Baltimore Jewish Day Schools

A Jewish day school!**
A Jewish day school will give your child unique benefits:
•    Pride in our Jewish heritage
•    A warm and nurturing Jewish environment
•    A values-based education that develops character
•    Outstanding teachers and role models
•    Small classes with individual attention
**The Impact of a Jewish Education on Adults’ Jewish Identity –
2000-01 National Jewish Population Study Report

Have you considered a Baltimore Jewish Day School? START NOW>>

by Tamara Silberman

http://www.helium.com/items/1754690-why-jewish-day-schools

Can you imagine living in a place where you can join a synagogue of any denomination, eat kosher food, and tell your boss that you’re not coming in today because it’s Rosh Hashana? You can major in Judaic studies, put a Menorah in your window and hang a Mezuza on your doorpost.  But can you get through a simple paragraph in Hebrew?

Here we are in America, the Goldene Medina, and most Jews have opted out of their free choice to study Hebrew, keep kosher or use a personal day for the Jewish holidays.  We have many fine Jewish day schools in this country, yet the majority of Jews choose to send their children to public or prep schools, even when their Jewish children are clearly in the minority.

Maybe day schools have not differentiated themselves in the minds of Jewish professionals. Maybe parents don’t realize that laying a foundation for a second language in the early grades is wonderful stimulation for the brain.  How can it be that parents don’t want their kids to know “too much” about Judaism?  Various studies have shown that children who are proud of their heritage and know their families roots exude more self-esteem.  More importantly, at some point children start asking big questions about religion. Wouldn’t you prefer for them to find the answers in Judaism instead of Buddhism?

What is the importance of sending a Jewish child to a Jewish day school? Jewish schools nurture the spirit in each child.  Whereas public schools are cutting music and art, day school children sing their prayers every day.  Whereas public schools celebrate cutesy holidays such as Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year, Jewish schools instill lifelong values by focusing on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Chanuka and Purim.

In public schools, the bulletin boards boast about what a diverse community the student body represents.  At a Jewish Day School, while the student body is still diverse, there is emphasis on building a unified community, with common goals and values.

The impact that No Child Left Behind has foisted on public schools has turned public school education into a grind for many.  Children and teachers alike in the public schools tell me that the bulk of their time is spent studying for the gargantuan state tests which determine the school’s success rate. These scores are not even necessarily given to the children or their parents. Old-time teachers remember longingly for the time when they did projects and took field trips.  Today they drill the children on skills.

Yet in day school, children are free to study subject matter. Their day is academically rich as they learn double the content matter because of a dual curriculum.  Art and music enhance their learning.  They read stories about their ancestors—not everyone else’s.  Children who attend day school also learn lifelong skills that will help them become leaders in their communities.  They will eventually learn skills for the SAT, but they don’t need to start that in Kindergarten.

A Jewish education is expensive and many families aren’t up to the challenge of writing those checks. However, the payoff is tremendous in terms of your child, in terms of your community and in terms of exercising your right to freedom of religion. To quote the Talmud, “Don’t say you will study later, study now so that you can study later.”

Israel is our ancestral homeland. At Krieger Schechter Day School, we teach its history in the lives of the Jewish people. We study its role in the Bible. We weave it into the curriculum not only in Judaics and Hebrew classes, but in social studies and geography and art. We learn its music and keep up with its politics. Of course, we also study modern Hebrew, Israel’s national language. And every eighth grader participates in an end-of-year Israel trip.

Grade 8 Israel Trip

The 8th grade year culminates in a two-week trip to Israel planned with Ramah Israel Programs. A capstone experience, the trip brings together years of Hebrew and Judaic study as it opens students to the living reality of the State of Israel. Students participate in an archaeological dig and get a chance to pray at the Western Wall (Kotel).
As a student you’ll also get to:
• Make your own pita bread!
• Plant trees in a JNF forest.
• Look over the border into Lebanon and Syria from the Golan Heights
• Explore a village from the era of the Talmud
• Hike the Galil
• Raft down the Jordan River
• Visit mystical Tzfat
• Take in the Bahai gardens in Haifa
• View Jerusalem from Mt. Scopus
• Visit Independence Hall and the Palmach Museum in Tel Aviv
• Climb Masada
• Take a dip in the Dead Sea
• Ride Bedouin camels
• Go caving
• Explore Jerusalem’s Old City
• Visit YadVashem
• Tour the Knesset
Students come back exhausted and overwhelmed, with memories of a bonding experience that is a fantastic tribute to their time at KSDS.

Krieger Schechter Day School
8100 Stevenson Road
Baltimore, MD 21208

A recent post on the PEJE Blog by Renee Rubin Ross, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University suggests that a Jewish day school is something quite different from a “Jewish independent school”.

“Some might suggest that Jewish day schools are just like independent schools, except Jewish. Day schools are often encouraged to think about their similarities with independent schools and draw on the governance, fundraising, and administrative practices of independent schools.

But my dissertation research suggests that a Jewish day school is something quite different than a “Jewish independent school.” For a year, I conducted ethnographic research at a Jewish day school, a Catholic school, and a secular independent school, exploring how parents were involved in each of the three schools. I interviewed administrators, teachers, and parents, and attended parent events. What I found was that the terms of the relationship between parents and administration were qualitatively different across the schools.

What do I mean by this? At all three schools, parents were concerned about their children’s academic success: They attended parent conferences and back-to-school nights, helped their children with homework, and spoke to teachers and administrators when they had a concern about their children’s learning. But at “Jewish Day”[*] and “St. Cornelius,” parents had a more robust relationship with the school.

How could I tell this? One fascinating piece of evidence was that parents at Jewish Day and St. Cornelius had much more to say about their schools. My conversations with parents at “College Prep” (the independent school) centered around the fact that the school was a good fit academically and socially for their child. Most parents were not looking to build community around the school, and those who were interested reported that others families were often “busy.”

In contrast, parents at Jewish Day and St. Cornelius also spoke about the fact that these schools were a good fit academically and socially for their children, and how meaningful it was to support and be involved with a community institution; how they celebrated religious holidays with other families from the school; how families supported one another in times of need; and how they trusted the other families to help them raise their children.  When I interviewed parents at each of the three schools, I asked the same questions, but the interviews with Jewish Day and St. Cornelius consistently took longer, because these parents had many more ways of connecting with the school.

It may not be surprising that families connected to a Jewish or Catholic school had more to talk about than academics. But what was a little more surprising was that this different kind of relationship helped to buffer conflict between administrators and parents when it inevitably occurred. For example, when several students at College Prep were reported to have fallen behind, parents were angry, some to the point of being litigious. In contrast, when students at Jewish Day were reported to have not met curricular standards, parents were also angry, but they worked with the school to find solutions and improve teaching and learning.

So a Jewish day school can be more than a Jewish independent school; parents’ emotional investment in the school may be deeper and exist on many more levels. At a time of thinking about how to strengthen Jewish day schools financially, the impact and importance of this emotional investment should be carefully considered.”