 Speech
by President Alan Harlam
JCDS Annual Meeting – June 6, 2007
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Good evening. I would like to welcome our school’s parents, students,
alumni, faculty and staff, our dedicated board of trustees and community
volunteers, and distinguished members of our community to the second
annual meeting of the Jewish Community Day School of RI.
Our work to create a vibrant, thriving school for our community has
begun – but we are far from finished. We began this journey with a
commitment to improve the school from top to bottom. Our first and
highest priority has and will continue to be to deliver a high quality,
rigorous secular education that prepares our graduates as inquisitive,
articulate, high performing lifelong learners. Our outstanding faculty
and administrators are charting the course to guide the school along
this journey. We have made significant improvements in many areas, yet
we know we can and must continue to aim higher. Our commitment to
quality and excellence will impact all areas of the school. We are
committed to raise the quality of our Judaic and Hebrew language
curriculum to ensure our students leave the school connected to our rich
traditions, values, and culture. The school has also improved individual
students’ academic and social success with our the homeroom model and
school counselor; we’ve significantly expanded our arts program; and
we’ve worked hard to professionalize communication from the school.
Our second priority this year has been to determine the school’s
future location. Our efforts to secure a new site for the school have
been ongoing – and fraught with difficulty and disappointments. Our
board is committed to work in good faith with all stakeholders to find
the best site that ensures the school’s future success. I’d like to
thank our committees and our board for their incredible efforts – and
strategic consideration of this important decision – and to take a
moment to update you on their work.
Joe Mann chaired the site committee and Rochelle Rosen chaired the
community research committee that provided the board with valuable data,
research, and feedback to support the decision making process. We
received inputs from parents of school aged children through an online
survey earlier this year. A summary of this report is being distributed
this week – full details will soon be available on our website. I would
like to extend a special thanks to professor Rachel Friedburg for her
amazing efforts to help the board understand the responses from the
survey – and to better understand community demographics based on the
federations 2002 survey data. We’ve also reviewed all of the work from
past site searches conducted over the past several years by the
federations site committee chaired by Arthur Robbins – and we conducted
our own, led by David Sholes, to make sure we considered every viable
site. Finally, we had conversations with several other schools around
the country to learn from their experiences and avoid reinventing the
wheel.
Our school will not reach its potential until this process is
complete and we make a decision regarding our permanent home. While i
had hoped to complete this process this year, I’m confident that we are
closer than ever to realizing this important milestone.
None of what we’ve accomplished would be possible without the
commitment and support of the RI Jewish community. We have many friends,
but we’d be remiss if we did not publicly recognize and thank some of
them for their support.
As you know, the federation made a long term commitment to help us
realize our vision for excellence through investments in faculty,
curriculum, and programming. The school began investing these funds this
year in the renovations to our facility as well as the programmatic
improvements we’ve all seen at the school this year. We are deeply
appreciative for their support and I’d like to personally thank
federation president herb stern and their new CEO, Steve Silberfarb for
their unwavering support.
Our support from the bureau of Jewish education is also a pillar of
our strength & success. We appreciate the technical and educational
guidance and advice we’ve received throughout the year from Minna
Ellison, the executive director, and her dedicated staff. We have
received excellent feedback and advice through our work with the
bureau’s liaison committee chaired by Ezra Steiglitz and a sub-committee
chaired by Maurice Glicksman.
I’d also like to pause to recognize and thank the board members and
officers of the school for their dedication and hard work. Three
departing board members deserve special thanks for their efforts. Alex
Kaufman chaired this year’s annual fund – which was one of the most
successful campaigns in recent years. He worked very closely with
Meredith Einsohn, the development associate at the school, to ensure
that we reconnected the school to friends and supporters that hadn’t
heard from the school in several years. Jeff Gladstone is a former
president of the school and this year worked tirelessly to secure the
zoning relief and approvals we needed for the renovations earlier this
year – and for the new offices and planned work to the outdoor spaces.
Allan Brenman did an outstanding job with his co-chair, Judy Rosenstein,
to chart the future of our board with his work on the governance
committee. Thank you all for your service and dedication to the school.
I would also like to thank Bruce Wolpert who continued his service to
the school by chairing our development committee. The financial support
we’ve received from the community provided the startup capital to begin
the process of improving and expanding the school – Bruce’s committee
has worked throughout the year to develop a broad base of support – from
donors and investors throughout the community – to ensure that the
school fulfills its mission as a “school of excellence”.
Finally, I would like to thank and recognize the officers – Vice
President Gloria Feibish, Treasurer Joe Mann, and Secretary Judy
Rosenstein. I also want to thank my friend and our incoming treasurer,
Laurie Sholes for stepping up beyond all expectations. We are incredibly
fortunate to have such committed and capable trustees on the board – and
I’d like to recognize this group of committed volunteers for taking
their role seriously and working as a unified team to ensure the schools
health and success.
Finally, i would like to acknowledge my friend and partner – and our
visionary leader in this endeavor, Dani Steiner. In a very short time,
you have made an indelible mark in our community. You’ve inspired us all
to see how great we can be – and you’ve helped us believe it can all be
possible. We are very lucky and thankful to have you, Ayelet, Shachar,
Ziv, Ofir, and recently Noa here in Providence – and I’m excited to
continue this journey with you at the helm.
I’d like to end my remarks with a couple of personal reflections. We
live in an amazing community – filled with caring committed people who
care deeply about the quality and continuity of Jewish life in Rhode
Island. In my role, I've had the privilege to hear from and work with
many people who have enriched my life – and I'm thankful for having had
the opportunity.
I’d also like to take just a moment to tell you why i think our
school is so vital to our community. Bari and i initially chose to send
our children to this school because we saw so many examples of smart,
capable, confident, and caring kids and hoped for the same results for
our own children. As we’ve followed these children through their journey
to young adulthood – Brook & Ben Odessa, Ami, Eitan, and Shayna Hersh,
Amy Peiser, Ramesh Radparvar, and Samantha Braverman – we were further
convinced that there was no coincidence between their day school
education and the adults they have become.
This anecdotal evidence is further supported by scholarly research.
I’ll briefly tell you the headlines from just two.
“The impact of day school: a comparative analysis of Jewish college
students” published last month by PEJE – the Partnership for Excellence
in Jewish Education – conducted a survey of over 3,000 college students
to explore how graduates of day schools compare to public school and
non-Jewish private school graduates. The study asked these students to
reflect on a common question asked by parents considering a day school
education: does my child’s secular education suffer because she spends
half the day studying Judaic curriculum? In fact the study tells us just
the opposite; Respondents to this study are performing on par or better
than their counterparts in public and non-Jewish private schools.
Another report published last year by Steven Cohen, a researcher at
Jewish Life Network, wrote “A Tale of Two Jewries, the Inconvenient
Truth for American Jews”. On page 13 of his paper, about three quarters
of the way down the page is a heading that says it all to me: “Jewish
Education Works”. In the paragraph that follows, he cites 15 articles
written from 1974 to the present that basically say the same thing –
that Jews with strong educations are more connected and committed to
their faith, culture, and heritage. “Jewish Education Works”.
Finally, I’d like to ask each person here tonight to help us spread
the word and tell the story of excellence at our school. Invite a family
with young children to tour the school – many of our current families
would not have known about our school if a friend hadn’t suggested it.
I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight – and for your commitment
to our future – our children and their education.
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