Among the items found in the job description of heads of school in Jewish day schools are technical skills such as budget review and management, fundraising, strategy development and implementation and problem solving. A Rosov Consulting study commissioned by the JFNA identified “softer skills” such as “establishing and developing a leadership team, capacity building, fostering school culture, designing a succession plan and managing stakeholder expectations.” Add to this faculty supervision, curriculum management, involvement with parents and facility management.

If that’s not enough, heads are also responsible for defining vision and setting goals, defining one’s own roles and the roles of others, managing change; managing lay-professional relations, managing staff; relating to other professionals in one’s organization, managing day-to-day operations; managing oneself, managing space and managing funds. Even with extensive backgrounds and degrees such as rabbinic ordination, master’s and doctorates, one-third of heads who participated in the Rosov study felt underprepared to enter day school leadership. 

The 15 novice heads of Jewish day schools who participated in my doctoral research in 2022 echoed these points while raising additional concerns. All shared what they wish they had known before becoming a head of school, including budgets, financials, boards, recruitment and fundraising.

The following five themes emerged from the data.

1. Jewish Leadership Preparation 

Among the programs in which interviewees participated are the Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI), Prizmah’s YOU Lead, and the Harvard Principals Institute (previously sponsored by Avi Chai, now sponsored by Legacy Heritage). These programs served as preparatory programs prior to becoming a head of school, though several heads participated in their first years of headship.

Four participants were a part of the YOU Lead program. For two of them, YOU Lead provided a significant amount of leadership development: It “was a seminal program in (one’s) path to headship.” The content of the program was rich in areas of leadership, Judaics, Hebrew, evaluation and fundraising. The content “went a mile wide, but it also went fairly deep.” The cohort model of the program and the coaching were also listed as being impactful.

Seven were in the Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI). One said that DSLTI opened his eyes to what collaboration looks like and how to collaborate even when others aren’t willing to collaborate with you. DSLTI gave him the tools for stakeholder mapping and working with the board and parents. He had guidance from DSLTI staff on how to deal with the board, parents and the community.

Each of the fifteen heads has also worked with Prizmah at some point during their headship. Some are active on Prizmah’s head of school listserv or weekly Zoom gatherings, while others take part in Prizmah’s programs and use their online resources. Prizmah has provided the resources and programs that impact heads, allowing them to easily connect with others in similar roles.

2. The Political Role: Managing Boards, Budgets and High Demands of the Job 

Fiscal management, governance and the many new demands of the job dominated many of the interviews. For several, prior positions did not effectively prepare them for these new tasks.

Participants focused on their previous work with boards and how it has been to work with a board in their current position. Several had little to no experience working with boards; two have served on other boards, and one served on the board at the school she now leads.

Five talked extensively about their lack of knowledge on budgets. One lamented her lack of training in business management or finance. Unlike most other aspects of the job involving day-to-day management, anything dealing with the budget requires more time to sit and look through. Another head was similarly candid about her lack of experience working on finance, budgeting and the business aspects of school. A third was grateful to his director of finance and facilities for giving him a better understanding of the budget.

One participant felt that the piece that was most “sorely lacking in any advanced educational or Jewish educational piece is the financial piece. The budgeting. How to do it. We spent a half day looking at a budget and looking at one thing but wasn’t… what you… really need to know.” She went on to describe how using Excel is not her forte, and she shouldn’t have to rely on her finance director just to help put in a 2% raise for staff.

3. Support for Role Socialization: Coaching/Mentoring

Participants reflected on coaches and mentors who have been influential throughout their careers and focused on current coaches and mentors in their roles as head of school. All fifteen have worked with and continue to benefit from past and current coaches and mentors.

Several participants credited their coaches and mentors with pushing them into the headship. One participant reflected on the role of their mentor during their first year. The mentor helped her look at her strengths and find ways to maximize those strengths in her work, rather than focusing on the things that she was not good at. She also learned from her mentors the importance of building a team, because “I’m not going to be perfect at everything. But if I build a team that includes people who can kind of fill in where my gaps are, then that creates a better whole.”

4. Balancing the Personal and Professional: Work-Life Balance 

Work-life balance is an elusive goal for several of the heads. For two, it calls their future in the field into question. One head worried that completely surrendering to the job means that she is neglecting her children. She was very worried about burnout. She also wondered if her struggles stem from her particular school or from the position of head of school itself. Since the completion of the study, she has left the field altogether.

One head had to ask the head support committee to step in and help. She is often so busy that she does not eat lunch; she stays late at work each day to catch up on work. And she feels lonely. She doesn’t feel like she has a team: “It’s that cliché, it’s lonely at the top.” Her excitement of being a head of school has diminished.

For the first four months on the job, one head was working 12- to 15-hour days. Her morale was low, and she recognized that she needed to get a better handle on things at the school. Putting processes into place made a huge difference. 

One head finds the 24/7 work, especially during the pandemic, to be a difficult piece to manage. He is in the office ten hours a day and has meetings two nights a week, whether for the school or in the Jewish community. For the first time in his life, he goes to a therapist, and he has found great value in exercise and social activity. 

A head support and evaluation committee has helped a head to set goals that include professional development. She has also taken on a health coach, whose weekly phone calls focus on working out, eating goals and drinking more water and less soda. These calls are scheduled so that they are never missed.

5. Heads of School as Reflective Practitioners 

Weekly Zoom calls, through the Prizmah’s Small School Head of School reshet and Head of School reshet, provide an opportunity for heads to reflect on their practice and gain valuable insights and reassurances from peers. The conversations allow heads to highlight things that they are doing in their roles and reflect on struggles they may be having. 

During the interviews, each of the heads talked about the best part of the job. Often, they cited the interactions with students. They also talked about the most difficult part of the job. As each of the participants’ first years were impacted by Covid, this was the biggest struggle. For many of the others, the financial side of the school was the biggest learning curve, as well as time management. Some also mentioned gender inequality and burnout.

A Five Year Contract 

As I reflect on the research and on my own sustainability in the role, I can empathize with other heads as they describe their challenges but also appreciate my own growth in the role. My first head of school position lasted only three years. While this was a choice that I made, it allowed me to learn how to serve in the role more effectively. Now in my fifth year at my current position, the preparation and learning from my previous experience has allowed for new successes. You need time to observe, to learn and absorb, before making a true impact. You need to try new things to see what fits and what sticks. This takes time to accomplish.

At the recent Prizmah conference, John D’Auria, senior consultant at William James College, shared that it takes five years to truly be able to make a difference and see the change that you are making. What’s scary about that statement is that many heads aren’t making it to year five. 

Want to see sustainable headship? Give heads five-year guaranteed contracts off the bat. Let them know that they aren’t going anywhere. Let them know that the first year is about learning about the institution, what works and what can be adjusted. Let them know that it is ok to make some mistakes and to learn while they are in the role, especially in the first couple of years. Encourage them to make changes and adjustments in years two and three. Let them know that years four and five are about seeing if change is positively taking effect. Finally, let them know that you are committed to them and the change agents that they are (becoming). And then five years can become 10, and so on.

But the contract is not enough.

The board must show you that they believe in you. They must provide support, encouragement and trust. They need to stay out of the day-to-day operations and work with you in a strategic and planful way for the school’s long-term sustainability. They must remind you at every meeting (and between meetings) that they believe in the work you (collectively) are doing. This allows us to remain vision-aligned. A board president and a full board that does not provide that will be looking for a new head every few years. And that is not sustainable for anyone.

An earlier version of this article appeared as a Times of Israel blog.

I am exceptionally blessed. I have been at de Toledo High School (in West Hills, California, a 9-12 pluralistic high school) since its inception in 2002. Starting as the first coach hired at the school (and then becoming a teacher, dean and dean of students), I have been able to be a small part in the creation and growth of our school and culture. When our founding head, Dr. Bruce Powell, “retired” (never use that phrase with him!), I was honored to be selected as the second head of school.

While I tried to do my due diligence as to the demands of headship, what I quickly learned was that being a head of school is not an easy job. Most of us started our journey to headship on the education side. However, as heads, we are expected to be masters in education, finance, budgeting, marketing, the emotional development of students (and faculty), communications, development, facilities, learning differences, risk management, hiring, firing, tuition assistance, recruitment, governance and public speaking. All of that while maintaining a work-life balance and a sense of personal satisfaction and happiness.

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking deeply about this subject and came up with a list of what makes this exceedingly challenging job (hopefully) sustainable over the long haul. Many of these lessons I learned the hard way, through missteps and moving “too quickly.” Within the first two weeks of my headship, my community was confronted with horrific wildfires that displaced a large percentage of our school families and many other local Jewish organizations. We were one of the few to remain open and had to quickly pivot (before that was a thing) to help our families and sister organizations deal with the impacts of the fire by opening our campus and assisting our students to deal with the trauma.

In addition, in my first year, our community had to deal with a car accident that took the life of a 50-year-old board member. All of a sudden, our school had to surround this family with love and support, and I had to take on a pastoral role (I am a trained lawyer, not a rabbi or social worker).

Through these (and, unfortunately, a number of other crises and tragedies), I had to take time and stock of my actions, my words and my intentions to learn how to be a better head of school, and how not to let these unfortunate incidents drain the joy from the job. I also listened and learned from my board’s head support and evaluation committee and trusted colleagues in and out of dTHS to improve my approach and help me handle the pressures and demands without wilting.

This list covers most of my important needs and values; it is surely not exhaustive, nor is it presented in any particular order. 

1. Believe in the mission and culture of your school, or leave. While  a long contract and compensation are important, if you don’t believe deeply in the mission, vision, and culture of your school, it is not the right fit. For the sake of the school and students, you need to find a place where you do believe in these important aspects of the school. 
    
2. Trust your team. And, as a corollary: 
   • Don’t micromanage. You hire professionals to do their jobs, trust them to do them (or find someone who can). 
   • Surround yourself with leaders you can rely upon and delegate to. 
   • Delegate, delegate, delegate. You can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything. 
      
3. Don’t go at it alone. Communicate, create a support system, and NEVER set up a dynamic of “us vs. them” or “you against the world.” 
    
4. Don’t be reactive. We lead educational institutions and we have to give space for everyone, students and faculty alike, to make mistakes and be able to grow from them. 
    
5. Take a breath before making major changes. Build your political capital (if you are new to a school), and sometimes let changes happen through an intentional, evolutionary process. 
    
6. Know all the people in your organization (from the board to maintenance and security) and treat them and the culture of the institution with dignity and respect. Learn everyone’s name and use it when speaking to them. A culture of kindness starts at the top and filters down. Model and teach the values of dignity and kindness in all your interactions. 
    
7. Keep your finger on the pulse of morale. Build a team throughout the organization who will be honest and truthful with you. Morale can be destroyed in a moment and takes years to rebuild. The more you know, the more you can try to avoid these issues. 
    
8. Create a relationship with your executive committee and especially your board president where you can have open, frank, and vulnerable conversations. If it ever feels like it is you “against” the president or board, it is not the right situation to be in. 
    
9. Find a coach as well as other confidants with whom you can talk honestly. You need an outlet and the ability to unload some of the burdens on understanding (but confidential) ears.
    
10. Trust in yourself, but never believe in your good press. 
     
11. Always express gratitude. It is important for you as well as the recipient. If you can build a culture of gratitude, everyone will be uplifted and supported. 
     
12. Embrace the philosophy of servant leadership and take care of others first. 
     
13. Family comes first. If you are not happy at home, you will not be able to be happy and supportive at school. Our families, significant others, partners, or close friends are our supporters. Nurture those relationships. 
     
14. Ensure a good contract in terms of length and salary. While few people are willing to talk about it, if you have a long contract with reasonable compensation, it allows you the flexibility to take care of yourself and your family, while dealing with the stresses and long hours of the job. 
     
15. The grass is not greener. While the parable of planting a seed for future generations is wonderful and true, it is also nice to stick around long enough to start to see the seeds of your labor bear fruit.

One of the great mysteries and most intriguing storylines in professional sports is the selection of top draft picks. Entire departments with countless staff members and endless budgets exist with the sole purpose of scouting top talent. Yet positive results are hardly guaranteed. For every Lebron James, there is an Anthony Bennett. For every John Elway, there is a Ryan Leaf. Talking heads spend hours debating what contributed to a particular player’s success or failure. Yet, like clockwork, the debate inevitably resurfaces the next year, just in time for the next draft.

In a certain sense, day schools face a similar challenge. According to one recent article, the average tenure of Jewish day school heads is 4-5 years, barely enough time to get one's footing. In facing this leadership crisis, we ought to consider the factors that tend to our leaders’ success. Every school leader was selected because a community believed in them. So why are so many of us running away after just a few years? How can schools keep their talent on the team for longer?

When pundits discuss prospects, it often boils down to two factors: the position of the team, and their own disposition, skill, and attitude. In other words, the two harbingers of success are position and disposition. In a school setting, position is really the school’s general health. A functional board, a responsible budget, a functioning leadership team, predictable enrollment and dependable development goals are just a few of factors. Disposition in a school leader is their general attitude: their comfort with change, their patience and willingness to learn, and their ability to stay calm in moments of chaos.

Position 

Rather than discuss these trends in the abstract, I will offer my own first four years as a case study. As I have reflected on my headship with colleagues and peers, it has become evident to me that, much like college students being drafted into pro leagues, there are so many factors that contribute to my general satisfaction in this position. 

From an institutional vantage point, I want to highlight three aspects that have led us to success: a clear mission, a collaborative culture and strong support for the head. Though these will likely be unsurprising to any sitting head, they are factors I don’t think I sufficiently evaluated when I pursued the headship. I got lucky; hopefully for others, they will be a conscious choice. 

The first factor I would note is a clear and shared mission. Our school mission states, “We build community and better the future, one child at a time.” We know that our mission is to build our community by serving every single child. This influences everything for pedagogic decisions to budgetary ones. We can proudly share that no child has ever been turned away because they could not afford our school. We have no tuition minimum, and do not recruit differently based on a family’s finances. We still face difficult financial and pedagogic decisions, but we have a shared language and framework for these decisions. 

The second factor is what I call the culture of best intentions. At the start of every year, the staff affirms a pledge of our three truths: We believe that everyone in this room is kind (defined as generally interested in the success of others), smart (defined as able to understand complexities of particular circumstances), and invested (defined as believing in our mission). Our lay leadership has a similar culture. We do not accept a culture of rumors, separate Whatsapp groups and cliques.

The final factor that I cannot underscore enough is a supportive board. A couple of anecdotes illustrate this. In a recent conversation with the incoming board chair, I commented to her that my wife was attending a show with our friends instead of me, since it conflicted with a meeting. Not only did she encourage me to take the time to myself, she texted my wife when I demurred. The longest conversation at my most recent HOSEC meeting was relaying a board fear that I am working too many hours, and a request that I send them a list of tasks they could take on, on my behalf.

The support of the board is pivotal, though insufficient. It takes an entire community’s commitment to make a head truly feel valued. Though I very much live in the community where I work, and though I am often asked school questions on a Shabbos morning or at the supermarket, I rarely feel accosted or uncomfortable. It is clear I am supported and cared for, even if I am always “on.” I love my work, and am generally happy to discuss it, even during Shabbos meal. That happiness, however, hinges on an assumption that it’s conversational, never confrontational.

Disposition 

The question of disposition is deeply personal. There’s no single way to be a successful head; each person has qualities that can inform the ways that they relate to the work, their colleagues and the community. Two of my own dispositions have helped me greatly in my leadership: time prioritization and personal vision.

When I look at my day (or week, or year), where do I want to devote my hours? In my first year as a school administrator I worked with a coach (Elliot Goldberg) to draft how I would like to spend my days. I then tracked two weeks of time to see how it was actually being spent. Where there was disconnect, I was able to change some habits. 

As I transitioned to the headship, this way of thinking has been incredibly helpful. For sure, this job does take many hours. No matter how strong my prioritization skills, there are many nights, weekends and breaks when I simply have to work. Nonetheless, it has been very clear since I began as a head that I will not work between 5:30-7:30 pm. That is family time. Success in this position demands awareness that it is a busy day, but busy need not mean enervating. As long as I am working on the tasks that are most important, both personally and professionally, I can feel supported.

The second factor is a vision for the school. In the Winter 2018 HaYidion, school leaders wrote about the dispositions from which they lead. I resonated deeply with that framing. This disposition is your fuel. If you can tend to this disposition, you tend to your own sense of worth. Authors wrote about creativity, ambition, emotional intelligence and others. There are so many different fuels. 

For me, this disposition is Torat chessed. I believe, with every fiber of my being, that a strong Torah education can give children a sense of identity, increasing their capacity for connection, kindness and groundedness. Everyday I hope to reimagine how we can have these values permeate our entire school, from recess to general studies to parshat hashavua. Even when I am caught up with technical tasks (budgeting, program planning), I am still driven by this essential belief. To inspiring heads I challenge: What is the disposition that will drive you, through the good and the bad?

When JaMarcus Russell, perhaps the most infamous “bust” in NFL history, was asked to reflect on his career, he spoke about a coaching change early on in his tenure as a quarterback. Suddenly, he said, “I didn’t feel like they were there for me.” The position, as it were, changed and didn’t set him up for success. With regard to failures of disposition, he said, “Looking back now, I was reaching out for help.” It is a remarkable insight. What we see as a failure of disposition may be a breakdown of position or a cry for help. As a day school community, our challenge is to answer that cry. Together.

Elana Paice Lidsky, Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School, Toronto

From the opening gathering with over 1,000 Jewish day school professionals, right up to the closing endowment planning session that I attended alongside fellow development colleagues, the 2023 Prizmah Conference was filled with inspirations and insights to assist each participant in making their school better for the future. As a development professional, I was excited to see what the conference’s theme, Creative Spirit, would have to offer for fundraising, stewardship and advancement planning. The sessions, meetups and conversations did not disappoint. By the first afternoon, it was clear that I would be able to connect with colleagues from both like and different schools, each excellent in their own way on a meaningful level that would assist me in bringing new ideas, such as researching and introducing our school to family foundations that share like values, into action to benefit our school. 

Rella Margolis, Associated Hebrew Schools, Toronto 

After three years in virtual isolation, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to be surrounded by my colleagues in the field. Of course, it goes without saying that you can learn a lot from the many formal sessions delivered by expert professionals, but we were also exposed to sessions led by our colleagues who had lived experience that mirrored ours. You can also learn a lot by the informal opportunities, listening to conversations, networking, sharing meals, breaks—even in the elevator. 

It is amazing and you feel so inspired when you are sitting in a room of over 1,000 people all with a similar mission. We face similar challenges and can help each other overcome and succeed in our field. I even met a long lost “relative” (a cousin of a cousin) and shared family photos. Jewish geography is wild! I am so grateful for my school and my community in supporting our team attending this conference.

Haggit Sandhaus, Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School, California 

Each professional in the Jewish day school arena comes from a different community and organizational structure, but we are all dealing with constituents who, at the end of the day, react in similar ways. When I met my colleagues at the Prizmah Conference, we got to discuss the specifics of “How do we run our development committee?” “How do we deal with burnout?” or just learn about new approaches for reaching alums. 

In addition to the issues I was looking for assistance with, I found that the conference was extremely helpful in opening my mind to new methods and ideas, like the implication of having a designated person for major gifts on our donation revenue.

Dana Solomon, Maimonides School, Massachusetts 

Coming together with other development professionals from across the country through Prizmah is always inspiring and actionable. It is a chance to step back for a few days and reflect on the greater trends and challenges that we don’t always get time to appreciate and strategize on in the day-to-day work. So many of our schools and fundraisers struggle with the same challenges, and no matter our size, religious denomination or location, we can learn, brainstorm and ask questions of one another in a safe environment. 

One of my top actionable takeaways from this year’s conference concerns the role of board members in fundraising, specifically the AAA framework. (AAA was developed by Kay Sprinkle Grace, Author of The AAA Way to Fundraising Success: Maximum Involvement, Maximum Results. The AAA method provides board members with ways to support a school’s development efforts, as Ambassadors, Advocates or Askers.) Upon my return to school, the development office worked to think about the list of tangible, value-add actions our board members could support us with. This framework will be presented at the next board meeting, and I believe it will truly elevate the way we work with our lay leaders and the impact they’re able to have on our fundraising, whether as part of direct solicitations or not.

At the conference, we also reviewed key trends and data about the importance of major gifts and having a clear process and strategy for cultivating, briefing, soliciting and stewarding these donors. This was an ah-ha moment for me, and something I could bring back to our head of school and board as an immediate area we needed to address. We are now reviewing the way we identify, profile and engage our major donors and working with our board in new ways to ensure this work is top of mind and ongoing. It has really helped us define the work we need to do and do it at its best.

Before I was a Jewish foundation professional, I was a farmer, and so it’s likely no surprise that one of my favorite holidays on the Jewish calendar (one of our four new years according to Mishnah Rosh Hashanah) is Tu B’shvat. On Tu B’shvat, a winter holiday for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we crack our digging trowels into hard earth, plant myriad seeds, cover them with compost, soil, and water, and with patience, faith, and skillful cultivation, help them to become trees, givers of oxygen, sustenance, and shelter. We might think about sowing seeds as having three distinct phases: preparing the ground, planting the seeds, and cultivating the ground as the sapling sprouts and grows. As I reflect on last month’s Prizmah Conference – my first – I am thinking about the parallels of these three phases to Jewish education.

Perhaps the most obvious parallel is the planting itself. Indeed, it is a metaphor we have all likely heard thousands of times. The sacred, important, and powerful work of educators – and all those who support education – is to plant in students’ minds, hearts, and spirits the seeds of knowledge in its many forms, from facts and figures to critical thinking to emotional intelligence and empathic ability. To be in the classroom teaching, collaborating, and learning with students is to engage in that essential act of seed sowing. And we might also say that the students themselves are the seeds of our community; imbued with knowledge fostered with patience and skill, they grow into the saplings and trees that will become sources of learning and wisdom for the generations that follow them.

However, as I revisit my learnings from the conference, I want to spend a little more time thinking about the other phases of planting and their parallels to Jewish education: what might it mean to prepare the ground for the seeds-as-knowledge? And how might we better cultivate the maturation of the seed-as-student? As a professional at a Jewish foundation whose focus is helping Jews and fellow travelers apply Jewish wisdom to their own lives and in pursuit of a better world, I think wrestling with these questions is vital to supporting the Jewish life that grows into a healthy forest providing oxygen, shelter, and sustenance to us and the greater world.

In conversations with lay leaders, heads of school, program directors, and teachers during the conference, I learned a great deal about the first phase: the preparation of the ground. I was reminded that even in a global community like ours, everything is local. For example, an area of interest to our foundation is Prizmah’s work helping schools to facilitate cultures of belonging, so that no student or family is ever made to feel out of place in a Jewish day school. I learned that this journey toward creating more equitable and diverse spaces in schools is highly individualized to each school; much like literal seeds planted in the earth, the ground varies widely from place to place. While this hyper-localism can feel frustrating at times to national funders thinking about scalable interventions, I find it both comforting and energizing to remember that our community grows and flourishes from the ground up, and with so many different grounds, our potential for diverse innovation has hundreds, if not thousands, of incubators in which to develop.

As to the tending and cultivating of the plant to allow the seed to reach its greatest potential, the conference’s opening night plenary presentation from futurists at the Stanford d. school was illuminating, especially in thinking more broadly about what we mean by potential. Typically, both when planting literal seeds and when educating, we hold in our minds a vision of what we want those seeds to become when they are grown: a mighty oak tree with thick branches and glossy leaves; a learned and empathic scholar with a distinct yiddishe kop. These images are often quite beautiful and can be powerful motivators, but as I learned from the futurists, they can also become stumbling blocks, obscuring the possible outcomes we haven’t imagined but which may be percolating deeply and invisibly in the roots and stems of our seeds and students. It is exciting to consider how we might nurture potential even when we can’t envision how it will bloom and fruit. If we frame our cultivating phase of sowing in those terms, we might consider the creative spirit (the conference theme) to be the core of the growing plant and focus our efforts on empowering that core.

One final thought concerning seeds: as last month’s conference was my first, I want to note how grateful I am to have been surrounded by so many creative and passionate Jewish thinkers, educators, and leaders. From the sheer amount of wisdom in plenaries, sessions, and hallway conversations, I felt the phases of sowing at work within me. I was reminded that even as adults, we can strive to be seeds and students, buzzing with wonder at the potential in our world, inspired to contribute what we can to the present and future.

Energy, excitement, optimism, and passionate commitment: these are the words I would use to describe the discussions among the lay leaders who attended the Prizmah Conference. The 120 day school lay leaders and investors spent two and a half days learning together and engaging in conversations about how their involvement plays a key role to ensure a strong future for schools. If there was one resonating theme, it was, “How might we?”

How might we...

• Address issues of affordability so that more families feel able to choose day school as an option for their children?
• Attract and retain talented teachers?
• Ensure that we have a strong pipeline of leaders for schools, both a=lay and professional?
• Galvanize investors to make “big bet” contributions that change the trajectory of schools and communities 

Conference participants engaged in robust conversations about the most significant trends in the field, including the opportunity to attract new families and the interest in investing in day schools. At the last Prizmah Conference four years ago, the number of students enrolled in Jewish day schools was on the decline. But between fall 2019 and fall 2021, net enrollment in North American Jewish day schools and yeshivas increased 3.7%, the first such increase since 2008, and the growth happened across all denominations. 

This upward trend led to forward-thinking discussions that included examples of new community investments to address issues of day school affordability: from models that cap tuition for middle-income families, to examples of communal investments that foster collaboration and resource sharing among schools in a community. By learning from others about the investments being made in other communities, there is the opportunity to expand this work. As Lisa Sandler, Board President of Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy shared,“Hearing about the success stories from other communities across North America was inspiring. I am eager to bring this knowledge back—there is much we can learn from.”

We are at a pivotal moment for day schools. Research demonstrates that as many as one-third of current Jewish leaders attended Jewish day schools. Among leaders with children aged 14 or older, we find remarkable inter-generational leaps in Jewish educational participation, from 33% among the adults to 62% among their children. The message about the impact of a day school education is powerful: Jewish day schools ensure a strong Jewish future. Thus, investing in day schools is critical to ensuring that we have outstanding schools with strong educators, and that these schools are accessible to more families. This was the message that resonated among the leaders who participated in the Prizmah Conference.

Our goal is to translate optimism that permeated throughout the discussions into action. Our goal is to turn the questions of “How might we” into the big bets that address these questions. 

Relationships are the engine of the Jewish day school world. They drive our students’ work, our parents’ support, our administrative efforts, and the philanthropy of our donors. And never before have the relationships that exist among, and within, schools been on fuller display than in Denver at the first Prizmah Conference in four years.

One relationship that we all know to be critical to the success of day schools around the country is the relationship between the board chair and head of school. At our school, Perelman Jewish Day School in the greater Philadelphia area, we are a new head of school (Mitchell) and a seasoned board chair (Nancy). Going to Prizmah together was a wonderful way to grow that relationship. It also presented an important opportunity for both of us to experience the work of other organizations across North America, reflect on our early work together and the task ahead for our school. 

For Mitch, the last time he attended a Prizmah Conference was six years ago, in Chicago, when he served as a faculty member and administrator at the school in which he himself was educated. At that time, Mitch had only worked at one school and was just starting his journey into wider networks. Since then, he’s participated in DSLTI, held senior positions in two schools in New York, and now brings his talent and leadership to Perelman as our new head. In this new role, Mitch is building critical relationships to help Perelman grow. And for a new head, the Prizmah conference presented an invaluable opportunity to connect with other school leaders and hear firsthand about the work that is being done elsewhere. 

For Nancy, the conference provided an opportunity to gain greater understanding about effective team-building and healthy team dynamics in order to further engage the board in high-level strategic thinking around critical issues. It was also inspiring to meet many of Mitch’s mentors and colleagues from around the country, all part of the wide network of school leaders who can provide guidance and counsel as he effectively leads Perelman into its next chapter.

For our director of institutional advancement (Shira), the conference also presented an opportunity to strengthen the foundation of collaboration established over the past six months since Mitch’s arrival at Perelman. When our team of three set out for this year’s conference, we were enthusiastic about learning with and from our peers and energized by the prospect of connecting, in many cases reconnecting, with professionals and lay leaders from across North America who share the same values, a similar set of challenges, and most importantly, a desire to move our schools forward. And we were doing this together, away from our regular responsibilities, to connect, to learn and to grow. 

We also had the ability to divide and conquer by attending sessions both related to our specific roles and relevant to the many issues that we are currently encountering as a Jewish day school. The sessions we attended on affordability and enrollment, cultivation of trustees and leadership succession, and institutional giving will ultimately lead us to more effectively engage in a strategic planning process and help us navigate toward a bright future for our students, our school and our community.

A highlight of the experience for us was Nancy’s presentation on head of school transition. We’re proud of the way Perelman has welcomed Mitch to our community, embraced his leadership, and come together to chart a successful course to achieve our goals. And we were thrilled to share our success with others.

All three of us look forward to strengthening the relationships we built at the conference both with each other and with those that we met, and availing ourselves of Prizmah’s networks of services to assist us in ensuring Perelman’s future. We returned to our school with a renewed sense of purpose and with the knowledge that all of us that do this sacred work are linked to one another as we strive to make an indelible impact on our respective communities.

In North America, there are approximately 900 Jewish day schools with nearly 300,000 students. With few exceptions, these schools face significant, and in some cases, existential, challenges. Among the most prevalent of these challenges are rapidly rising costs; tuition affordability; a reliable, high quality teacher pipeline; transportation; the ongoing mental health of their students and staff; and finding ways to be more inclusive of children with learning differences. In the past 15 years, our community has made some enormous bets on creating sustainable schools through material improvements in affordability and significant investments in academic excellence, but we clearly have more to do.

Recent Big Bets 

At the recent Prizmah conference in Denver, where more than 1,000 day school educators, administrators, and supporters met, there were a few sessions that described some big bets that have been made to help an individual school or a community achieve its goals. We heard about an initiative at the Milken School in Los Angeles where the focus was on attracting and securing the best teachers possible by offering them 100% tuition remission. Another large donor talked about a multimillion dollar fund set up to increase faculty compensation at the Denver Jewish Day School. 

We also heard about Toronto’s Generation Trust, an endowment set up by the Jewish Federation, which is close to reaching its goal of $180 million (Canadian) so that it can offer community-wide middle-income families tuition assistance at its elementary and middle schools. The first of these programs was a big bet by Milken because it now provides a uniform policy for an important staff benefit rather than individually negotiated deals; it is an incentive that attracts and retains the best and brightest faculty and its annual budget is close to $2 million. The Toronto middle-income endowment qualifies as a big bet because of its community-wide size and scale, that no school could attempt on its own.

As we look at the entire North American Jewish day school landscape, in fact, we see other examples where communities or individual schools have taken huge leaps in addressing affordability. One example is here in Greater MetroWest (www.njdayschools.org) where we introduced the Tuition Max middle-income affordability program, which now supports 20% of our day school families and 23% of our students at an annual cost of about $4.5 million. We also note that recently a communitywide, middle-income program has been introduced in Seattle—at an annual cost of more than $1 million—and is being contemplated in at least one other major city. And of course, individual schools, such as Kadima Day School in Los Angeles which implemented an across-the-board reduction in tuition of 45%, Westchester Day School, the Epstein School in Atlanta, the Schechter School in Boston, the Denver Jewish Day School, the Rashi School in Boston, and Tampa’s Hillel Academy have all introduced programs with tuition caps based on income of the family.

The Next Big Bets

Looking toward the future, we are once again considering possibilities for our next big bet. Philanthropists are likely considering similar large investments.

One of the biggest challenges our schools have been facing for the past few years is transportation. Because of New Jersey’s funding, an extremely restrictive set of school bus regulations and a driver shortage, the costs to get our students to school have skyrocketed. Perhaps more importantly, the reliability of the buses has fallen dramatically. This is causing us to consider the idea of creating our own bus company, which would probably entail an initial investment of between $5 and $10 million.

Like most of our colleagues around North America, we are looking for innovative and effective ways to address the growing mental health concerns among our students and staff. Another significant challenge for almost all our schools is how to become more inclusive of Jewish students with significant learning differences. Of course, we are also constantly looking for new ways to build on our prior affordability and academic excellence programs. But perhaps the biggest bet we are considering involves the growing recognition that our teacher pipeline is drying up.

About 10 years ago, our community’s leading supporter of Jewish day schools, Paula Gottesman, asked a simple question: “Why are some of our Jewish students enrolling in the excellent private independent schools in our community?” The answer almost always came down to the quality of the teachers, which eventually led us to create Greater MetroWest’s Quest for Teaching Excellence (Quest) Professional Development program. Now in its 12th year, our community has been investing about $250,000 annually in ongoing education and training for almost 500 faculty and staff in our four schools; this includes every person that works in the school such as our nurses, our administrators and our janitorial staff. 

One of the key lessons that has been learned in the past decade and a half is that teachers determine the quality of the education at Jewish day schools. Further, we know parents will only send their children to excellent schools and thus the tuition level might be immaterial without that commitment. The Quest program has proven to be an extremely valuable investment in our people and perhaps even an incentive to retain our staff. What it does not address is the identification, recruitment and training of new teachers.

Therefore, as major philanthropists look to the next ten years, and consider which of the challenges are most pressing and most deserving of future big bets, we suggest their attention, and the focus of their resources, be brought to bear on developing and sustaining a pipeline of highly qualified and motivated teachers. And while we are not being dismissive at all about the mental health crisis that many schools are experiencing coming out of the pandemic, or the need to be more inclusive of students with learning differences, figuring out a solution that can be implemented across North America seems way beyond the scope of one foundation or even a few pooled funds.

The Teacher Pipeline 

By contrast, a large philanthropic investment could address and have a significant positive impact on the teacher pipeline. In fact, we already have some examples that philanthropists could use to structure a program with a high degree of success; The Pardes Educators Program in Jerusalem, The Jewish New Teacher Project (JNTP), and Quest. Among them, these programs have at least ten years of highly impactful experiences in training new teachers and developing existing ones.

Any initiative at establishing and sustaining a teacher pipeline will need to address three key questions:

• How to attract new teachers to the field regardless of their experiences 
• How to ensure teacher job satisfaction encourages longevity in excess of five years in their positions
• How to keep these new teachers learning and growing well into their first and second decades of professional employment 

Pursuing a teaching profession, in general, has become less attractive to college students for a number of reasons, including the prospective compensation package and the declining respect that teachers engender. New teacher burnout is something that has been widely written about and almost always stems from the lack of mentoring and ongoing support. Finally, it is well documented that maintaining the highest levels of teaching excellence, professionalism and impact is a direct function of the individual’s commitment and participation to ongoing professional development.

Dreaming Big 

So where should we start? How about establishing a North American Center for Jewish Day School Educators in a community that has at least a few schools, a few thousand students and is close to major universities and seminaries, where educational resources can be tapped into and leveraged. In order to attract new students, this center would take the financial incentives currently offered at the two-year Pardes Educators program (free tuition for a master’s degree and $1,200/month in living expenses) and expand them significantly to include signing bonuses and ongoing compensation supplements for teachers that stay in their positions for more than five years. 

In addition, this center could, and should, address more than just Judaics teachers. Including secular teachers could encourage integrating Judaics into subjects such as math, history, and social studies. The Center would also provide significantly more practical student teaching opportunities as well as placement services when they graduate. Either in partnership with the Jewish New Teacher Project, or as a supplement to it, this center would also carefully plan, monitor and mentor its graduates for the first few years, ensuring a much higher level of satisfaction in the teachers’ formative years. Then, just as the Quest for Teaching Excellence program does, the center would organize, implement and oversee significant professional development for its graduates to ensure they are current and remain highly effective in their classrooms. 

This big bet would likely require significant capital/philanthropic investments measured initially in the tens of millions and a multimillion ongoing annual budget. The potential paybacks, however, could be even more significant, as a successful implementation of this idea could ensure that all North American Jewish day schools have a steady source of extremely well-prepared and highly motivated teachers, ready and able to take their institutions to new heights.

The bottom line is that the North American Jewish day school landscape is ripe with opportunities for huge philanthropic investments. We still have a long way to go to make our schools affordable for more families, and there are many projects that could be launched to increase accessibility for a wider spectrum of students. In our view, however, the “biggest bet,” the investment with the largest potential returns, is the creation and operation of a new center for Jewish day school educators. As Theodor Herzl once said, “If you will it, it is no dream.” I believe the time has come to dream and to dream big.

As someone with decades of experience in the philanthropic world, I first began to understand the acute need for mental health advocacy when I saw how those in Jewish education lacked access to proper support. I found that many in the Jewish community were simply not sharing their stories of struggle, which led to feelings of isolation and lack of awareness over mental health issues. 

Which is why I felt that the theme of creativity was so essential for this year’s Prizmah Conference. Attendees and presenters did an excellent job of demonstrating that mental health support is central to individual student success and to the effectiveness of teachers. These supports must be integrated seamlessly into all facets of life—at work, school, worship, family and community life—rather than be isolated in a therapeutic setting. At the conference I joined nearly 1500 faculty, administrators, and other education stakeholders for the three-day event in Denver to explore and practice these concepts.

To me, student success—academically, emotionally, socially and behaviorally—is where we need to apply this idea of a creative spirit. In the presentations, convenings and informal gatherings that I participated in, the idea of creatively incorporating mental health support, “normalizing” wellness practices into the classroom and school environment was a constant, essential theme. I heard many school staff explaining the innovative ways that they are incorporating wellness practices into classroom culture. It is not simply the addition of new mental health support that they discussed, but more a fundamental transformation of the learning environment. 

The fulcrum for this transformation is in supporting teachers and staff for their own wellbeing by providing the information, resources, time and encouragement to take care of themselves as well as their students. Teachers and school counselors in the US are burning out at an alarming rate, so it is essential that we transform the learning environment in ways that bolster their mental and physical health. 

The conference is especially relevant as we enter Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month which reminds us that the work of supporting students and teachers and building inclusive institutions is, in many ways, central to faith.

Prizmah’s innovative design of the conference reflected this paradigm shift in our schools. Mental health awareness and wellness practices were seamlessly integrated into the entire event, culminating with the wonderful presentation of Tal Ben-Shahar, the “Happiness Guru,” whose central message was that maintaining a sense of gratitude, openness, generosity and wonder is essential to maintaining our mental health in this era of stress, uncertainty and change.

Ben-Shahar said, 
 

“We can only learn to deal with failure by actually experiencing failure, by living through it. The earlier we face difficulties and drawbacks, the better prepared we are to deal with the inevitable obstacles along our path.”

This is such a good reminder that our struggle is our purpose, and that the current mental health struggles dogging so many students and families is part of our process for working toward fulfillment and wellbeing.

At the conference, I connected with other donors who, like us at the Ruderman Family Foundation, are seeking thoughtful, evidence-based, and innovative ways to invest in the myriad mental health initiatives that have emerged in the past several years. My colleagues in philanthropy discussed the importance of making investments into mental health innovations that are showing promise but might not yet be fully supported by evaluations. The urgent needs of students and schools facing the burgeoning mental health crisis beg for immediate intervention and investment even as we struggle to understand the efficacy of some new and emerging approaches. 

But in this era of uncertainty, the Ruderman Family Foundation’s investment in Prizmah, its dynamic staff, and its innovative work with Jewish schools is one area of clarity for us. We are incredibly impressed with the organization and are proud to be supporters of this essential work. Prizmah has established itself as a progressive voice in Jewish education with a deep commitment to young people and their wellbeing. I am proud to be one of their advocates and supporters.

We are living at a time of great challenge and change. This is evident every time we open a newspaper. We see the effect that these many intersecting crises have on the mental health of our students, and the way these struggles weigh on the families and communities we serve.

At their core, the biggest challenges we face, both personally and collectively, can be understood as crises of creativity and imagination. In this time of peril and possibility, we are being called upon to activate the innate creativity that exists within us, and to help our students do the same. By opening wide our radical imagination, we become able to discover the hope and possibility within the challenges we face, allowing for the emergence of new visions for the future—one of justice, care and mutual thriving.

While there are many ways to define creativity, one way I think of creativity is as a codeword for God. To be in creative practice is to open ourselves as a vessel through which new energy can flow through us and into the world. It is to be in dialogue, calling out to and listening for what comes from the depths inside us. Creativity is the word for that feeling when the universe moves through us and we are lit up from the inside out by new ideas, images and insights.

When we are in touch with our creativity, we are alive with possibility. Cultivating our creativity and a robust relationship with our imagination is how we find not only refreshment in an atmosphere of chaos, overwhelm and uncertainty, but also how we build our capacity to process challenges and be open to change. Unlocking our creativity helps us to bring forth beauty, mend the world and heal the broken places in our souls.

Creativity is perhaps our greatest untapped resource. Many of us in the Western world were schooled to conflate creativity with artistic aptitude. If we weren’t skilled at drawing still lifes, we were left to conclude—or more detrimentally, told explicitly by some well-intentioned adult—that we are not creative. Yet the Torah teaches that creativity is our very birthright and foundational to Judaism. The first three words of the Torah are Bereishit bara Elohim—“In the beginning, God created.” God’s first act is one of creativity. Only a few verses later we read that humans are created betzelem Elohim (“in the image of God”). If God is, first and foremost, a creator, and we are created in God’s image, then we too are created to be creators. Each of us is endowed with creative capacity simply by being human.

Accessing and activating our inherent creativity is essential for educators as much as it is a core competency to nurture in those we teach. We cannot teach something that we ourselves do not practice. For, as we all know, we teach not only through our words and lesson plans, source sheets and slide decks, but through the very energy and presence and depth of spirit—through the care, curiosity and creativity we bring to whatever material we offer.
At this time in which educators are stretched perhaps more than ever before, we need time in which to do our own learning and play, places and practices to cultivate our own creativity and ignite our own imagination, not just for ourselves, but for the ways that benefit the students, families and communities we serve.

In our work at Jewish Studio Project, we help people activate their creativity as a Jewish practice for spiritual connection and social transformation. Through our core methodology, the Jewish Studio Process, we offer art-making—the simple yet profound experience of playing with materials—combined with generative and accessible text study to help educators tap into their own essential creative capacities and discern how best to nurture these capacities in their learners.

Over the past eight years we have worked with educators serving nearly every type of Jewish educational setting—from day schools to camps, from rabbinical schools to ECE—to help them discover, draw from and delight in their inherent creativity. Through ongoing community programs, immersive experiences, creative facilitator training and professional development partnerships, JSP is building a movement to activate the creative power of the Jewish community.

Creativity is the power that allows each of us to work with all that exists inside and around us, holding, handling, witnessing and transforming it into something whole and new. To live from our creativity is to be able to work with any challenge that life presents us, seeing nothing as final and everything as a process. As human beings created in the Divine image, we are here to participate in creation—all of us. As Jewish educators, may we nurture this deep and powerful impulse within ourselves and our students and, in so doing, bring about the world we seek.