September 5, 2003
by Jack Kider

With the start of the new school year, the faculty and administration have focused on implementing policies from last year including the new high school honors system, the new Judaic studies curriculum and the revised Minyan program.

“There were so many initiatives [created] last year that we are concentrating on implementing this year,” said Assistant High School Dean for Academics Dr. Gill Cook.

According to Cook, some aspects of implementing the honors system will be “challenging,” as the administration needs to “ensure fairness, consistency, and an appropriate degree of academic challenge” throughout the system.

A major aspect of the new system is the difference between the tiers: college prep, honors and honors seminar/scholars.

History Department Chair Natalie Levitan said that her department will be working to “ensure differences among the class levels by having teachers teach multiple levels within a given grade.”

Levitan will also be holding regular meetings for all teachers teaching the same grade as well as meetings for the History honors seminar teachers.

The meetings for honors seminar teachers, which previously would not have been attended by teachers of different grade-levels, will allow faculty “to discuss teaching strategies, grading and assignments” in order to help keep the integrity of the different honors levels, Levitan said.

According to Interim Principal Roslyn Landy, the honors system has been welcomed with support since its announcement last May.

She attributes this to the increased number of students now placed in honors classes since there are many more honors classes this year than in the past.

“Although there were some parents who called with questions about honors placement this year, the number was significantly lower than in past years,” said Landy.

In addition to the honors program, the new high school Judaics program, which offers students a variety of semester-long courses, is also now in its implementation phase.

According to Judaics Coordinator Yoram Bar-Noy, a main goal of the program is “to give students a deeper understanding and a wider view of different aspects of Judaics, as well as love for the material being explored.

“We tried to give the students more choices and thereby more responsibilities when they are choosing their preferences in Judaic studies,” said Bar-Noy. “The fact that they are involved in the creation process of classes might cause them to be more involved in what they are studying.”

Therefore, Bar-Noy found it important for students to be placed in the classes that they requested.

“Our great challenge this summer was to try to make sure each student got some of the classes he or she wanted,” said Bar-Noy.

Other challenges, according to Landy, involved the shift from a full-year to semester-long Judaics courses.

Along with the need to confine many Judaic courses to one semester, the new semester system will affect the school’s incumbent trimester system.

Whereas the school used to issue three report cards per year, the school will now likely issue an additional January report card because the Judaics courses are now one semester, said Landy.

The administration also Judaics the challenge of designing entirely new classes such as Unasked Questions About Tanakh and Philosophy.

Despite the upcoming challenges, Landy feels that a very difficult part of the transition, the designing of the policies, has been completed.

With many aspects of the transition completed and others progressing, the administration has expressed enthusiasm about the implementation of its programs.

“I think it’s exciting,” said Landy. “[The new programs] may be a model for day schools all over the country,” she added.

The newly designed Minyan program also began for students on Sept. 2. The program was modified to give students more choices regarding their Minyan experience.

Each day Orthodox, Sephardic, traditional egalitarian and Chavura Minyanim will be held for students. In addition, ten different sections of Drisha Minyanim will meet. On a given day, five of the sections will rotate through a set of activities while the other five sections will rotate through a different set.

The activities in the Drisha minyan include Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), Jewish art, experiential educational prayer, Jewish theater and a traditional prayer service.

Other choices include prayer through literature, cooking and spiritual journeys.

According to Landy, the key to implementing the new policies is “a lot of hard work and commitment to seeing it succeed.”