can relive the webinar on the site, see the expanded list of schools, read up on the speakers, etc.  The temptation for hyperbole is strong within me, but it is hard not to hope that this might be a game-changing event – for the field and for our school.

Final piece of housecleaning…the Task Force for Creating an “Academy” at the Jacksonville Jewish Center (click here for background) officially wrapped up its yearlong project last night!  Although the governing principles and strategic plans still have a few more votes to pass through, the basic structure for the launch of the new Galinsky Academy on July 1, 2012 is in place.  Here is the scoop (from an article in the March 2012 Jacksonville Jewish News):

The Jacksonville Jewish Center is please to announce the launch of The Galinsky Academy.

The Academy is named for Samuel and Esther Galinsky, of blessed memory, who gave the largest gift of Jewish education in the history of the Jacksonville Jewish Center.

The Academy will bring together, under one umbrella, all of the school of the Jacksonville Jewish Center.

The JJC Preschool, the Bernard and Alice Selevan Religious School, the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and the Makom Hebrew High will work together under Academy Head, Dr. Jon Mitzmacher to fulfill the mission of offering the highest-quality Jewish educational experience for children from “Shalom Baby” through high school graduation.  By leveraging the resources of all four schools, parents can feel confident that their children will benefit from the most cutting-edge Jewish educational programming available.

Bruce Horovitz, former executive director of the Center said, “The Galinsky gift was very significant on so many levels.  It was certainly never on our radar and came as a complete surprise.  The fact that Samuel and Esther Galinsky, who had no children of their own, would choose to make an everlasting impact on Jewish education speaks volumes.  The gift came at a time of enormous need for the JJC schools and allowed the Center to continue and even expand our educational initiatives. The Galinsky gift continues to have a major impact on Jewish education, and we are forever grateful for their kindness and generosity to the entire Jewish community.”

Esther Galinsky contributed to a multitude of charitable organizations.  Because of her modest nature, her charitable giving went mostly unrecognized in her lifetime.

When she was homebound, in her later years, she especially enjoyed the periodic visits from the Day School students on their mitzvah trips.

Dr. Mitzmacher said, “Galinsky Academy will be a salad bowl, not a melting pot, of 21st century Jewish education.  Each school will retain its unique brand and structure while benefiting from the expertise of the others.”

For the more visual-minded, you can get a taste of the values we hope Galinsky Academy will inculcate in its students by enjoying this Wordle from an early visioning exercise: