Marion Gribetz and Billy Mencow are Managing Directors of GribetzMencow Consultants, a national consulting firm specializing in strengthening and supporting Jewish education. Their work is influenced by their tenure at the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston where they respectively directed and spearheaded the launch of Sh’arim, The Jewish Family Educator initiative and the YESOD, youth education initiative. In this article, Gribetz and Mencow re-open a question many thought was already closed: Can supplementary schools provide an alternative to day schools?

In a recent article in the Forward, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg claims, “Complaints that day-school education is just too expensive have surged…. And new programs have been launched to rehabilitate supplemental religious or Hebrew schools/Talmud Torahs, so they can serve as better educational options for parents.” (“There Is No Alternative to Day Schools,” Forward, December 11, 2009). Greenberg argues that, for the non-Orthodox, these schools are poor substitutes for Jewish day schools, and urges that community resources be directed to day school education for the non-Orthodox.

The editors of Jewish Education Leadership turned to us to comment on the possibility of what has been known variously as supplementary schools, Hebrew Schools, and congregational schools to provide for a robust and enriching Jewish education for children. This conversation is more than rhetorical. These venues, which throughout this article we’ll call supplementary schools, provide critical services to large numbers of Jewish families who choose non day school settings for their children for a variety of reasons, but who also want their children to receive a good Jewish education. According to a 2008 study sponsored by AviChai and conducted by Jack Wertheimer, ‘A Census of Jewish Supplementary Schools in the United States, 2006-2007’ (available at http://www.avi-chai.org/Static/Binaries/Publications/Census%20Report%20-%20Final_0.pdf), in 2006-2007 there were an estimated 230,000 students enrolled in grades 1–12 in Jewish supplementary schools. In this article we posit that many supplementary schools do, and many more have the potential to, provide a sound and solid Jewish education. We identify the actions that must be taken to improve supplementary Jewish education, and we offer policy recommendations for schools and communities alike to improve the supplementary school system that so many Jewish families rely on.

The basics: goals, systems, and planning

Over the decades, the supplementary school has taken its knocks as the place that children endure just as their parents did. Our experience as Jewish educational consultants working in a variety of the new programs identified by Rabbi Greenberg lead us to claim: “It’s not your parents’ Hebrew school any more.”

Over the past twenty years, we and many talented educators have worked with dozens of supplementary schools that are attempting to get it right. This has been a period of dynamic growth, focused on the education that children receive in all aspects of the supplementary school. Most congregations today are addressing the issue by 1) combining formal and informal educational opportunities for all children, and 2) improving growth for both professional and lay leaders.

The process of school improvement begins with goal-setting, preferably synagogue-wide, when the school is situated in a synagogue. (We are also familiar with schools and programs that operate in other community settings and believe that those schools can benefit as well from thinking about their programs through a system-wide lens). When a synagogue takes its own goals very seriously and aligns all educational programming toward those goals, its educators have a clear blueprint for helping students and families become engaged with the depth of Jewish tradition. What we have seen is that those synagogue communities that have robust and deeper programming are the same ones that take the time to plan, connecting their actions to articulated goals. Good synagogue education depends on good processes, which are ongoing, coordinated, led by active, knowledgeable, caring professionals and lay leaders – and tied to clear goals.

Education in the supplementary setting is complex and requires a comprehensive orientation. Educational leaders must carefully understand what makes their school unique and identify its strengths and challenges, be they demographic, ideological or financial. Schools that set themselves up for success have systems in place to answer the following:

• What subjects do we want our children to learn well?
• What skills do our teachers need to teach well? (By teachers we mean rabbis, cantors, early childhood, family and youth educators – the professionals who interact with the children in many settings.)
• Who will be diligently responsible to oversee the delivery of subject matter?
• Are channels of communication and accountability clear and simple?
• Do our lay leaders understand their roles and responsibilities?
• Are members of the team ready to commit to an action plan with both short and long term timelines?

When addressed thoughtfully and honestly, the answers to these questions make up the critical infrastructure for supplementary schools to thrive and meet their potential.

Many of the change initiatives that have been implemented in supplementary schools in the past few decades emphasize planning and process – but planning and process of a particular sort. We don’t advocate for the development of a static strategic plan. Supplementary education that is good and sustainable results from planning as an active, ongoing process. That means regular lesson planning, accessing subject matter and curricular resources, reflective practice and collegial sharing, and understanding individual children and the community in which the education takes place. This planning works best in a school that has set clear curricular and subject matter goals, and has created supportive structures that invite discussion and reflection and clear channels of authority and communication. We have visited and worked in numerous supplementary schools where curriculum and program materials are constantly being reviewed, the content and frequency of professional growth opportunities are continually considered, existing job descriptions and time allotments are examined frequently, and – notably – where budget line items reflect these considerations.

The part-time nature of supplementary schools elevates the importance of making every minute count. Successful supplementary schools look to the entire institution and community for support, and creatively exploit all learning environments. As they plan, they ask:

• Do the sequence of prayers and style of prayer at junior congregation or youth shabbatonim align with what we teach in the classroom and aspire to as a community?
• Are our efforts to teach social responsibility supported by opportunities in the community to enact those lessons?
• Does our budget support necessary growth opportunities for staff that works directly with our students?
• Does the budget provide time for the staff to interact with the students beyond the walls of the classroom?
• Are supports for Hebrew language instruction (texts, workbooks, time, and teacher competencies) adequate to our intentions?
• What is in place for our students and teachers to know and think about contemporary Israel?

Finally, good supplementary schools align their planning, programs, staffing, and budgets to their educational goals – and their vision.

Going for depth

In good supplementary schools, all the stage-setting – defining goals, establishing systems, perpetual planning – is backed up by the practice of going deeper: deeper with vision, with insight and resources, with teachers, students, and parents.

Schools need a clear vision of their ideal graduate and a plan for educating and forming such a student. Few schools we observed have such a vision. Instead, many have a strong sense of the atmosphere they seek to foster, and some learning goals. They are clear about the ambience they seek to create and, to some extent, what they do not want to stress. But it is far harder to pin them down on what they would like their students to learn by the time they graduate.

The better schools strive to create a culture of self-reflection aimed at recalibrating their programs, when necessary, based on critical examination of what is working and what is not. This is a collaborative task. It requires the harnessing of administrators, educators, parents, and lay leaders in a common effort. Achieving change and improvement requires the involvement of lay leaders – board members and others – in the life of the school.

Good schools develop partnerships – not only with their congregations, but also with outside resources that can offer expertise, materials and grants. Schools, regardless of size, must consider potential internal and external resources and then plan to make maximum use of them.

In the case of teachers, going deeper means requiring and supporting their professional growth. Teaching is a craft that is never really mastered. It takes sustained practice, reflection, and effort. Teachers in supplementary schools present a special challenge because of the part-time and frequently avocational nature of their work. In this setting, effective professional development must be offered, and must be comprehensive, multi-level, ongoing, and centered on improving teaching and learning in the classroom and wherever educators and children interact. In our experience, schools with the best professional development programs have a trained, professional, on-site mentor who observes teachers as they work with children and provides teachers with feedback, opportunities for reflection, and support in aligning lessons with the broader objectives of the school.

In the case of students, going deeper means looking at the school holistically, from pre-K through grade 12. Good supplementary schools take responsibility for all ages, either with direct programs or by transitioning the students and accompanying them to their next venue.

In the case of parents, going deeper means enlisting parents as the schools’ allies. Too often, when schools fail to engage students, parents give up and leave. Good supplementary schools integrate parents into the life of the school by deploying mechanisms for accountability, feedback, and appropriate parental involvement. Parents who feel they are a vital part of making the school a great place for Jewish learning are more likely to be loyal and constructive members of the school community.

A living environment for supportive Jewish learning

These fundamental elements for running a good supplementary school – goal-setting, a system that fosters accountability, open communication, reflection, and growth, and ongoing planning right down to the brass tacks of lesson plans and budgets – must be nested within a sensibility that reflects larger Jewish communal values and insists that supplementary schools be joyous, Jewishly purposeful places focused on the present and the future.

Congregations are in the business of Jewish living and creating and supporting an environment where Judaism comes alive. In good supplementary schools, the entire congregation is engaged in connecting the young people and their families to the rest of the institution and is aligned with the schools’ efforts to accomplish educational goals for the children. Practically speaking, this means intentionally building a community among children, staff, and parents. A good school realizes that its most important message is embedded in the culture and relationships it fosters. It attends to the needs of individual children, embraces them in an environment where their classmates become their friends, and connects them and their family to the larger community. The school fosters a community that is warm, hospitable, and establishes norms explicitly identified as distinctly Jewish.

But a good supplementary school is more than a place that feels good. It also takes Jewish study seriously. Students learn the joys of Jewish study when the school pushes them beyond rote learning to engage their minds, mull over texts and issues, and discuss ideas and ethical dilemmas. Students absorb the importance of Jewish education when schools engage their parents as models and as members of the school community committed to holding the school accountable for their children’s education. Students learn to value their Jewish heritage when the school expects a level of behavior and does not allow them to disrupt classes and demoralize their classmates and teachers, when the best discipline is achieved not punitively, but primarily by attending closely to their individual needs.

Inherent challenges

While we believe that investing in and improving Jewish supplementary schools is a worthwhile endeavor, we also acknowledge that a number of challenges are endemic to the field, and no school is immune to their impact. These challenges make change more difficult.

To start, there is a scarcity of teachers well-versed in Hebrew and Judaica who have the skills to transmit their knowledge to students. All revitalization initiatives designed to ratchet up school quality depend on people who can undertake the necessary work. That’s tough to do without competent teachers.

A related problem is the lack of attention to aiding teachers in translating curriculum materials into effective teaching plans. There is no shortage of curriculum materials available to schools through denominational education arms, central agencies for Jewish education, and commercial firms, but teachers lack support for implementing them in the classroom.

Then there are administrative challenges. Directing a school is a demanding job. Too often schools rely on the director to be a superman or, more commonly, superwoman who handles everything. Most schools have a shallow bench without pinch hitters who can come to the aid of directors.

Time constraints plague Jewish supplementary schools as well. Responding to the handful of hours that students attend school each week, some schools focus sharply on achieving goals that are attainable, and do not promise more than they can deliver. The question is whether this hard-headed approach to time results in low expecations.

Time constraints also force supplementary schools to make narrower decisions about what to emphasize and what to omit. They must make trade-offs among subject matter – Hebrew language versus Jewish history, or the holidays, or Israel, or building prayer skills, or talking about God – and also between content knowledge and community-building or other affective activities.

Finally, many parents and children regard the end-goal of supplementary school to be the bar or bat mitzvah. One-third of students in supplementary schools drop out the year after they reach this milestone, and 55 percent leave within two years. Good, effective schools, in contrast, try to retain students well beyond seventh grade. How to manage this disparity in expectations and stem post-bar/bat mitzvah attrition is a central challenge facing supplementary schools.

Getting there from here: policy recommendations

Here are our key recommendations for improving Jewish supplementary schools, first to individual schools, then to interested individuals and agencies:

• Engage in multi-levered change. Schools are complex institutions and require a series of interventions to turn them around. Too many schools focus on a single area, believing that they can redirect the entire school enterprise by improving the curriculum, or by intensifying professional development, or by forging a strong bond between the synagogue and the school. Each of these is important, but no single one, alone, will improve the school.
• Enlist congregational and community support as the school develops a vision, goals, a Jewish context that works, enrichment programs such as shabbatonim, connections to informal Jewish educational opportunities, and a program of professional development. Congregations and communities must work in concert with their schools and must be patient during the inevitable growing pains, recognizing that school change entails much new learning on the part of many people, as well as time to plan, experiment, and assess. Congregational and communal leaders also have a role to play as supporters of change.
• Spread responsibility. Change and growth is less likely when a single individual bears all responsibility for the school. Shared responsibility also insulates schools from vulnerabilities when there is turnover in personnel, such as the departure of a school head or the lay leader chairing the education committee.
• Hire and develop inspired, knowledgeable teachers. Nothing can substitute for educators who come to school with a strong sense of Jewish mission and easy access to deep content knowledge .
• Engage high school and college students. Older students who serve as teaching assistants and tutors can bring educational strength to programs and show younger students identifiable continuity on the path to becoming Jewish adults.
• Think wisely about using time well. Supplementary school hours are few. Schools need to prioritize carefully and help educators make every moment count. This is not a unique challenge to supplementary schools. Even in Day Schools time is a precious commodity. We have visited supplementary schools that provide more time on task for Hebrew Language instruction, prayer and Torah than in some Day schools we have visited!
• Keep information flowing. Schools should hold frequent staff meetings, make room for staff development time, and collaborate on planning and programming. They should forge educational linkages with the congregation and community; and among early childhood programs, camping, youth work, community programs and adult education.

Recommendations for individuals and agencies outside the school:

• Create a mechanism for helping schools make informed curricular decisions. Supplementary Jewish education is highly decentralized. Each individual school fends for itself as it shapes its own curriculum, a chaotic situation resulting in too much time spent reinventing the proverbial wheel. Correcting this state of affairs will require assistance from national, regional or local centralized resources.
• Translate ideas into results. Some national educational and denominational resources try to serve as a clearinghouse for good ideas. Their impact is hampered, however, not only by budgetary constraints, but by the gap between exchanging ideas and implementing them. Schools need guidance in how to adapt curricula, programs, and initiatives that work in other settings but may not fit properly into their own.
• Foster conversations within schools about objectives and realistic ways to meet goals. Many schools are most interested in giving students positive Jewish experiences, but they also devote time to teaching skills and content without a clear sense of the ends they wish to achieve. Schools need help thinking through what they hope to accomplish and envisioning what their ideal graduate will have mastered and experienced.

Conclusion

The real work of building an effective supplementary school is not to actualize specific aspirations – better curriculum, improved teaching, wider and deeper programming, holistic governance – but to hold all of these, together, in balance. No single one of these approaches will, alone, yield change. It is the combination of these traits that forges a strong school. If we accept that a critical mass of families wants to choose supplementary schools for their children, we believe that, with applied commitment, it is eminently possible to deliver the excellent Jewish education that their children deserve.

Note: We are indebted to our colleagues on the Avi Chai supplementary school project which resulted in the publication of Schools That Work (http://www.avi-chai.org/Static/Binaries/Publications/Schools%20That%20Work%20-%20What%20We%20Can%20Learn_0.pdf) and Learning and Community: Jewish Supplementary Schools in the 21st Century (Brandeis University Press, 2009).