By Elissa Schwartz and Jeff Smith, co-chairs, Religious School/Youth Programming Committee
Tikvat Israel, as part of its strategic planning process, is restructuring its youth programming and religious education.
For more than a decade, youth education and youth programming have been managed through separate departments and separate directors within the synagogue. Additionally, the goals of the two separate functions were not always aligned.
Recognizing this situation during our multi-year strategic planning, the TI board of directors has developed a solution. From this point forward, the two divisions will be merged. A full-time director will be hired to manage the operations of our religious school and our youth programming.
Several design elements will be put in place over the coming months.
Religious school will operate at Tikvat Israel for all of our children starting in September.
We have designed a model that allows flexibility on where, when and how the teachers and students interact. In some cases, it may be a traditional classroom setting. In other cases, two students may work with one teacher. The schedule will be dictated by the individual learning needs of the children as determined by parents and educators.
The program will use a curriculum aligned to personal needs of the children, and they will progress through the learning elements at a pace that best fits them. Most importantly, learning goals will be established for each student, and twice a year the director will lead a formal meeting involving the teacher and the family to assess the progress toward those goals.
In addition, weekly programming will take place throughout the year on Shabbat and other days to bring the children in varying age groups together to help build cohesion and increase social interaction. Our goals are to not only help our children learn what it means to be Jewish, but to give them the opportunity to do so with existing friends and the chance to make new ones.
We understand this is a different model of religious school than most of us experienced as students or as a parent. But different can be better. Individualized learning has been used to teach children for years, particularly those who have the greatest challenges. We are seeing, this form of teaching in many different environments. In fact, Joshua Starr, superintendent of schools in Montgomery County, in his Feb. 24 memo to the school board, references the importance of alternative designs to traditional education. He stresses, “Effective alternative schools provide individualized learning plans for all students.”
We are seeing a shift today away from traditional classroom models into alternative designs for teaching at the individual student level. Given the number of students available to enroll at Tikvat Israel, this new model that focuses on individualized learning and instruction makes the most sense, both financially and educationally.
Let’s all work to together to ensure Tikvat Israel excels at the mitzvah of teaching our children.
Contact the shul office for all the details.
